Chain Spacing?

[jnhull]

My girlfriend has an old Raleigh with a Sachs Huret drivetrain that she uses for around town riding.
Last week I went to the local bike shop to get a new chain for her bike and the guy there told me
that I'd have to replace the whole drivetrain because Sachs Huret used a proprietary spacing for
it's chains, making any new chain incompatible.

I think he was just making it up so that he could sell me an entire component set instead of a $20
dollar chain. Who's right? Did Sachs Huret use a funky chain spacing? And if they did, is the
difference so great between it and modern spacing that my a bike with Sachs Huret bits and a SRAM
chain would be inoperable? Or was the guy at the shop just trying to make a quick $100?

Thanks,

JNH

 

[Benjamin Weiner]

[email protected] wrote:

> I think he was just making it up so that he could sell me an entire component set instead of a $20
> dollar chain. Who's right? Did Sachs Huret use a funky chain spacing? And if they did, is the
> difference so great between it and modern spacing that my a bike with Sachs Huret bits and a SRAM
> chain would be inoperable? Or was the guy at the shop just trying to make a quick $100?

It's possible he was grossly misinformed and talking about the chain width (not the chain pitch =
distance between rollers) since new chains are slightly narrower than old. However, this is not
really an issue. SRAM PC-48 works on 6 speed drivetrains and probably 5s as well - only issue might
be a little skating between chainrings depending on your setup.

What is really ironic about this affair is that SRAM chains were Sachs chains until a few years ago.