Mechanicals that end your ride ?

[Biker Joe]

Broke a chain once and had to walk 3 miles home. Didn't have spares with me.
Since then I take a chain splitter, spare links and power link.
Haven't had a broken chain since. So the spares work a treat.

 

[Globalti]

Nope, I can't remember ever walking more than a few yards... I snapped a LH crank once just down the road from my house and once the internal clamping bolt on a rather badly designed titanium stem snapped leaving the stem swinging on the steerer but by pressing down on the bars hard and riding very slowly I was able to ride back the two miles to the car.

Pulled up a sheet of plastic which got caught in the derailleur of my mountain bike and bent it. Managed to bend it back, titanium being quite malleable, and rode on with gears just about working.

Most upsetting event I had was on the Cape Argus race in Cape Town when local Cape Coloured kids were chucking tacks on the road and collecting inner tubes. They got me; I was shocked to puncture and in the middle of a slightly scarey area but was soon on the road again minus one inner tube and borrowed a track pump at the next feed stop to get the tyre up to full pressure.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Gah, why did I read this thread

 

[ColinJ]

Gah, why did I read this thread

Okay, what happened ...?

 

[TheDoctor]

Did you have to go to a pub?

 

[P.H]

A non functioning RH Ergo lever, 40km into a hilly 200km ride made me turn around and single speed it back to the start rather than carry on. A problem with the BB saw me get a train home half way back from Mildenhall last year. Other than that I've either been extremely lucky or well prepared.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Okay, what happened ...?

Nothing at all, but now I know of lots more things that might happen!

 

[ColinJ]

Nothing at all, but now I know of lots more things that might happen!

I think the idea is that 'knowledge is power'!

I fixed a broken chain for a cyclist on a local audax event. He hadn't given chain tools any thought until his chain snapped and I showed him how to use the chain tool on my multitool. He told me that he was going to go to his LBS the next day to buy one. We did the rest of the audax ride together.

I set off on the same event a year later and the same rider spotted me. He rode up to me and we decided to stick together again. (He told me that it wasn't just for my company, but also for the fact that I knew the route so he didn't need to bother about navigating!) I thought I'd see if he had stuck to his word - he had! When challenged, he produced the multitool that he'd bought a year earlier.

 

[gbb]

Nothing at all, but now I know of lots more things that might happen!

I WAS hoping this thread would show (and i believe it does) how rare serious mechanical failures actually are, and i'll bet if you consider how many miles most of are putting in and the infrequency of failures....we're doing very well.
I'd estimate ive done a minimum of 50,000 miles in my last 15 years of cycling, thats only a tad over 3K per annum and i know ive done far more than that some years...with just one ride ending failure, not bad in anyones book eh ?

 

[vernon]

I had another ride ending incident. Another fractured rear drop out. In Orleans. I reckon it was an accelerated fail when I cycled along a stretch of Roman road, I though that it was pave, and wanted to sample the sensation of fast pave riding. It was end of the ride for the Dawes Galaxy - I purchased a Decathlon Tourer and abandoned the Dawes after taking the B17 from it and leaving it with a new Decathlon saddle.

The failure was responsible for my first consumption of horse meat. In my search for a bike shop I discovered a restaurant serving steak haché cheval. I had to sample it. I enjoyed it so much that when I was cycling through Orleans the following year I went to the same restaurant for another serving.

Oh - and for those who think that I was rash to abandon the Dawes, it was due to have new wheels and drive train when I got back to the UK. The cost of repair, respray and renovations would have been a lot more than what I purchased the Decathlon bike for.

 

[HovR]

I've only ever had one ride ending failure, quite a while ago now, caused mainly by my lack of maintenance (I'm a reformed man, honest!).

I was on the return leg of my commute, entering the cycle path which creates a shortcut to my street. I normally go slow here as a courtesy to pedestrians. I changed down into my 1st gear on the cassette, although must have still had quite a bit of momentum from the road.

As I shifted down in to first, the badly adjusted rear derailleur went straight in to the spokes. But did the replaceable fail-safe hanger snap as it was designed to? Nope. As the derailleur went into the wheel the hanger stayed solid and the derailleur ripped a good group of spokes straight out of the rim, completely pringle-ing the rear wheel.

The wheel was a write-off, but amazingly the hanger and derailleur were fine. Luckily I only had to walk a couple of hundred feet to my house, as the rear wheel was so bent it was wouldn't turn past the seat stays.

Since then I've kept my rear derailleur perfectly aligned.

 

[TheDoctor]

In all fairness, the hanger isn't designed to save the spokes,
It's meant to save the frame.
Even so, that must have been quite, ermm, exciting.

 

[TheDoctor]

Blah blah blah killed bike, left it in a ditch...
Oh - and for those who think that I was rash to abandon the Dawes, it was due to have new wheels and drive train when I got back to the UK. The cost of repair, respray and renovations would have been a lot more than what I purchased the Decathlon bike for.

Good man for recognising that the tour was more important than the bike!
I mean, how could you have brought it back anyhow?

 

[Mile195]

I've had two major-ish failures.

1 - Rear derailleur fell apart half way across a busy crossroads. Jockey wheels and all associated screws bounced across the road in multiple directions. Put the chain round the largest sprockets front and back and used the bike like a fixie until I got to the bike shop...

2 - Forks cracked stopping at a set of traffic lights - I actually heard them go. I had been forced into a MASSIVE pothole about 5 minutes before, by some idiot in a Vauxhall Corsa though... It would be an incredible co-incidence if the two incidents were not in some way related...

However, that's two failures in nearly 8 years of road riding, and the first was on a 20 year old Peugeot as well, so it was probably due.

 

[MattHB]

1 for me, but the ride ending factor was more my cac-handedness.

Going through an underpass I rode through a broken beer bottle. Shredded the rear tyre and tube.

I had a spare tube, fitted it ok, then ripped the valve out of it with the stupid rubbish mini pump.

Called SWMBO to get me. Now carry 3 co2 canisters and inflator.