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    Back side total loss, WDYT?


    I was out on a trip today , flat terrain, slightly bumpy gravel, when all of a sudden my back wheel locked up. I had been cycling on the middle gears, accident happened outside of gear chagne. No harm done to me , just a long walk to a bus stop.

    • Chain : mangled steel, needed to unwedge it from behind the cassette
    • dérailleur : dead
    • Hanger : broken
    • Wheel : spoke ripped out , visible damage /fracture on the base on another spoke
    • Cassette : no visible damage

    I think the wheel is a total loss , and all the rest needs to be replaced , maybe not the cassette

    I'm trying to understand what what happened, this bike has given me 100s of kms without ever having indexing issues.

    My only hypothesis is that a spoke broke first and led to this failure, I had recently straightened the wheel.

    WDYT? Has this happened to anyone ?

    by slbung

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    9 Comments

    2. Far-Adhesiveness3763 on

      You’ll never really know, it’s a sequence of events that happen so fast and all you see is the result.

      One thing failing leads to the others. Personally I’d say mech hanger is most likely.

    3. millenialismistical on

      At a glance, you’ll need a new rear derailleur hanger, new rear derailleur, new chain, possibly new cassette, and rebuild or replace the rear wheel. If you were ever considering upgrading the drivetrain components or wheelset, now is a good time to do it.

    4. fpeterHUN on

      I recently crashed a Deore 11 RD alongside with the derailleur hanger and I bent the chain. You need a derailleur hanger, a rear derailleur, and propably a new chain. Maybe you should alter the length of cable housing/cable to suit to your new derailleur. It is not a hard task if you know what are you doing. If you aren’t, it will take a couple of hours.

    5. PivoWar42 on

      Could be one of the limit screws loosening up or something liek a stick flew into the rear wheel and took the RD with it.

    6. OrdinaryTension on

      The hanger was probably cracked already, and with a constant load, it finally snapped.

      Not to pour it on, but you should clean the jockeys more in the future.

    7. Stairwayunicorn on

      Something similar here to a walmart bike. was trying to shift into 1st gear to go up a hill and it went too far because the cable was too tight, locking the chain between the cassette and the plastic thing. my thunder-thighs kept going and pulled the (plastic) derailer off the swivel, bending the arm all out of shape and twisting the chain.

    8. R2W1E9 on

      I am with people blaming the hanger.

      IMO stack chain pulling the derailleur till hanger breaks would cause different damage.
      Derailleur would be bent more, folded in half, more likely won’t go into the spokes, you will feel springy pedal first not a sudden lock up, the hanger would be bent not cut clean.

      Fatigue can break the hanger straight in one narrow zone.

      For those who ever bought a derailleur hanger it was probably shocking how expensive those little suckers are. Because It’s that’s why, what Bobby Fin would say. They are made to handle quite a bit of fatigue stress.

      I have been known to straighten bent derailleurs to original specs piece by piece, but may not be always possible. Wheel is easy to fix as well but It’s a good opportunity to upgrade to better wheel and at the same time replace that freewheel with a wheel hub, and get a new derailleur and chain.
      And keep them clean as dirty jockey wheels and chain cause a lot of unnecessary vibration of the derailleur.

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