Sorry no pics of broken arms or snapped rear triangles but I have managed to bash my outer ring on the front and rendered it completely useless as it’s now bent.

What are my options? This is the first time I’ve mashed anything whilst riding. I rarely (only ever when going down some big road downhills back to the car for example) use that ring so do I just remove it or replace it? And if I remove it, do I need to change dérailleur and levers or what?

Thanks.

For the time being, just remove it, put washers under the bolt heads so they don’t stick out at the back and wind the outer stop on the mech in so that you can’t move the chain past the ‘middle’ ring.

If you miss it, get a new one. If you don’t, leave as is, get a bash guard or just shorter bolts instead of washers.

If you remove it you will need to adjust the H stop screw on the front mech to prevent the mech trying to shift up to the non existent big ring – a simple job that will take 5 mins, but……if your outer ring and middle ring are fixed using double chainring bolts which i suspect they will be then you either need to buy single chainring bolts and fit them to the middle chainring and crank arm or get a hacksaw and cut the lugs off the big ring where the chainring bolts go through as you will need these to correctly space and tighten down the chainring bolts – if you have a look you’ll see what i mean.

Have a look here >

Park tool guide for front mech adjustment

I’m yet to have a real look at it whilst it’s not covered in s**t (I keep it in my mum and dads garage n we don’t live there). So when I pop round tomorrow I’ll probably have a tinker.

Front brake needs sorting too, no bite on it at all but whatever, different issue all together lol, might just buy hydraulics.

somafunk – Nice, very detailed. Thank you. I’ll get the iPad out tomorrow then and have a play around 🙂