Good afternoon.
I recently bought a new bike on line, 2 weeks ago and has been unused . Today I turned it upside down to check it over and in checking the gears the derailleur pushed the chain beyond the 1st gear and the chain is wrapped around the wheel hub and caused damage to the derailleur mechanism.
obviously this was bad/incorrect adjustment at the factory.
Where do I stand/what should I do?
Can anyone please help?
Thank you….so much

Contact the seller, although you should’ve checked the bike when it was delivered.
Seen this many times when people bring their bike into the shop because it doesn’t work out of the box.
It’s the risk you take buying on the internet rather than from a shop who would do a pre delivery inspection and set up.
Most times the internet shop offers a paltry sum to get it fixed, ironically at a bike shop

The rear hanger could have been bent / damaged in transit – bike from factories always need checking by a competent mechanic as very rarely are they assembled correctly. Contact seller to see what they say.

…and that is what the seller will say.

The idea of checking the bike is to make sure things like that don’t happen when out riding . I would suggest that you have been a little heavy handed . Also it’s not a great idea to try to check the gears with the bike upside down .

It’s the risk you take buying on the internet rather than from a shop who would do a pre delivery inspection and set up.

Bit of a sweeping statement. There is spectrum of internet retailers from good to bad, similar to the spectrum of brick and mortar shops.

That’ll teach you not to break rule 49.

nickfrog – Member
It’s the risk you take buying on the internet rather than from a shop who would do a pre delivery inspection and set up.
Bit of a sweeping statement. There is spectrum of internet retailers from good to bad, similar to the spectrum of brick and mortar shops.

Purely based on actual experience. Still i guess you could phone CRC etc and ask to speak to the person who checked the bike for you. That’d be similar to actually being handed the bike and talked through how to use the features/set up the suspension by the person who built it from the box that came from the factory

Thank you for your replies so far.
I don’t wish to touch the Bike as I believe that damage could have occurred and can’t get the chain from behind the wheel.
I assumed that it would be ready to go from the box just like me son’s bike bought on the same day was. Bought from the same supplier.
At no point were there any warning labels saying it should be checked at by a bike shop. This is my first bike in years and I thought it should be good to go.

At no point were there any warning labels saying it should be checked at by a bike shop.

In which case all you did was hop on the bike & go up & down the gears then ‘oops!’ (that is correct isn’t it?)

So phone the supplier tomorrow & say that’s what happened.

It’s probably fine. You just need to remove the chain from behind the cassette.

Brute force and ignorance is usually effective, although someone will doubtless come on here to say that you will scratch the spokes.

Even if you can pull the chain from behind the cassette, there’s still a risk it’s damaged the rear mech hanger – it’s designed to fail in such circumstances. Get someone to check alignment. I’ve seen too many bikes with the mech ripped-off and wrapped around the cassette

although someone will doubtless come on here to say that you will scratch the spokes void any warranty & maybe cause more damage.

If it’s brand new it’ll probably have a plastic spoke protector.

Personally, I’d take out the wheel and loosen the cassette, but I’ve got the tools to do it.

In your case – contact supplier.

This happened to me and it was a bent mech hanger – have you checked whether it looks straight or not ? Once you free the chain the mech will spring back I suspect. I doubt that the vendor would have sent it out without checking the alignment and indexing so as said, check the hanger.

just wrestle it out and index the gears yourself correctly. It’s a task that is worth learning to do for the future and is not a hard task to accomplish. In this case it is likely the limiter screen needs to go in a bit more. Plenty of vids on youtube. Good luck.

Also it’s not a great idea to try to check the gears with the bike upside down .

Because?

Well Mike you have to it upside down by default being down ‘there’ 🙂

It’s the risk you take buying on the internet rather than from a shop who would do a pre delivery inspection and set up.
Bit of a sweeping statement. There is spectrum of internet retailers from good to bad, similar to the spectrum of brick and mortar shops.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a sweeping statement. You might have maladjusted gears from any shop, but it’s not going to be boxed up and thrown around a series of vans/trucks/warehouses after being set up if you buy it from a local shop.

mikewsmith – Member
Also it’s not a great idea to try to check the gears with the bike upside down .

Because?

It can lead to other mistakes!

somtam – Member 
I assumed that it would be ready to go from the box just like me son’s bike bought on the same day was. Bought from the same supplier.
At no point were there any warning labels saying it should be checked at by a bike shop. This is my first bike in years and I thought it should be good to go.

Some suppliers advertise the fact that they provide a fully set-up bike out of the box with just the bars being turned, others however (most others in my experience, which is a lot as I spent 3 years in a shop) basically need to be completely checked – How was it delivered? Did you assemble anything yourself?

In my opinion, unless stated by the supplier, you should inspect any new bike from the box and expect it to require some form of setup – Did you consult the owners manual before use? I imagine the information is all in there – you cant expect a dirty great big warning sticker.

See what the supplier says but most likely you are just making an issue from nothing, yank the chain out, check mech hanger alignment and adjust the limit screw and you will probably be good to go – who hasn’t had the chain jump over the back of the cassette while setting it up at some point?

I had something similar with a bike supplied by Wheelies. To be fair to them, they replaced the rear mech and paid for a local LBS to install and set up the new one for me.

I took photos of the damage and emailed it to them, with an explanation of what happened.

Where do I stand/what should I do?
Can anyone please help?

You could:
– Spend hours of your life moaning on a forum about a (fairly minor) problem.
– Spend hours of your life waiting on hold with an online seller, who is ultimately not going to be able to help you resolve said issue in a timely manner.
– Send it back to the online-seller for them to repair/replace, meaning you may be without a bike for a few weeks.
– Have a crack at fixing it yourself. Might work. Might cause more damage.

Or you could take it to your local bike shop, where an experienced mechanic should be able to fix it in a matter of minutes, at probably a very minimal cost.

Personally, I’d fix it myself (but then I have the tools and know how to)
If I were you though, I’d probably choose the latter option – pay a couple of quid and move on with my life.

Your call though 😉

It would have to be a really vigorous check-over to be able do real damage while rotating the pedals with your hands (assuming the bicycle was upside down); just yank the chain out and set the limit screws correctly.

Any pics OP?

OP, just call whoever you bought it from and see if they will resolve. No point worrying about anything else until you have that conversation. Hopefully they’ll offer something so you can then get it fixed and be out riding again very quickly.

It’s possibly worth thinking about damage to spokes, actually, as after my chain got well jammed behind my cassette, it needed a fair few spokes replacing on the drive side to stop spoke breakage further down the line.

It’s possibly less likely to have happened in this instance than bouncing down from Stanage Pole which is when it happened to me.

A tip I read to help avoid my mishap was to not have the chain on the biggest cog when setting off bouncing down somewhere due to wheel deflection making it more likely for the chain to skip and get wedged in that gap. It was the founder of Isla Bikes who mentioned it I think. It put an end to my puzzlement over why it happened, at least.