Touch wood I’ve been lucky. The worst I’ve had is the puncturing the spare and the second spare tube and having not patches and by myself. 6 mile walk to car as they were v new and shiny rims and i couldn't face riding on them. A lesson i only had to learn once. Everything else on the trail has been bodge-able.
Snapped frame i guess, tried filling it with grass and bracken to hold it together like they did in mbuk (with innertubes) but it didnt work
Not serious per se, but the repercussions were annoying...
I had an STI lever fail on my road bike, dropping me into the 11t sprocket on Christmas eve 2007, at about 6 o clock, while I was 35 miles from home on the wrong side of the South Downs. Turns out you can ride up Bury Hill in a 39/11 if you really really want to. Luckily it was the less steep side!
Never been stranded too far from home – yet. My left hand crank arm fell off on a commute a couple of weeks ago, a bit odd as it’s been on there for 11 months. Fell off coming across the moor in the pitch black, luckily the bolt didn’t go too far or I could have had an 8 mile walk home. Had a puncture and resultant inner tube issue that has meant a 2 mile walk/scoot in the pishing rain.
Split the rim on a bike with v brakes but my wife picked me up fater that one.
QR exploded on a mates front wheel when he was riding home from work – lost all the bits and had to walk about 10 miles.
Does being hit by a car count? I didn't finish the ride 🙂
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eggbeater pedal falling off spindle.
was able to limp home as the body stayed in my shoe and I could slide it onto the spindle and pedal gently.
still have a scar on my calf from the spindle end when it first came off.
None, just a snapped frame & long walk.
The thing with mechanicals is that I tend to know when somethings going, and I prefer to replace before it's too late.
Edit; An SPD once fell apart.
Second time I did Paris-Roubaix sportif someone road into the back of my bike and put the mech into the rear wheel. I walked to the end of the Pave section, borrowed a hammer to straighten the gear hanger and singlespeeded the bike. 53x17 or something similar. Then road the remaining 100miles and pave or so in a single gear and ended up about 5mins behind my mates.
An old X7 mech decided to wrap itself around my cogs when a stick went through the spokes. It was right at the top of the first climb on a Moel Famau epic. I stopped before the whole thing ripped off at the bolt. Amazingly we managed to bend it back into place and it survived the downhill back to the carpark.
Arsed up what should have been an all day-er. The other brave souls carried on without me.
Pulled the axle forward in the track end on the drive side of my track bike. I was about to enter the far banking at the Manc velodrome at the time, up on the blue line. The wheel jammed against the NDS chainstay, which locked it up, and stopped me feet turning in the process. I pointed it down the banking MTB-style, and managed to hold it until I got down t the concrete where I hopped off.
Big black tyre mark on the track. Big brown skid mark in my shorts.
@ tonyg2003 That would have made me mildly annoyed, probably to extent of cursing under my breath somewhat.
Snapped a few frames etc which are obviously serious, but i think my most annoying was having a sudden drop in temperature in the peaks and all the wet snow / slush on my bike turning to ice and freezing up absolutly everything including front mech, rear mech and freewheel.
Bolt came out of smallest chainring and wedged itself against the bottom bracket, the only way I could free it off was to remove the chainset......Guess what, no chainring removal tools......15 miles from home.......one Pi**ed off Mrs came and collected me from the pub!!!
I had a stick in the back wheel of my then 2 week old 853 Inbred. I was going at walking pace and the wheel did 1/2 a turn before I stopped.
Damage -
Knackered X9 mech
Bent chain, several links
And this -
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The hanger bent outwards, opening up the dropout and so far inwards it locked the cassette, so I coundn't even SS it. (On the left hand pic you can just see the silver gougw caused by the cassette on the inside of the hanger) 4 mile walk back.
I bent that straight again, filed off the burrs and sprayed it black.
Then sometime later to the same bike -
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Chiainsuck killed the chainstay. So I got Argos to put a new one in and had it resprayed.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I bent the hanger again, towing a trailer offroad. Not so bad this time! Bent it back AGAIN!
It's fair to say that frame has seen some action!
It's also fair to say, it's a keeper. I love it. 🙂
Well that won't get sold here secondhand!
ripped off the rear mech hanger earlier this year had to walk 10 miles home ...didn,t get in untill 1.30 am what a night ride that wasn,t.
