I’ve dropped Cy an email but he’s not back for a few days. Yesterday I did this

Mech Hanger#2 by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

Mech hanger sheared not at that much torque really, just riding through some mud. Fitted spare, seemed fine, gears a bit rough but I thought I might have bent the mech. Had a look today, mech looks okay but noticed there is a step in the dropout exactly where the hanger slots in. Assumption is as the hanger sheared it’s bent that bit of the dropout.

Here’s a pic with the hanger removed

Mech Hanger#4 by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

Can any Solaris owners look at theirs and let me know if it looks like that? I’m assuming not as there’s now a gap between hanger and frame. Gears seem to index okay, assume it’ll be okay to ride until I can talk to Cy?

Love that bike. Feeling a bit sad now 🙁

Looks like you have torn the metal cup but if the bolts holding the hanger to the frame are okay and the axle slots line up okay and it sits flat then it all should be okay.

I’d probably go with a bit of damage to the dérailleur that you can’t spot by eye alone.

It’s steel.

Get bending 🙂

I’m not bending anything until I’ve spoken to Cy! The hanger still fits flushly and there’s no issue with the axle slots. I’ve got a spare 10spd mech somewhere, I’ll give it a try later.

Just checked mine & it doesn’t appear to have that, I don’t think you need to worry too much 🙂

Ta Tim. Just switched to a working mech and that’s solved the indexing issue. Old mech looks okay but must be bent somehow. Might as well just run round the forest setting fire to fivers! At least I only buy SLX 😉

I’ve convinced myself it’ll be okay. Ride tomorrow see how we get on.

Just looking at that dropout and the bolt to hanger arrangement, I think you’ll be fine. That bit you’ve split just looks like an aesthetic bit to be honest. You might almost refer to it as a ‘flange’ (chuckle).

Initially I thought it might be important butting up to the step in the hanger, but as there are two bolts, I don’t think this is the case.

If you want to know about steel and mech hangers and how resilient they are check out this thread:

Bent mech hanger on a steel frame?

On my frame the hanger is an integral part of the dropout. It was about half as badly mangled as peterpoddys (see blue frame pics near bottom of thread).

All that was required to fix mine was a large adjustable spanner, a bit of careful pulling and a prayer or two.

It now runs absolutely fine, although I have changed to 1×10 with a clutch mech and a narrow-wide chainring to reduce dropped chain foul-ups in future.

You will be fine with yours I am sure.

Good luck.

Cheers Danny. Compared to that horror show in that link, it looks like I got away lightly! Seems pretty sweet on the the work stand, see how it goes in the mud. Cheers all, you’ve put my mind at rest! Although just a little tiny bit of me would like it to be broken so I can have a new Solaris frame in a new colour 😉

No worries. When I initially bent my frame I had a momentary loss of control. At that moment I honestly thought I might just sit down in the mud and bawl like a baby! It’s a horrible feeling thinking you might have irreparably damaged your bike.

Anyway, one of the blokes who was on the ride I was doing was feeling below par, so he lent me his bike to finish the ride whilst he nursed mine back to the car. I also ‘broke’ his bike (well a jockey wheel fell out), but we managed to bodge that. So it was an eventful few hours.

The next morning I approached my bike, adjustable spanner in hand, with a sense of dread. It’s about six weeks since then and I have not noticed any ill effects. I initially worried about a skipping derailleur when I’d put a new one on and set it up perfectly, but this was down to slight cable seating and foliage in the cogs issues.

All’s well that ends well IMO.

How did you do it?

No idea. Rode through some mud and the hanger sheared. It wasn’t a stick or anything like that. Very muddy ride tho, so maybe the rear mech jammed. But I wasn’t even pushing very hard at that point. Odd really.