Sunday, November 1, 2009

Rear Derailleur Carnage

Fitting that this bit of horrific news comes right around Halloween. After successfully completing the St Charles 4b's race today, I was riding back over to the area where most of the other xXx'ers were... when I hear a pop, feel the tension on the cranks drop away, and my rear wheel jams. I look down.. to see this.



I think to myself, shit! Another drivetrain failure at this race! Last year, I tore the bead on a tire and had to run half a lap, then finally popped a chain for a DNF. I initially thought that one of the pulleys in the derailleur had failed, bending the derailleur hangar and destroying the chain and derailleur... but upon further inspection:



waaait a minute. the hangar still looks straight?



yeah, that's right. the derailleur itself broke. hell if I know how that happened.

Apparently Shimano has a 2 year warranty on all components (aside from Dura-Ace, 3 years). Here's hoping their warranty process isn't overly cumbersome and/or time consuming.

1 comment:

Tamara Fraser said...

You're the first guy I was congratulating on having a great race who had to excuse himself to barf. Heh - I guess you worked hard enough.