That you've had?

Mine, I never realized the rear dérailleur must have somehow got bent. To this day I never figured out what caused it. I set off to work as usual, jumped a curb on my old MTB at the bottom of the path to my old house and the deore dérailleur scythed through several spokes. The dérailleur was in bits as was most of the wheel. That was a p*sser as in those days I only had the one bike.

Yours?

I've had the dérailleur chop through the spokes thing several times. But I do Cyclo-cross, MTB and DH racing. For the latest one, which was commuting in the snow, there are pictures of it on my blog. Although I think now the wheel axle failed and the wheel twisted and caught the dérailleur.

In the last few years I've have the shaft in a bottom bracket fatigue fail several times. They just don't make them like the ones on my older bikes, one of which is still going strong at 30+ years. So now I don't bother with maintenance or changing the bearings, just buy a new one.

had my front wheel fall off when going up a curb, the wheel rolled for a good 50m.

how far did the rest of you roll?

Nothing really weird, other than bending a tooth in my middle ring that just barely allowed use of the middle and big rings, but would cause a delayed chain hop when going to the small ring, since the bent tooth would lift the chain up and off the ring when that tooth came around.

My weirdest failure happened shortly after I started commuting. Switched from my commuter-ized MTB to my dad's old road bike (nothing fancy, but it at least felt faster, and seemed to fit me well). The FIRST day I had it out on the road, the danged pedal flew off the shaft. I was, to say the least, confused. Even more so, I was angry, because it was in the middle of climbing the "big" hill.

To add to the frustration, I caught a ride from my brother to the bike shop. I bought pedals, and got back. He was nice enough to also remember (sort of) the wrenches so I could swap pedals. That is when I learned that pedals come in two sizes, and of course I bought the wrong one.

That bike has since been retired for a number of reasons.

Had a rear deraileur fall apart. Oddly enough I was just returning from a Road 2 class and was within blocks of my home when the RD just fell apart. It had been shifting rather sloppy so I was paying particular attention at the moment, and saw the pieces fall off. It was the bolt through the spring... the back of the bolt, a large round nut had worked loose. Once I walked it home and put the tension back on the RD it all slipped right back together.

Oh, long before that, I had a Bottom Bracket spindle break in half... different bike. It really shocked me as it was a Phil Wood BB. I had just jumped on the bike and was on my way to work and suddenly both legs are at the bottom of the stroke. (glad I wasn't out of the saddle at that moment) I stood there over the top tube for a minute, trying to fathom what could have happened. I was only a few blocks from home so I walked back, and later tore into the BB to find the spindle broken clean in half. It was hollow. I sent to Phil and they sent me back a new one... but this new one was solid.

I was riding sweep for this past spring's "Bike to Work Day" ride, when one fellow had his derailleur simply fall off the hanger. We got it fixed, though, and caught up with the pack about two miles down the road.

Lost a crank arm in the middle of a stroke in the middle of nowhere. Sucked bigtime. Had to resort to the rock as a hammer and do that every mile or so down the road.

The bolt holding my front derailleur came off, (didn't notice it), and when I shifted, the whole thing came off, and the chain locked everything up. Fortunately, I was only 2 miles from work at the time. I had to walk the bike up the hills, paddle foot on the flats, and could coast down hill.

Walked the bike over to the local shop when it opened (about 5 blocks away), and they fixed it in ten minutes.

About a month ago I was riding my old Raleigh to work when the bolt holding the seat on snapped! It was a huge bolt with no apparant stress damage; it just broke in two. I found an old shoestring on the trail and after tying the seat in place, I was able to balance on it and wobble my way the remaining few miles to my job. The guy in the local bike shop thought it was so funny that he gave me a replacement bolt, no charge.

