Help - My Chain Rusted!

Last night was a big bike frustratin' night. The goal was to hook up the tag-a-long and take the munchkin for a ride but a slew of things went wrong:

Long story short, the only collar for the TAL I can find (everything is in storage as I'm between homes) is on my mountain bike. I brought said mtb out of storage last night and about cried: the chain had rusted over the winter! I must not have cleaned it good enough or condensation accumulated over the long winter. Anyway, it wasn't completely stiff but bad enough that it wasn't moving and shifting correctly.

So back to the storage locker I did go looking for my chain cleaner and lube. Which I couldn't find so I grabbed some old tshirts for rags and headed off to the hardware store. Which was closed (bike stores were long closed). So I headed off to Target and got some WD40. By this time I was plumb fed up.

So is my chain salvagable? How do I properly clean the chain and derauiller now to make sure all is good before I attach my precious cargo and hit the streets? See, my bike repair book is also in storage and I couldn't find that either:o

Thanks,

If WD-40 doesn't free it up, then it's probably not salvagable. Can you move the TAL collar to your road bike? Or swap seats and seat posts? (assuming the road bike has appropriate gear to pull the tag-along).

Deb - I tried to move the collar to my road bike but the stems much smaller in diameter. It came with different adaptors for stem diameters but the other ones are in storage - somewhere! That's one of the things I was looking for last night.

I'll try the WD 40 tonight and see what kind of luck I have. Thanks!

Why not simply replace the chain (and any other parts that are rusted), and take better care of the bike next time!

I just realized why it rusted. I took it for a spin this winter and didn't wipe it down afterward - can we say road salt??:eek: Bad bike mamma...

So yes, I can definitely take better care of him:rolleyes: And a new bike chain it a pretty inexpensive fix to make sure all it well while biking with my son.

When I asked my LBS to change out my old rusted chain I was told since I haven't replaced the chain in so long it will skip unless I replace the cassette (?) as well.