fix the chain which had come off the... umm... spiky turny thing whose name escapes me
If it's up front near the pedals, it's a chainring, if it's down back on the wheel, it's a cog. The whole assembly of chainrings (and the cranks that turn them) up at the front is typically called a crankset, and in the back, if you have several cogs, there are two different names for the set of them. The set is a cassette if any ratchething mechanisms live in the wheel, and you can take the cogs off one-at-a-time. A single assembly containing all the cogs and the ratcheting mechanism, that you have to remove from the wheel as a single piece is a freewheel. Both cassettes and freewheels require specialized bike tools for their removal, so you're probably best off just referring to the collection of cogs as "cogs".
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Date: 2009-03-18 02:25 am (UTC)If it's up front near the pedals, it's a chainring, if it's down back on the wheel, it's a cog. The whole assembly of chainrings (and the cranks that turn them) up at the front is typically called a crankset, and in the back, if you have several cogs, there are two different names for the set of them. The set is a cassette if any ratchething mechanisms live in the wheel, and you can take the cogs off one-at-a-time. A single assembly containing all the cogs and the ratcheting mechanism, that you have to remove from the wheel as a single piece is a freewheel. Both cassettes and freewheels require specialized bike tools for their removal, so you're probably best off just referring to the collection of cogs as "cogs".