Alright so yesterday as I was looking at my chain I noticed that one of the links(outer plates) was bent. Now I've never seen this before, so I just took the bent one out and put another link in. Now today when I was checking me tire pressure I looked at it again and noticed a link was bent again.
The outer plates are bent off at an angle which makes the chain be off at an angle for about 10 links after that one. Any idea how I could bend the link? I've never seen it before.
Its a Shimano 8 speed chain if that matters any.
Check the truing of your chain rings and cassette gears. If at every 10 that is the only thing I can think of other then one of the teeth are funky? Wait the maybe one other thing I had a problem with a few months back which was a really badly machined chain!!!
Good maintenance to your Bike, can make it like the wheels are, true and smooth!
If you can bend it back so it's straight, it's all good! Having the middle ring bend while the big ring is fine is kind of strange, though. The only thing I can think of that would cause this is hitting a rock or log while mountain biking, but that should affect the big ring, too. How out of whack is it?
The big and small rings are fine. We were thinking maybe something got jammed up in between the big and middle ring and bent the middle ring away from the big ring.
Any suggestions on how I could bend it back?
Its bent enough that sometimes when the ring gets to the bent section the chain will ride on the outside of the ring in that one spot, but be on the rest of the ring.
dave_sd is right. An adjustable wrench will work, just be careful when you bend it back in place. As far what causes that is a number of things I won't get into. One question I do have is are ya gonna replace the chain? I would just in case.
Good maintenance to your Bike, can make it like the wheels are, true and smooth!