Originally Posted by
staehpj1
I was wondering how the bends occured, but that makes sense. OTOH, that kind of damage really should be pretty rare with care in packing. A carefully packed bike is fairly hard to bend the hanger on without destroying the box.
I remove the rear derailleur when I pack a bike.
I worked in a bike shop during the past millenium, had no clue how bikes are packed by manufacturers these days. That is until 2018 when I opened up my new road bike box, a Ritchey Break Away badged as a Raleigh. Bought it at Amazon so I took it out of the box, not a bike shop mechanic at a shop.
Rear derailleur was attached to frame (steel, no separate hanger). Chain was on biggest sprocket so the derailleur did not stick out more than it needed to. A plastic spacer was attached to the skewer to hold the side of the box away from the derailleur. That spacer made a lot of sense. I can see why derailleur was attached to the frame, everything was in perfect adjustment at the factory and was still in adjustment when I put it all together. (Front derailleur was close but needed a tweak to adjustment.) If derailleur was not attached, it might need an adjustment on assembly, even if it had been adjusted before.
