 After riding your bike for a while you might have noticed that your chain started to lose tension. This is normal wear, but when's it time to replace the chain? Riding with an old chain will wear out your other drivetrain components much quicker. When's a good time to replace your chain? Well the best thing to do is get yourself a chain checker tool from your local bike shop or our online parts store. This will determine whether you need a new chain or not. Let me show you how to use it. Place the chain checker on your chain to measure the space between the rollers. Once it's past the over-water point your chain needs to be replaced. First you have to remove the old chain. Some chains have a master link. This is a link that is easily removable with your hands. If your chain doesn't have a master link you're gonna need a chain tool also called a chain breaker. I have one right here. We start by removing the chain from the chain ring in the rear cog. You're gonna need your wheel loose for this. Once the chain is loose seat the chain into the chain breaker tool and start to push the pin out. Push the pin all the way through but be careful not to push it all the way out the other side. Just enough to get your chain off. Go ahead and remove your chain and keep this. This is gonna give you a little bike hack here in just a minute. I'm gonna show you a real simple way to resize your new chain. Take your new chain and place it right next to your old chain. Lay these out length wise so you can match them up link to link. See how the new chain is much longer than the old chain? We're gonna need to cut that down. Go ahead and mark where you're gonna need to cut the chain. Take your chain breaker tool just like before. Seat your chain into it and start to push the pin out. Again push the chain pin out almost all the way but leave it in the outer plate. This will make it easier to reinstall. This is what it should look like. Now that your chain is cut to the right length it's time to install it on the bike. Go ahead and loop the chain around the cog and the chain ring. Now we're gonna go ahead and use the chain breaker tool to push the pin back in and reattach our chain. Go ahead and reseat your chain into the chain tool lining up the pin and start pushing the pin back through. You're gonna want to push it all the way through so it looks even on both sides. Once installed make sure that the link doesn't have any type of tightness in it. See how that's tight? Here's a tip. Put the tool back on the other side and push the pin slightly back from that side. This should loosen it up and get rid of the stiff link. Put your chain on your chain ring, tighten up your rear wheel and there you go. You got a brand new chain. You can get all the tools and parts you need to do this job in our parts section online or at your local bike shop. If you have any questions working on your bike drop them below in the comments section or hit us up on social media. We'll do our best to answer them for you. Thanks for checking out another episode of Pure Fix Garage. Make sure to subscribe to our channel for more videos to keep your bike in tip-top shape. Keep the rubber side down and I'll see you next time.