I bumped into Jim Bauer from Odyssey and he had in his hands a new piece they are working on that nobody has seen yet. It looks like they are pushing things in a new direction with chains and I’m pretty stoked on this. I won’t try and explain it myself since he gave me this little bit of info below that explains it all perfect.

“1. Oversize Hollow Pins. Traditional chain pins are 3mm in diameter, ours are 5mm. This not only makes them stronger but gives a bigger contact with the plates and so makes them harder to push or bend out. Additionally the pins are riveted in place.

2. Thicker but lower profile side plates. With an extra narrow waist to each plate they are harder to catch on things. But at 1.4mm thick they are substantially thicker than the plates on any other chain and 50% harder to bend than the thickest existing 1.2mm chain plates.

3. Unique Master and Half links with threaded pins. Break and re-join the chain with just a 3mm hex key. Half link plates are less narrowed at the bends to increase stiffness and minimise stretch. By eliminating the use of a chain breaker to re-join the chain we can ensure factory tightness on all the pins.

4. Low overall weight. By using material as efficiently as possible we have strengthened every component of the chain and kept the weight the same as our Bluebird chain.

5. Low stretch. By using a standard alternating plate pattern and limiting to a single beefed up half link chain stretch is minimised, which in turn maximises sprocket and driver lifespan.”

It’s a little hard to see but here’s the masterlink. Inside you can find 2 small 3mm allen key slots that you can take the chain on and off with.

They don’t have a release date but I could imagine it’s not too far out since I spotted some branding on the chain which usually indicates they are getting close. Probably sometime in 2013 if I could guess. Who knows though. Overall, I really like this idea though. What do you think? Leave us some comments!