I had an accident on my road bike a few weeks ago. Turning right onto a side road there was a change of road surface / possible oil on the road, and down I went - heavily. Fortunately I did more damage to myself than the bike 
.
I've had the bike up on the workstand and checked the frame/fork alignment, checked the brakes & cabling, run the gears up and down the range a few times and, other than having to make a minor tweak to the indexing, the bike has only seemed to suffer a few scratches & scrapes in the usual places. I took it round the block a couple of times, everything felt right and it was tracking ok and generally everything seemed fine.
Anyway, took it out yesterday for the first proper ride. Everything was fine for the first 10 miles or so, and then I hit the first hill (I live in York and you have to ride at least 10 miles to find a hill
) so I dropped a couple of gears and started putting more pressure down on the pedals. I'm no mechanical expert, but I guess that when you put more torque down things start to bend and flex in a different way. There was a ping ping ping noise, followed by a nasty grinding sound, then all hell seemed to break loose and the rear wheel locked-up and I came to a rapid halt. Looking down the rear mech had ripped itself away from the mounting bolt, and was wrapped in the spokes half way along the wheel stay in a big tangle of spaghetti.
What I'm guessing happened is that the cage on the rear mech, possibly damaged by the original accident, had moved across into the spokes and got jammed. The outcome to this was rear mech totally trashed, fixing plate where the mech attaches to the frame broken, 2 spokes bent, and rear wheel out of alignment. Fortunately there is a chain splitter included on my multitool and I had a spoke key, so I was able to remove the mech, shorten the chain, straighten the wheel as best I could, and was able to limp home in a single gear.
I would probably be able to fix all the above myself but, to be honest, I think I'm going to put the bike into the LBS for them to cast their more experienced and professional eye over it, to make sure there's nothing else I have missed.
Anyway, back to the original point of this thread (all the above is probably just therapy for me!), without a chain splitter and spoke key in my toolkit, I'd have been goosed. On my touring bike where I have a large saddlebag I always carry a full toolkit, but on my road bike where I just have a small under seat bag, I carry a minimum of tools, and wouldn't have thought of adding a chain splitter - I'm fortunate that one was included on the multitool that I have, as not all multitools have them.
One other observation to make. The above happened on a quiet country road, and whilst I had the bike upside down and was up to my elbows in oily chain a guy on a road bike came the other way and would obviously have seen me. I nodded to him and said "hi", but he just rode past without even looking at me or acknowledging my existence. Bizarre!
I don't know about everyone else, but whenever I see another cyclist in any mechanical or other kind of distress I always stop to check they're ok and ask if they need any help. I've been able to help out several times because either I've been carrying the right tool, or have the mechanical know how they may not have. It's no skin off my nose doing this, and always leaves me feeling warm and cuddly for a long time afterwards 
.
Thinking about it, the guy may well have been a "newbie" with limited mechanical knowledge and was probably thinking to himself "Oh s**t! What do I do, what do I do. I know, I'll pretend I haven't seen him. Keep going, keep going". He probably spent the next 5 miles feeling bad about it, and thinking about what the correct protocol should be. Or maybe not!
Anyway, rant over. It's p***ing down with rain here in York today, and the Bad Companion is making noises about us going to an out of town shopping centre - deep joy!
Stay safe out there, and always carry a chain splitter.
.I've had the bike up on the workstand and checked the frame/fork alignment, checked the brakes & cabling, run the gears up and down the range a few times and, other than having to make a minor tweak to the indexing, the bike has only seemed to suffer a few scratches & scrapes in the usual places. I took it round the block a couple of times, everything felt right and it was tracking ok and generally everything seemed fine.
Anyway, took it out yesterday for the first proper ride. Everything was fine for the first 10 miles or so, and then I hit the first hill (I live in York and you have to ride at least 10 miles to find a hill
) so I dropped a couple of gears and started putting more pressure down on the pedals. I'm no mechanical expert, but I guess that when you put more torque down things start to bend and flex in a different way. There was a ping ping ping noise, followed by a nasty grinding sound, then all hell seemed to break loose and the rear wheel locked-up and I came to a rapid halt. Looking down the rear mech had ripped itself away from the mounting bolt, and was wrapped in the spokes half way along the wheel stay in a big tangle of spaghetti.What I'm guessing happened is that the cage on the rear mech, possibly damaged by the original accident, had moved across into the spokes and got jammed. The outcome to this was rear mech totally trashed, fixing plate where the mech attaches to the frame broken, 2 spokes bent, and rear wheel out of alignment. Fortunately there is a chain splitter included on my multitool and I had a spoke key, so I was able to remove the mech, shorten the chain, straighten the wheel as best I could, and was able to limp home in a single gear.
I would probably be able to fix all the above myself but, to be honest, I think I'm going to put the bike into the LBS for them to cast their more experienced and professional eye over it, to make sure there's nothing else I have missed.
Anyway, back to the original point of this thread (all the above is probably just therapy for me!), without a chain splitter and spoke key in my toolkit, I'd have been goosed. On my touring bike where I have a large saddlebag I always carry a full toolkit, but on my road bike where I just have a small under seat bag, I carry a minimum of tools, and wouldn't have thought of adding a chain splitter - I'm fortunate that one was included on the multitool that I have, as not all multitools have them.
One other observation to make. The above happened on a quiet country road, and whilst I had the bike upside down and was up to my elbows in oily chain a guy on a road bike came the other way and would obviously have seen me. I nodded to him and said "hi", but he just rode past without even looking at me or acknowledging my existence. Bizarre!
I don't know about everyone else, but whenever I see another cyclist in any mechanical or other kind of distress I always stop to check they're ok and ask if they need any help. I've been able to help out several times because either I've been carrying the right tool, or have the mechanical know how they may not have. It's no skin off my nose doing this, and always leaves me feeling warm and cuddly for a long time afterwards .Thinking about it, the guy may well have been a "newbie" with limited mechanical knowledge and was probably thinking to himself "Oh s**t! What do I do, what do I do. I know, I'll pretend I haven't seen him. Keep going, keep going". He probably spent the next 5 miles feeling bad about it, and thinking about what the correct protocol should be. Or maybe not!
Anyway, rant over. It's p***ing down with rain here in York today, and the Bad Companion is making noises about us going to an out of town shopping centre - deep joy!
Stay safe out there, and always carry a chain splitter.
