Saturday, June 30, 2007

My new no speed



Bent chain link plus ferocious pedal power plus technical up = drive train apocalypse. On my ride of porcupine I tried to crank over a ledge and somehow destroyed my drive train. The bent link caught in the rear derailleur, torquing the arm beyond recognition, snapping the hanger and throwing the whole works into the spokes. Fortunately, the rear wheel seems to be true and all the spokes survived.



Notice that the cable of the derailleur runs BEHIND the chain stay because the wheel wound the chain and derailleur around the hub half a revolution. The whole works got so tangled up I had to break the chain several times. It took about 10 minutes but I removed the chain and used an ace bandage to hold the derailleur to the chain stay. I was able to coast my new no speed down the last half mile of dirt. No speeds are a bit tricky on the downhill.... No bursts of speed to help over technical spots. But at least they work. For the flats and climbs, I do not recommend them. I got to push/coast/walk my bike the 6 miles into Moab. And despite lots of empty pickups passing by, no one offered a ride, the bastards. Cycling shoes are not great for walking.

For the record, I had sram x9 derailleur and chain. I'm getting shimano this time around. I did not like sram at all. The chain consistently missed teeth when I pushed hard. Then this...



Minus drive train apocalypse, the ride (below) was epic! I still had a ridiculous grin on my face, despite the long walk back and the fact that I'll be dropping $100 plus at the shop.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Glad to hear that it happened at the end of the ride. Boo on SRAM, Shimano is the best. Mota!

sdl said...

i'm not convinced that the bent link wouldn't have destroyed a shimano derailleur, too.

glad you survived. definitely lucky it was at the end of the ride.

is the bike fixed yet? are you getting to ride at all?