This small tragedy happened on my last off road ride to work of what should have been three consecutive rides to work on Thursday the 11th of June.
Well this was supposed to be the triumphant return of my hard tail Haibike Yamaha, all spruced up with a new transmission, chain ring, cassette and chain, and gear cable as well as new brake pads. Three return trips to work, with my fabulous 12 mile off road ride to work and a 10 mile road ride home.
All was indeed splendid for 10 miles of my off road ride in yesterday, indexed to perfection and changing gear with the lightest of touches, I was having great fun on great tracks in fabulous countryside.
Now one half mile section of my off road route towards the end is part of the long distance North Downs Way, and this section is a footpath, so not strictly for bikes, though many bikes use this bit as it avoids a dangerous windy bit of B road. I have used it for many years and walkers and cyclist all seem to get along very well.
Now at one end of this section used to be a ruined quite pretty Victorian Building that about three years ago was developed into very expensive retirement dwellings complete with electric gates etc. Now the residents hate everyone who uses the right of way, walkers and cyclists alike, but they really hate the cyclist.
Anyway they have tried a few times to make cycling harder with locked gates, etc, but nothing too difficult to overcome, they cannot completely block it, it is an important right of way. But recently they have added a wooden sort of kissing gate affair which would be impossible for a wheel chair, but can be got through with a bike, just, by upending it and walking it into the enclosure part, pushing the gate across behind you and then reversing out and cycling away.
I have done it a few times with no issues though it is a tight squeeze, however on this day after reversing out and attempting to cycle away I had managed to bend my rear mech hanger and had the chain off the bottom largest cog to rest between that and the spokes. Once I had worked out what had happened and got the chain back on I had to avoid bottom gear, all the others indexed ok, but the change from 8 into top gear 9 was a bit rough. And it had all been going so well! It got me home but I will leave mending it until I am off on Sunday.
This is part of the section, much nicer than the road alternative.
I actually sorted out the rear mech hanger today, getting it carefully bent back where it should be. Of course now it has been bent and bent back it has been weakened and might fail again, and these rear mech hanger things are designed to be sacrificial to save the rear mech and generally very specific to your bike, so if they go, without a spar you are stranded.
So I thought it best to get a replacement and will have to decide when it arrives whether to put the new one on and leave the mended one as spar or vice versa.,
Not without some difficulty I managed to order one today.
I test road the bike after realigning the rear mech hanger and all was well and I plan to ride to work tomorrow cross country and will have to take a chance on my mended hanger as it will be a few days before I get a replacement one.
Fingers crossed.