Most bizarre equipment malfunction

[kdelong]

What is your most bizarre or unique equipment malfunction? Anything goes on this thread (but doesn't it on all of them?). What may seem normal to some riders may be bizarre to others.

To date, my most bizarre equipment failure occurred this morning when the cable housing for my front derailer burst. I was shifting up to my 52 tooth chain ring when this occurred. Unfortunately the resulting downshift left me with a 32 tooth front chain ring. Note to self: change triple crankset to double crankset and get double front derailer.

I tried to get the chain on the 42 tooth chain ring using the low adjustment on the derailer but the screw came up a little short for that. So I started a 22 mile slow ride back to my starting point. How come these things never happen in the first mile of a ride? Luckily the bike was still ridable, albeit with only about 5 gears, all in the low range. On the bright side, I was able to really work on my cadence. The 32 tooth chainring and the fifth cog on my cassette will produce 13.2 MPH at 100 RPM. Needless to say it took me two hours to retrace what had taken only about 1 hour to reach initially.

Is a burst shift cable housing something that is common or is this a little strange? Granted it is 4 years old but I have had brake cable housings and friction shifter cable housings that have lasted in excess of 20 years. Is there really that much more pressure when using STI shifters?

 

[DJA]

I've had this happen twice. First time not that strange and certainly believable. A stick went on chain and jamed the rear derailer bottom cog and the derailer snapped off (I was still peddling at the time). The second time a piece of fencing wire flicked up and went through a chain link which jamed the bottom cog of the rear derailer and once again snapped the rear derailer off at the fixing bolt.

I've heard of the stick doing this to other riders but as far as I know the wire through the a link is a one off.

Both time the bike was made into a scooter.

 

[Eden]

I blew out my rear rim.... on a trainer during my VO2max test.... at least I wasn't screaming down a hill at the time. The kicker is that I had just had the bike into the shop and specifically asked if I needed to replace the rims (it was a nasty winter around here and they had been sanding the roads) and the mechanic who looked at them though they had about 6 months left at least....
Pieces of the rim actually went flying across the room.

 

[531Aussie]

I blew out my rear rim.

ha! That happened to me at a time wheni didn't even know it was possible. About 6 or 7 years ago I was riding some old and worn Mavic CD4s with about 140psi in my 20mm Conti Gp (stoopid ), then BANG!! The wire bead onthe tyre was blown apart, as was section of the rim, about 10" long and ~7mm deep (~ half the depth of the braking surface).

I was luckily only going slowly on a quite road, and it was my rear wheel

 

[kdelong]

ha! That happened to me at a time wheni didn't even know it was possible. About 6 or 7 years ago I was riding some old and worn Mavic CD4s with about 140psi in my 20mm Conti Gp (stoopid ), then BANG!! The wire bead onthe tyre was blown apart, as was section of the rim, about 10" long and ~7mm deep (~ half the depth of the braking surface).

I was luckily only going slowly on a quite road, and it was my rear wheel

How far did you have to walk carrying your bike?

 

[531Aussie]

How far did you have to walk carrying your bike?

about 5 or 6 miles. Any further and I would've caught a cab

I was only doing a short commute on the bike, so I was fortunately wearing jogging shoes

 

[John M]

Had a stem shear off--Very much like Hincapie's experience in Paris-Roubaix last year--fortunately I wasn't hurt.

 

[dabac]

What is your most bizarre or unique equipment malfunction?

Had a seat tube crack once while riding home in the dark. Caused the bike to adopt a very strange slithering motion that it was quite hard to pin down the reason for while riding. Another one was when a friend missed a little when trying to jump a log on his MTB and touched down on his big ring. When dropping to the granny gear the chain would come off, and he could no longer get it into high. Turned out that the BB must have seized momentarily and shifted towards the right some. In hindsight it was perfectly understandable but then and there it was quite puzzling.

 

[dhk2]

My buddy recently had the right rear dropout screw fail on his Kestrel Evoke. The design uses a small (~4mm) flathead SS screw to hold the two-piece al dropout together. He noticed something felt a bit loose on the first two-mile climb of the day. When we stopped at the top to check, his rear wheel could be moved from one seat stay to the other. He made it back down the hill at 5 mph, but the weekend of mountain riding was over.

The worst part was that the broken stud was frozen in the dropout so that the screw couldn't be replaced. A call to Kestrel tech support revealed the screws were "locktited" in: the factory said they needed to see the frame.

His LBS Kestrel dealer shipped the frame to CA a couple of weeks ago, and the good news is that Kestrel replaced it free of charge with a new gloss-finish Evoke. The original frame was 3 years old, with at least 10K miles. Kudos to Kestrel for a no-quibble 100% replacement. Impressive customer support IMO.

 

[geoffs]

Worst breakdown for us was having the bolt from of the top jockey wheel fall out of the rear derailleur. This was while we were riding on the remotest part of the Otago Rail Trail in NZ.
Results were the derailleur went into the spokes and broke the spokes on both sides of the wheel as it locked up. The drop-out was also bent in the wrong direction as well.
Luckily I had four spare spokes and was able to repair the wheel. I used one of the broken spokes as a replacement for the missing bolt. I got the dropout straight enough so the gears would sort of work and we rode the 40 kms to the train station to catch the one train for the day to Dunedin. we made it with 30mins to spare.

Loads of fun

Geoff

 

[kdelong]

His LBS Kestrel dealer shipped the frame to CA a couple of weeks ago, and the good news is that Kestrel replaced it free of charge with a new gloss-finish Evoke. The original frame was 3 years old, with at least 10K miles. Kudos to Kestrel for a no-quibble 100% replacement. Impressive customer support IMO.

It's nice to see that there are some manufacturers that still stand 100% behind their product. Many would have said that it was out of warranty and charged for a repair or possibly pro-rated a new frame.

 

[kdelong]

Worst breakdown for us was having the bolt from of the top jockey wheel fall out of the rear derailleur. This was while we were riding on the remotest part of the Otago Rail Trail in NZ.
Results were the derailleur went into the spokes and broke the spokes on both sides of the wheel as it locked up. The drop-out was also bent in the wrong direction as well.
Luckily I had four spare spokes and was able to repair the wheel. I used one of the broken spokes as a replacement for the missing bolt. I got the dropout straight enough so the gears would sort of work and we rode the 40 kms to the train station to catch the one train for the day to Dunedin. we made it with 30mins to spare.

Loads of fun

Geoff

My compliments on being prepared and being resourceful. How many of us would have been out there with no spare spokes, tools, etc? But conversely, how many of us would have been out there without first checking the fasteners on our bikes? I'll bet that there were some tired legs after riding 40 kms on a bike that was less than 100%.