SRAM makes very good quality chains, and I would NOT hesitate to leave the chain on your bike and use them continously from now on. You mentioned the link that they have with their chains, one thing that I always recommend to customers is to carry a spare link... if you should break the chain you can use the link to repair it. AS you can see, they are much easier to take off, to clean, repair broken links etc... We have sold SRAM since the early 90's and I wouldn't hesitate to use them at all... very good quality and much easier to repair(if you should have to).