Has this ever happened to you?



Fourth cog from the top. I was accelerating from an almost stop, turning left from a two lane onto a four lane, coming in from the down stroke of a T intersection. Had two full growlers (half gallon glass containers) of beer in the pannier, and I guess that I wasn't geared down far enough to accommodate the load and sudden acceleration (36t ring and 16t cog, unless I was in the big [40t] ring).

Made it past the first oncoming lane, then half way through the next lane when I felt the chain slip, hard. The pedals lost all resistance and dropped me flat-footed onto the ground, skidding on my shoes with the bike still rolling between my legs. I scurried back up into the saddle, shifted up, and pedaled away, unharmed beyond some slight skin loss on my left calf where the pedal impacted into the back of my Dickies.

I made it about a mile before I tried shifting back into the (as of yet unknown) damaged cog, only to find that the chain was slipping badly. I shrugged it off, thinking that I'd broken a few teeth, and rode home. It wasn't until I got the bike inside that I saw that 2/3rds of the 16t cog was gone.

Now I'm torn, as torn as a weak cog under load. Should I be proud that I tore my bike a new one? I'm definitely annoyed that I'll have to buy my bike a new one. Should I be angrier at myself for forgetting to shift down, or at SRAM for producing weak cogs (new at the end of April, it only has about 2000 miles on it). All that I do know is that I'm glad to have enough standover height on my bike to be able to drop both feet to the ground unexpectedly, and still be able to sing tenor.