Friday, April 10, 2009

Plastic Bag trashes Derailleur



Who would think an airborne plastic bag could take out a bicycle's drive train? That's what happened to me near the end of April's Courteous Mass.

Through eyes squinting to keep out the dust, I saw the bag blown toward me as we approached Five Points on Decatur Street. The next thing I know, something large and loud was caught in my spokes and my chain was frozen. It was my derailleur wrapped in that plastic bag that got sucked into my spokes. The derailleur was rotated by the wheel as far as the chain would let it go and twisted like a tornado had got hold of it. In the images above, the derailleur had been straightened so I could free it from my wheel. Although the spokes were worked over pretty good, none of them broke. Instead, the axle got bent a bit and the wheel needs to be trued.

The ride itself was good. A jazz ensemble provided tunes as we gathered at Woodruff Park (Scott, I'd love to link to your photos). The predicted thunderstorms held off although we could see them to the north and south. We greeted a decent number of folks with a "Happy Friday". We recruited a few new riders. We would get dust in the right eye just as the left eye was clearing up.

And I learned plastic bags aren't always as innocent as they look.

Ride Summary


Round Trip Distance: 7.0
Number of Cyclists: 12 joined the ride
Route: Cabbagetown / Grant Park
Weather: Dodging thunderstorms and tornadoes, windy, but dry

Labels:

posted by Jett @ 10:32 PM   4 comments

4 Comments:

At 4/13/09, 11:45 AM, Blogger wle said...

wow
so now you need
new derailleur
chain
derailleur hanger
axle!>?

what about
bent frame

and technically every nicked spoke should be replaced or it may break later

that can also happen if your freehub or freewheel suddenly freezes and start the back gears turning when you happen to not be pedaling

or a stiff link in the chain

it;s about the worst thing that can happen to a bike other than the frame breaking

though it;s not as dangerous as things like
chain break
fork break
handlebar/stem break
crank break while standing

because it happens to the back wheel, you probably won;t go smack on the pavement, but your bike will be toast

sorry to hear that!



wle.

 
At 4/13/09, 7:36 PM, Blogger Evan said...

Yet another reason for an IGH.

 
At 4/14/09, 7:41 PM, Blogger Jett said...

When you go down the list of arguments for internally geared hubs, I guess the issue of trashing the derailleur does come up. I had always imagined objects carrying a little more momentum than something that could float along on a light breeze, but now I know differently.

wle, it wasn't too awful bad. The walk back home was pleasant except I needed to keep an eye on the storms that were swirling about. Thanks to an abandoned bike in the attic, I had my commuter bike repaired within 2 hours and am tooling around once again. I've given the spokes the "grocery store" test, and the back wheel seems to be holding up well. This is a 1980's wheel that was built a little heavier than my road wheels.

All in all, a gentle way to learn an important lesson.

 
At 5/3/09, 12:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was watching the Paris-Roubaix race a number of years back (the only time I've seen it) and one of the riders who I think was in the lead at the time and not far from the finish had a plastic bag blow by and get snagged in his rear derailleur. He was coasting along and reaching down trying to get it loose. I think even the team mechanic was leaning out of the car trying to free it from his bike. It ruined his day.

Realizing Google is my friend, I decided to see if I could find more information. Here's a link I found:

LinkIt turns out his name was Thomas Wegmueller and he was in a 2 man break right near the finish. The bag got him and he lost the race by a few seconds because he couldn't get it free. What a terrible way to lose a 165 mile race. The story doesn't say whether it trashed his derailleur.

 

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