Today I was right hooked while on a road ride and couldn't quite fully stop before hitting the driver's passenger side door. Thankfully, I'm fine, and my frame/fork/wheels are fine (as I hit it pretty slow) but when I was dumped to the right my rear derailleur was hit. When I later tried to ride away, my derailleur cage snapped off the bike entirely (the bolt was sheered off). Aside from a very slightly scraped elbow, I'm entirely fine. Was a very, very great ride otherwise, though!
Sadly, while the driver was very sorry and cooperative, they are apparently jobless and living out of their truck, and claim to have had literally no money on them. At least they gave me and my friend a ride home (which was about 15 miles from the accident). I decided to not press the issue further.
The derailleur is toast (which is sad, as Ultegra 6600 was fairly fancy for my bike) and the hanger rather severely bent in towards the spokes. I've bent the hanger slightly a few times before and brought it back with the alignment tool at the bicycle cooperative near me. I'm pretty good at this now.
I'm wondering if I should finally toss the hanger and replace it--its fairly severely bent this time, and has been bent before, and I'm worried that the metal is beginning to fatigue and become even softer.
Attached is a picture of the hanger. Sorry it's not very good; the lighting in my room is bad and I'm using a cameraphone.
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