I left yesterday on my long ride, I thought that my RD was a little bit out of alignment but nothing that couldn’t wait until i rode by the shop in about 60 miles. For a while i was able to find a few gears that the RD wasn’t jumping around, but it got worse as the ride when on. at around 40 miles. I stopped and looked at it and figured out that one of the links in my chain was seized and there really wasn’t much i could do on the road and i only had another 20 miles to go to the shop. About 7 more miles the RD had enough and ripped my bike. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a remove RD hanger. Most of the threads on the inside are gone. RD is toast, chain is trash, wheel needs to be trued and now my bike has scratches on it!
I removed the RD from the cable, the chain and opened my back brake up. I ended up riding down hills, my friend pushed me as i “scooted” along on the flats, we walked the up hills for another 5 miles until we got to a place where his wife would be able to find us.
I took the bike to the shop and they said don’t get your hopes up on retapping the hole. If it doesn’t work out, they are going to send it to see if the company can replace the hanger or possibly a crash replacement. I have to wait to see what happens on Monday.
The funniest part of the story is, i have tried to ride this 80 mile loop 5 times and i have never made it. flats, crashed and now ripped RD from bike. My wife tells me not to ride that loop, i am asking for trouble every time i do. It’s becoming a mission to make it though.
That blows, I’m so sorry. I learned my lesson last year that a skipping RD is often a chain waiting to give out. Thankfully we caught it in time but it still makes me flinch to think about what would have happened had the chain snapped on an 8% climb.
Total bummer nebmot! You do have another bike, right? Me, I don’t and if that happened to me, I’d be in the sh*ts…that’s why I am going to buy an “extra” bike next month (just in case). Maybe you should do the same!
#1 - that blows (I broke a spoke today thanks to a stick, I feel your pain).
#2 - if your shop said they probably cant fix it with a helicoil, get another shop. Make sure the shop knows how to PROPERLY use helicoils, taps, FAG’s, DAG’s and is not just playing “shade tree mechanic” with your bike.
#3 - if the bike is Ti…send it to the MFG or a Ti capable machine shop first. Not many shops in the country have the ability to work with Ti at all.
#4 - stiff link can easily be fixed road side if the chain link is not bend (take the chain in your hands and flex it side to side against the stuck plates). If you do have a bent link most tool kits have a chain pin tool and in 5 minutes you could have taken it out.
#5 - if your fram is carbon with Alu dropouts…make DAMN SURE your LBS is very good at what they do.
That means that the drop out is a VERY soft Alu alloy. That should not at all be hard to get back into place presuming that there are no fizures or cracks in the Alu from the damage, or going back. From there Specialized wont be able to fix it as the frame is produced over seas. Worst case you may be calling Calfee.