Derailleur Protector
 

I bought a set of derailleur protectors for the kids' bikes. Previously, I had replaced their derailleurs a few times. Usually they drop their bikes or tip them over enough to damage the derailleurs.


I didn't even know these things exist. We were on vacation to Mackinaw Island MI, and the rental bikes all had them.


Anyway, these protectors are very nice!


And when I load our family's bikes into my van, I don't have to worry anymore that the bikes will hit each other and damage derailleurs.


Anyway, they're on Ebay for a few dollars and well worth the money!

They usually come on wal-mart "bike shaped objects" and they're usually made of too weak a metal to be useful (generally aluminum). However, if the ones you bought are steel, I'm sure they'll do some good.

I've pulled many of them off of bikes because they've bent into the derailleur, preventing it from shifting properly. So I guess it did it's job, but it still made the bike unrideable.

If the metal it's made from is too weak, then you might need to get a derailleur protector protector. This is a device made of hard metal to protect the weak bendable derailleur protector from being bent into the derailleur.

Old school and very logical for rentals and kids bikes.

Those bikes on that island take a LOT of abuse. I've stopped before to help out a guy on a rental whose chain snapped on him, it was just astounding how beat up the relatively new bike was.

Rental bikes in general get abused. No way around that. If it were me, I'd use IGHs.

The ones I bought were steel. They have a little bit of give to them, so you can bend them back if they get dinged.


I figured that these rental bikes that I saw with the protectors all had functional derailleurs, so these protectors must be doing their job.


They were $2 on Ebay with free shipping so I don't have much to lose.


Just this morning, when I was Googling for a pic of that protector, I ran across pics of much more exotic protectors. Carbon fiber stuff. I bet that costs a lot more than $2 though...

Most of them up there used to be single/3-spd. They still take a beating. It seems the derailleur models are becoming far more popular, though, they were a lot more common at the rental places last time I was up there even compared to a few years back.

Kids are famous for throwing the bike on the lawn when there is something else to do.


I have a Plastic Chain guard over the shifting chain on my BSR/AW3 hub right end so falling over is relatively Harmless .

Now Sturmey Archer and Shimano Have rotary shifted IGH so only the Axle nut is on the outside of the frame.



./.

I am going to assume you are familiar with the old SNL sketch about Gary Busey.