Hi - ive got an S Works Tarmac SL4 with Specialized's own carbon cranks installed as of last July - I havent ridden them much - a few hundred miles so far but ive noticed that a few of the teeth on the chainrings have snapped off, normally when the bike makes a very loud noise. Is this normal? Personally i cant remember it really happening on previous campag cranks and i dont think its acceptable on a £500 set of cranks. Should my LBS warrant a new outer chainring?

Thanks

Rhys.

Yes.

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Exp001 || TeamLACBC

Specialized makes many great things. Chainrings are not one of them. I have never heard of this happening though. They should warranty unless they have signs of impact. Also, is your chain on backwards?

Are you certain the teeth aren't cut that way to allow faster shifting?

Pics would help.

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BDop Cycling Co., Ltd.
www.bdopcycling.com

bob has a good point. you may be very experienced, so please forgive us -- but many people look at a perfectly good chainring and think it is broken because they do not realize it is normal for some teeth to be shorter than others. i am assuming you are not one of them, but we just want to be certain.

i've had very poor experiences with specialized chainrings over time -- so much so that even when i got them for free i would immediately toss them. i'm no cancellara, but i could get them to flex (especially the lighter weight ones) and also found that on some power meters they would not produce reliable numbers.

now, i immediately put dura ace chainrings on all my (shimano-compatible) setups. they are phenomenal.

specialized makes many, many amazing products, but i cannot get down with those rings.

I dont think theyre supposed to be like that because the placing of them is completely random. rather than them being pointed, some of them are completely flat - ill post a pic at some point although i do take the point that they could be deliberate to improve the speed at which you can shift - im not too impressed with the cranks either - wish id bought the BB30 SRAM Red instead