Pitch

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Glossary · letter P-Q
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• Chain/Sprocket Pitch
  The pitch of a chain is the distance between adjacent drive rollers. All modern bicycles use 1/2" pitch. Some older chains, especially those used on track bicycles used 1" pitch chain (see skip link and block chain.) For a while, Shimano experimented with a 10 mm pitch for track use, but it never caught on.
• Sometimes people mistakenly refer to "track pitch" vs. "road pitch" when they are really referring to the wider (1/8") sprockets used on single-speed bicycles, instead of the 3/32" thick sprockets used on derailer-equipped bicycles. An 8-tooth sprocket for 1" pitch chain (left) is equivalent to a 16 for standard 1/2" chain.
• Nut/Bolt Thread Pitch
  The pitch of a nut or bolt is the distance between threads. S.A.E. fasteners have the pitch specified in terms of how many threads there are per inch (T.P.I.).
  
  Metric threads are specified by the distance between threads, in millimeters.

Copyright © 1996, 2008 Sheldon Brown

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