Today, Wentwood Forest riding some rather nice trail  and thinking how well the bike was performing (first mistake) them bang, crash, etc. I got a log stuck in the rear mech,

It was bent but working and would of be OK (maybe). I  couldn’t resist giving a it token bend and it snapped off…Arse.

Tried the the chain shortening suggestion to single speed but to no avail, looks like it only works on HT’s.

Thankfully a fellow rider was on Levo e-bike and gave me tows along the fire roads back to base. Thankfully I had a long nylon strap in the backpack that was used as a tow rope.

Basically can a No rear mech bodge be achieved on s full susser ?

PS My bike is an old 2007 Spesh FSR and the lost mech the original Sram XO. So it had a good run 🙂

Any thoughts on bodges. Even my Zip Tie Fu could not fix this one 🙁

PPS Looking at the broken cage etc. I might  of made a rudimentary  tensioner, but not much use looking at it at home.

Lots of factors.

Low chain growth design – maybe

Solid Lockout on the shock – yes / maybe

Flat trails – maybe

Etc

If it’s an air shock just pump up hard so no sag or as mentioned use lockout then adjust chain and pedal smoothly..did it years ago on a giant nrs and got home ok albeit on smooth road

Can we pretend it was actually the nearby presence of the e-bike that caused your mech to snap off? Perhaps due to the primordial forces of whatever dark magic they harness for their evil motion?

Or maybe it was just a stick.

It was a log 🙂 not a stick 😉

And the Specialized Levo e-bike was epic. Very useful on this occasion and the rider is 79. Chapeau to the tow 🙂

PS

I did have sneaky ride on his Levo and it was like floating on a cloud. I might get one, very nice 🙂

whatever … a big stick then.

Have been pondering this and I wonder if you could bodge some kind of rudimentary chain tensioner with some cable ties on the drive side seatstay, a looped cable tie to run the chain through and some kind of elastic between them to try and put some tension on the chain – maybe a a bit of inner tube or something or random bungee cord scavenged from a backpack. Maybe even take a jockey wheel off the mech and loop a cable tie through it to make a better chain guide.

What’s snapped off? Mech cage? Whole mech? Mech hanger?

As Joemmo hints at, I have heard off, but not tried, fixing the broken mech to the seat stay with cable ties and running the chain through the cage and over a jockey wheel in an attempt to kleep some tension in the system. Obviously isn’t going to work if the problem is the mech has exploded, but maybe if it is just a broken hanger??

In the old days they sold MTB’s with a small cages protecting the rear mech.

Like a lot of sensible things though they aren’t cool so they removed them.

Did it on a Zesty in about 2011, had to pedal very smooth but luckily it was flat most of the way home.

I’ve singlespeeded my full sus successful in the past.

Some suspensions systems would cope better. Single pivot would be hardest to keep the chain on I think?

I balance biked a dead FS once. Saddle down and when I hit three miles of flat road near base I took the pedals off to stop ragging my calves.

Nice to read a good story about an e MTB er!

Shock pumped up hard and locked out should allow you to pootle back. I do know of a carbon frame that died, the tension caused the bottom bracket shell to fail after it had been singlespeeded in similar circumstances

In the old days they sold MTB’s with a small cages protecting the rear mech.

Like a lot of sensible things though they aren’t cool so they removed them.

Notingt fo do with coolness, more that for them to be strong enough to protect the mech, they could lead to bending drop outs and frames in a crash, so better to have the mech hanger, and if needs be the mech, as a sacrificial part

to the op, I’ve tried various bodges trackside over the years and none of them have worked well on a full suss so I just accept there’ll be pushing if it happens these days

Yes, did it on my transition scout last year at Stainburn. Bike felt great which made me realise the chain had been too short.

Think its success does depend on the travel of your bike and how tight you can get the chain around a middle cog.

In the old days they sold MTB’s with a small cages protecting the rear mech.

Like a lot of sensible things though they aren’t cool so they removed them.

They were only really any good for protecting from stuff hitting from the side, didn’t protect form sticks getting flung up into drivetrain, the usual cause. And if you made them big enough to wrap around the full mech, with modern 1x set ups the mech is low enough as it is, it’d be more of a hindrance.

There seems to be folks that are more prone to breaking mechs, no idea why, poor shifting maybe, shifting under load combined with a bad set up or poor maintenance? who knows.

A mate of mine that races the Scottish CX series goes through one a race some seasons, god knows why!

OP could probably do with brushing up on the diffence between “of” and “have” too.

Spare mech and mech hanger in the car. Most of the places I ride we are no more than 2-3 miles from the car, no good if you are on an all day epic!

We single speeded my mates Gary fisher roscoe this week, used a big strong cable tie on the chain stay as a tensioner and he was able to ride pretty well, didn’t lose the chain on a long rough descent and pedalled 10k or so to get back to the car.

Broken Mech … Trail Bodge on Full Susser, can it be done ?

Yup, ripped one off a Heckler on Cutgate. Managed to SS it and get back to 18bikes for a new mech and hanger with minimal issues. Pumping up the shock and locking it out is must

I did the a fair bit of GT on a 1st gen Fuel in this manner. Can’t remember if I pumped the shock up or not, there was no lock out.