Token Chain Drop Catcher For Road

The Token Chain Drop Catcher is an inexpensive tool that eliminates the problem of crunching your chain expensively into the bike frame. It comes in four colours, doesn't cost much, and works.

• Pros: It works, it's not much money and could save expensive damage
• Cons: No fitting instructions; can't be adjusted for height against the chainring; only compatible with braze-on front mechs

We've all dropped a chain – in Andy Schleck's case it nearly cost him a Tour de France victory. If he'd had the Token Chain Drop Catcher it might have changed the course of history.

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A chain catcher is a simple tool that makes it impossible for the chain to fall off the small ring into the frame. Most of the time this is a harmless annoyance, but it can do real damage to the frame, particularly on carbon fibre bikes.

Token's own example has been around a good while. A little internet research reveals hundreds of satisfied users. If there was a criticism it was that the anodised alloy mounting bolt was too soft and inclined to round off when being tightened. I had no such trouble with mine, so it may be that the latest iteration includes an upgraded bolt.

It also comes in four colours – red, gold, black and blue. If you're finding it also being offered in silver this may be the previous, allegedly cheese-bolted version, but this is speculation (we've asked the distributor for clarification).

The packet includes two lengths of bolt and some mounting washers, but no instructions. I found a helpful YouTube video that showed how the finished job should look. Essentially, though, it's a matter of replacing your present front mech mounting bolt and installing the catcher between the braze-on mount and washers. If you have a band-fitting mech you are out of luck, unless yours is the kind that's actually a braze-on mech mounted onto an adapter for frames that don't have a brazed-on mount.

Fitting is fairly simple, if you are confident about setting up your front mech correctly. It's easier if you disconnect the cable. The only tricky bit is getting both the mech and the chain catcher correctly positioned and keeping them there while you tighten the bolt.

I used it on a chainset with a 34-tooth inner ring and it was positioned perfectly to stop the chain being able to move any further to the left. If you use it with a bigger inner ring you may find the business end of the catcher sits a little lower than the teeth, which might make it less effective at preventing the chain coming off but would still stop it dropping into the frame. Because the mounting bolt goes through a circular hole, there's no scope for vertical adjustment in that respect, which is one small drawback of the Token product.

You can get adjustable ones – Rotor's, for example, but it'll set you back around £18 – or Praxis Works' Chain Guide, but that has an rrp of £40! That makes the Token look okay value – though you can pick up simple non-adustable ones for less than £4.

In use the Token worked faultlessly. My chainset is inclined to drop the chain once every hundred shifts or so, usually when I've done something clumsy. I road-tested it in some very demanding terrain, including both directions over the Bealach na Ba in northwest Scotland, and had no trouble.

Verdict

A tidy tool for very little money that offers peace-of-mind protection for expensive frames