Title says it. Dumbfounded this could happen on a high-quality component like this!
Anyone else with experience? What am I in for, for a repair?
EDIT: Thanks everybody! Some solid theories below — appreciate the expertise in this group. I should've mentioned: I went over a small pothole (not even a big one) and bang… chain started dragging.
by trevdot
26 Comments
Hi, bike mechanic here.
It broken
Hope this helps!
Never seen that happen but the fix is a new rear derailleur.
Front fell off?
How it happened? No idea without physically taking a look at it. To your point of being a “high end” component, that doesn’t mean “will never break” and in fact they tend to be a bit more delicate than mid tier. Reason being, the trade off of shedding weight and focusing solely on performance is sacrifices to durability. R8000 is starting to age as a groupset so may have just had some fatigue over time. As far as for repair, you’ll just replace the mech which for R8000 Ultegra shouldn’t be crazy expensive and a shop to install it if you aren’t able to yourself. Unfortunate, but not end of the world.
JRA failure.
It Ultegran’t
You probably weren’t around when it took a heavy hit. Someone kicking it when unattended, your heel on a climb, bike fell over in wind when leaned, you knocking it around near rocks or garage items and not noticing.
Derailleurs can be pretty burly but they can’t also be light. Ultegra works great but it’s not supposed to be dropped.
Also that’s an8000 sure but it could be 9 years old for all we know.
Is it possible the pin fractured from a defect? Not if it had a good service life. Shimano has a great warranty but I doubt they’ll cover this because it’s way more likely it was just this derailleurs time due to something like one of the above scenarios.
Only time I’ve seen something like this is from shifting to big/big with a chain that’s too short. But, I’m assuming nothing has changed in your drivetrain recently so maybe it was just time for this derailleur to meet all the other RDs up in the big sky.
You mf’ers too strong breaking stuff.
Looks like it broke, no? Wear and tear, maybe even lack of maintenance that put wear and tear quicker. Shit happens.
Watts bombs went off?
Looks like the pivot rod failed. Looks like the body of the derailleur is still intact, which is odd. You’d expect the plastic body to crack where the rod is slotted. Or potentially the rod was manufactured too short, was only being held in temporarily by the tension spring, you went over some big bumps and it vibrated itself out of its slot.
Hi
Bike mechanic here
Stay away from me
Clears throat.. Bubba voice: I know whats wrong with it. Aint got no gas in it
Possibly had your load limit off and the derailleur got sucked into the spokes. Happened to me once, check spoke tension or have your shop confirm
about $380 with labor at my LBS but if they are a Shimano dealer and that’s an 11 speed they’ll likely be replacing it with a GRX RD-815 instead. Just had that done, super happy with it.
OP, a lot of jokes in the comments but not many explanations. I have one possibility — did you recently change your chain and/or have a recent fall or crash?
You are too strong for push bikes
A lot of stupid wanna be funny answers but I had something similar happen to my sram axs front derailleur, turned out the ‘c-clips’ holding thr axles into place had come lose and the axles fell out. Why the c’clip came lose I don’t know
A stick or other piece of road debris bouncing up into the derailleur can do this pretty easily, it’s just bad luck. You just need a new derailleur, it’s not a complicated part to replace.
Your shit broke bruh.
Well the front fell off
Transformer RD?
Defailleur
If you say it happened when you hit a pothole, there is a decent chance the derailleur struck the ground and broke at its weakest point.
Doesn’t look repairable.