Mangled Mess

Leah and I misplaced our camera and have not seen it for several months. If that had not happened, I'd post up a picture of the most mangled up mess you have seen. I set aside tonight as the last full ride before the race this weekend. I was planning on doing 25-30 miles. Everything was going my way until about four miles into the ride. I learned what was making the clunking noise in my rear triangle that I mentioned in a previous post.

I came upon a rather tall (or long) tree that had fallen across the trail and tried to navigate around it through the underbrush because I was too lazy to shoulder my bike and crawl over it. Evidently, and without my knowledge, while I was pedaling through the underbrush, I picked up a small stick in the rear derailleur. At about that same time, I decided the tree was too long to ride around and decided to shoulder the bike and crawl over the tree. No problem. Then back on the trail, I hopped back on the bike and began to ride again......SNAP, Clack, Ping.

I looked down and the derailleur had been ripped off the frame and was mangled up in the rear wheel spokes. The chain was bound up in the cassette as well. It took me 20 minutes to dislodge the mess from the rear wheel so the wheel would roll and I could walk the bike back to the car.

The best I can figure, the derailleur hanger was already cracked and is what was making the clunking noise. The small stick was just the catalyst to the inevitable. I am lucky this didn't happen at high speed and that it didn't happen in the race.

Damage: Rear shifter cable, derailleur hanger, chain and four spokes. And I presume since the bike has over 1000 miles on it, I will have to replace the front center chain ring and the rear cassette because they will not accept an unworn new chain. Hopefully I can get all of this done before Friday afternoon. Luckily, my bike shop has all the parts in stock.