6 punctures on one 18 mile ride. Fortunately exactly the number of puncture patches I had with me.
Oh and a snapped frame while just riding along at Strathpuffer.
Joe
Well that won't get sold here secondhand!
LOL! Fair comment, but it's had it's 15 mins of fame, so most people know that frame on here anyway. And it's been properly repaired. The hanger is fine..... 🙂 Not for sale anyway.....
The offending trailer, on the day in question! Trailer full of mince pies and mulled wine! 🙂
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Chain link started opening, somehow the derailler and hanger got bent around into the spokes:
Chain snapped
Derailler cage bent
Hanger snapped
Spokes broken
Walk home
🙁
When my frame snapped I just thought the bars had moved. Wasn't until I got off and looked at my bike and realised I had a 71 degree head angle, only 71 degrees the wrong way. A bit like a halfords built bike looks!
oldgit - I didn't mention. I was slowing down to avoid someone who had gone down when their stem snapped in half. PR is carnage at times!
Yep I was mildly annoyed.
chain snapped and rear mech went into spokes:
bent mech hanger (steel frame)
bent dropout
Collapsed freehub
bent chainring
snapped chain (obviously)
twisted rear mech
and a cassette that, although I could never quite pin point the issue with, never worked quite right afterwards.
That was my first, and last, SRAM chain
I think I was having issues with my 853 at the same time, all logic was saying it can't be the frame, but it was that flippin tight clearance at the chainstay that or the colour.
tonyg2003
Always next year though 😀 🙁 😡 👿
I think I was having issues with my 853 at the same time, all logic was saying it can't be the frame, but it was that flippin tight clearance at the chainstay that or the colour.
It's the clearance, no doubt about it. The slightest chainsuck caused HUGE problems. I used to replace middle rings a lot too...
The new stay is a different shape at my request: Straighter! No more chainsuck since. None at all even on really worn rings. 🙂
oldgit. Didn't stop me. I've done it twice more. All 275km. Strangely addictive.
That's good news.
BTW that camouflage doesn't work.
PeterPoddy - my inbred (vert dropout) cracked in exactly the same place - it hasnt gone all the way through - about 5mm left - is it worth repairing? What is approx cost?
PeterPoddy - my inbred (vert dropout) cracked in exactly the same place - it hasnt gone all the way through - about 5mm left - is it worth repairing? What is approx cost?
I'll not lie, it's not cheap.
Mine was all done to the highest standard at Argos cycles in Bristol
New stay, £70. Paint, £120. Transfers (Under the laquer) £20......
Never had a truly calamitous mechanical, touch wood.
Completely seized a rear hub once in the Pentlands, wrecking it (how the **** do you do that?). It was only a mile walk and a phonecall to the missus, though.
My very first ride with UST was a disaster - at Glentress with a pair of Hutch scorpions IIRC. The bead wasn't seated right and once on the trail kept slowly losing air. Super tight to get the tyre off, so ended up pinching both spare inner tubes in a cack-handed attempt at fix the problem. Was new to Scotland at the time, so didn't know Glentress at all. Took me about 2 hrs to get back to the car from the bottom of Deliverance because I didn't know the way.
That was in 2002, and I've not had a single problem with tubeless since. Guess I got them all out of the way in a oner - quick way of learning that sealant is a good idea.
My square taper cranks decided that the wear and tear of many miles and the falling of the crank would be justified 15 miles home which did not impress my mate.
The worst I'v had so far is ripping a rear mech off and having to single speed the bike for the remainder of the ride
does a femoral neck fracture count as 'mechanical'?
Riding London to Brighton a few years back and my rear wheel had some exceedingly loose spokes that I'd noticed the night before. Did nothing about it and throughout the ride coudl hear various pinging noises, which were spokes releasing themselves from their nipples. Bent and tucked the now free spokes back into the wheel thinking I can make it...
Anyway, bottom of Ditchling Beacon, another spoke goes, catches the rear mech and pulls the whole lot including the mech hanger into the rear wheel. Cue major wheel explosion and lots of swearing from me.
Stood there for about 3 hours waiting for apickup to take me to Brighton. Eternal thanks to the house that I was stranded in front of for giving me tea and biscuits and to my riding buddies who welcomed me with a cold beer when I finally made it to Brighton!
