Birzman Chain Wear Indicator

Birzman's Chain Wear Indicator is a really simple way of telling whether any chain from singlespeed to 12-speed should be changed, and it doubles up as a chain hook to help hold your chain during assembly or repair. 

Your chain will gradually wear. What difference does it make? Worn chains can skip, shift poorly and sometimes break – which can be dangerous. A worn chain will also wear sprockets more quickly than usual, so changing it in good time will save you money in the long run.

> Find your nearest dealer here

> Buy this online here

You can check for chain wear with a ruler but it's easier with a chain wear indicator. Birzman's is CNC machined from stainless steel and has a hook at one end that slots in next to a link pin.

There are three indicator prongs at the other end. If none of them falls into a gap between rollers (as in our photo) and is visible out of the bottom, your chain isn't 0.5% longer than its original length. The chain in our picture is one ride old, so that makes sense.

If the tallest prong drops through, chain length has increased by 0.5%.

If the middle prong drops through, chain length has increased by 0.75%.

If the shortest prong drops through, chain length has increased by 1%.

The figures are marked on the chain wear indicator; you don't have to remember them!

> Find out when you should replace your chain

Different chains need replacing after different amounts of wear, hence the three prongs.

If you're using an 11-speed or 12-speed chain, for example, you should replace it when it is 0.5% more than its original length.

If you're using a singlespeed chain, you need to replace it when it gets to the 1% mark.

> Beginner’s guide to bike tools

Measuring less than 14cm nose to tail, it's a bit shorter than a Park Tool CC3.2 Chain Checker that I have here (17.5cm), but that's probably not an issue either way. The Park Tool device has similar 0.5% and 0.75% indicators, but there's no 1% marker.

One other feature that the Birzman Chain Wear Indicator boasts is a chain hook. Say you're putting a new chain on your bike: you can use it to hold the ends of the chain in position without the links that you need to work on being pulled away from one another. A bent spoke can do something similar, but it's not nearly as posh. It's a simple job that the Birzman tool does well.

A chain wear indicator is the sort of thing that you'll buy once and only need to replace if you lose it or someone comes out with a new chain standard. The Park Tool CC3.2 Chain Checker that I mentioned earlier retails at £9.99 while Topeak's Chain Hook and Wear Indicator is £6.99, so Birzman's is a good price.

Overall, the Birzman Chain Wear Indicator does its job well across a whole range of different chain sizes, and the integrated chain hook is a handy little bonus.

Verdict

Simple tool that measures the amount of wear across a range of different chains, with an integrated chain hook thrown in