Broke the bike!
My son (age 10, but very strong for his age) and I were out on a ride today when halfway up the hill, missed a shift and dropped the chain going to the granny gear. As I was putting it back together, I realized there was a problem. The granny ring was severely bent! So after looking it over I found that I should've made sure all my bolts were tight. There were 3 bolts missing from the ring! So what happened was as soon as the chain went over to the granny and we put some force on it, it bent down. I was able to bend it back far enough to keep it from rubbing against the chainstay, but the ring's shot. We were able to finish the ride with no problems, but tomorrow I'll pull the crank and replace the ring. My hope is that the ring is the only thing damaged. BTW, there were two loose bolts on the middle and outer rings as well. A lesson to us all-maintenance is more than just oiling the chain!