I was riding up York St in New Haven about 20 years ago when I saw a pothole right in front of me. I hopped it with the front wheel and got my weight off the saddle while I hit it with my back wheel. So I wasn't sitting on the saddle when I heard a BANG from my bike immediately followed by a loud DINK from the fender of the car next to me. When I sat back down, my saddle was like an elevator going down, and it stopped when it was sitting on the top tube. I pulled over. WTF? Seat post bolt had broken in half, and part of it shot out and hit a parked car!

on the way to work about a month ago the guts of my left SPD pedal unscrewed themselves. I gathered all little parts up and reassembled it when I got to work. It was a real brain teaser. Riding the last 12 miles or so without my left shoe clipped in was no fun either.

i always ride up this one hill and i'm typically forced to start from a stop due to the light at the bottom. well this one time i started sprinting up the hill and my whole drive train just locked up. turns out in one pedal i rounded the square taper part on my crank arm, sheared off the two arms inside of the freewheel on my rear wheel, sheared off 3 of the bolts that connect the two chain rings and got the chain stuck between the two rings. i'm pretty sure the crank arm was on the verge of loosening but all of the other stuff was completely functional. the wheel and freewheel were actually brand new. i showed it to my friend from a bike shop and he was amazed that all the stuff failed at one time.

broken handlebars, see attached.

Looked down yesterday on my way home and noticed I only had one bottle cage. Cage bolts still in the tube. It was a nice Specialized carbon ribcage one. Not stolen as I park my bike in my office. Damn thing just fell off somehow. Guess that's another way carbon fails catastrophically.

I lost 3 of my 5 chainring bolts on the way to work riding my first FG conversion attempt. I didn't realize that you couldn't use double chainring bolts to (safely) mount a single chainring. Luckily I discovered it before disaster struck.

Whan I was a teenager I had a single speed with commuter tyres that I had fitted 'new fangled' bmx handlebars to. Sort of a precurser to a modern mountain bike.

Anyway after fitting a new front tyre I took it out for a test drive, part of the ride was a steep hill (an easy 40mph'er). Obviously I had shifted something in the brakes because as I applied them the front brake shoe slipped, hit the spokes which stopped it... very quickly.

Result:

About a dozen broken spokes, a very buckled front wheel, badly bent (unusable) forks and both down tube and top tube bent at the steerer. Me... I high sided, flew about 20 feet and landed in the gutter, head OK but a broken collarbone and a bit of road rash.

Split my downtube when my frame mounted rack was wrenched off during a wreck in soft sand.


When it was alive

1988: 7 years old, first bike and going through my wheelie phase. popped a wheelie and my handlebars broke off in my hands. that led to my first of many impressive get-offs.

Wheel coming off because some assclown had stolen my quick release.
Or both 10yo+ plastic pedals disintegrating within hours of each other - that was weird.

I snapped a rear axle once, but I didn't know about it until I brought it into a shop because it felt a bit odd. They seemed to think it was either unusual that I broke it, or perhaps unusual that I rode on it for a week.

Once about 20 years ago I stupidly put 3-in-One oil in my rear wheel bearings because they were squeaking. I was in the middle of a three-week tour. A few days later the whole bearing froze up, twisted the skewer out of the spindle, torqued all the spokes in the wheel and bent the wheel out of true. Dumb. It was my fault because I didn't know any better and thought oil was as good as grease. I learned the hard way. Had to hitchhike for miles and miles (with the broken bike, loaded panniers, and a bad attitude) to find a bike shop. The mechanic yelled at me for being so stupid (I could have really been hurt), told me the wheel was junk, and sold me a new one.

I was riding in a large group ride I was riding along next to some random guy on a Bianchi. I hear a ping and look over to see what it was and I watched the guys chain fall clean off onto the ground. No real cause for the break and no hang ups on the way off just clean onto the pavement. I mentioned that his chain fell off he looked down and gave an affirming grunt and pulled off. It was odd.

Yeah my chain has broken. It was a few days after a fall, I think the chain must have been bent during the fall. I started pedalling at a set of lights, all of a sudden was spinning madly and going nowhere. A pedestrian picked up the chain and handed it to me.