281 Mysteriously Busted Chains

The mysterious drive chain master link.

Wish I had a nickel for every time I either heard or read about somebody telling their drive chain tales of woe.
Not that I think drive chains on motorcycles are bad and should be done away with (every motorcycle I've owned has been chain drive), but the fact is, the vast majority of idiots...oops, I mean riders...completely neglect their drive chains to the point of failure (or coming close to it).
This is pretty goofy shit when you realize the chain isn't buried deep down underneath the vehicle out of reach.
No, Lenny, it's right there in front of your big nose.

I just read a post on a dual-purpose message board about a loser with his own personal chain mishap, where the link plate of the chain actually ripped in half.
He showed a pic of the ruined parts, and sure enough, the pin of the link showed the classic signs of being run bone-dry for miles on end, eventually seizing the joint and causing the failure.
The sad part of posts like he put up is that the guy is basically throwing his hands up and asking, "Why-oh-why did this ever happen to poor, little ol' me?"

Answer:
It's because you don't know squat about how your bike works.

You see, most jokers think they're driving their cars on the street when it comes to riding their dual-purpose bikes.
What I mean is, they'll basically ride, ride, ride, but don't do the basic maintenance the bike requires to make it reliable as the miles start to pile on.
Actually, they seem overly concerned with how their heated grips and their fluffy seat cushions work, but the things like air filters, cable lubrication, suspension bearing lubrication, and drive chain lubrication and the condition of those parts take a big back seat to the gay shit they're actually concerned with.
In fact, if somebody comes onto the message board and tries to recommend that the idiot get with the program and do some real maintenance to these areas once in a while, the joker will basically ignore it because he's pretty much convinced that nothing like that will ever come to bother him.

That is, until the chain on his bike has enough miles and mud and water piled upon it to use-up all of the lubricant that was once in the chain joints, seize the chain joints, and lead to a failure.
A failure that was no doubt sitting there right in front of his goddamn nose as far as tell-tale signs and symptoms go before the failure actually happened.
All it takes is somebody who had a friggin' clue as to what they're doing and what to look for and how their own bike actually works.

Other than that, these guys are OK with me. ;)

Off to jerk,
-John