Gibbon snapped his st4 on the Transrockies with more than 50k to go, still finished the stage though.
Was within sight of home after aprox 25k ride stick caught in xo mech snapped cage and ripped out top jockey wheel also bent mech hanger. Walked home to unsympathetic wife who couldn't believe price of a new mech!
Probably the worst is the time I sharted 5 miles from home. I will spare you the details...
On skyline descent at afan on my vp free, went slightly wide on a turn going a bit too fast, hit a tree stump, would normally have been okay with 7" of suspension, however it snapped the steerer of my triple clamp manitou shermans off at the stem, large stack with bike bouncing down hillside followed.
Pretty much a total write off. Was very very unhappy until I found out my insurance covered me.
Paid for my shiny nomad.
Snapped 2 bmx frames when i was younger a diamond back and a huffy (did'nt notice the huffy was snapped for a few days just thought it was handling a bit odd). Also snapped bmx forks inside the steerer and severely bent some redline bmx forks and destroyed an acs z rim.
On a mtb I hit a little terrier dog at 30mph ish on the road and bent the forks quite badly, but apparently did a great superman impression.
Broke a front wheel when I was about 14 and broke my hand in 2 places, and disclocated the other wrist... But I'm not sure that counts as a mechanical, and more a moronical.
Most annoying one was having a jockey wheel wheel fall out about 2 jumps into Spooky Woods- couldn't fail in the damn car park, could it? Or perhaps 1/10th of the way up the climb? No, has to work perfectly all the way to the top then instantly fail completely for the descent. Tried to bodge it with a stick but it wore through, tried to singlespeed it but it kept shifting up and jamming, so eventually rode it down with no chain. Which was actually pretty fun, in a weird "Won't do that again" way.
Snapped my saddle off half way through a race in the Sidlaws, rode the rest of the race rather gingerly and was knackered from standing up for ages.
Got to the top of the Whites climb at afan, hit the first descent, i was loving it! heard a big and a loud thud, brother had hit the deck, front tyre and split, tube gone bang, very long walk back to the car! in the the rain, not impressed!!
I've had 2 DX frehubs go on me. 1st one I lost my drive & walked/scootered back to the car, next one the freehub locked up & wouldn't freewheel. i finished the ride but have you ever tried standing up & having to pedal down rocks when you really need to go a bit slower?
X0 rear mech and spoke interface. Mech bent badly then eventually sheared at the breakaway bolt. Bent hanger badly too. Two snapped spokes. Pretty textbook I hear you say.....it got better.
It was at the top of a day guiding a group in Les Arcs, mostly downhill back to the valley floor save some 'rolling' climbs.
For some reason that still baffles me the only gear I could get it to SS with the correct chain tension was third-from-top (44-13). Luckily I was carrying some Kevlar emergency spokes to bodge the wheel with...very time consuming though, took about 3/4 hour before it was rideable. Again, fortunately it was a nice day.
Once we got rolling I was determined not to let my mechanical detract from the group's two hour/1500m descent. Unfortunately this meant not letting my ridiculous gear ratio hold things up on the remaining climbs...one of which was a steady 15 minute spin in middle ring up a fire road. I covered it in about half the time on the verge of stalling with my knee cartlidge protesting loudly. I'd already told the group I would meet them at the top...which I did, still gasping for air and sweating like a hairy pig. The next rolling section had some shorter, sharper climbs in which couldn't be ridden so I ended up grinding up them as far as possible then jumping off and running along side the guests in my carbon-soled race shoes and 8kg guiding pack on in 30 degree heat.
It was a character forming day, that's fo' sho'. Fortunately the lads I was guiding were a bunch of legends and it only added to the day's fun 8)
the year we took both the whyte preston prototypes to the red bull 24hour race,
i lent the first one to the RAF team to try out,, they were riding at pallets without unweighting the front wheel, not normaly a problem, until one guy got the front wheel caught in the pallet and bent the forks, so that was put in the car and my ss mount vision was pressed into service
then jon whyte was out on his first lap on the other and caught the front wheel and ripped off the whole fork assemble and had to run half a lap with his bike in two parts,, another preston bites the dust
after that it was just your average 24 hour race
