Never in all of my time on a mountain bike have I ever seen a derrailer look like that. I have no idea how that happened, but I'll shoot a guess at you.....wait....nevermind....I have NO idea at all...but thats just amazing how F.U.B.A.R.ed it got. I guess it just was crappy, and broke.

this is off topic but is that this wheelset? and are those juicy fives. because im getting that same combo 4 christmas just wonder how are they? do they stay true?(i dirt jump)

I haven't tuned my rear derailleur in 8 months. It's still good. It's also an alivio.

You learn the feeling.

I've snapped 3 derailleur hangers this year. Luckily, the local guy hooks me up for $10 a piece.

Anytime I feel that "weird friction" back their I stop and check for anything in the mechanism. It can be sticks or a stop limit screw a little too far out combined with a little lean and looseness in the cones.

This guy looks as if the spoke caught the lower pully. You can tell buy the way the inner/lower tip of the cage is bent. Too little chain simply results in a system that feels "jammed".

at this point, it's pretty hard to tell exactly what happened, but i'd say 90% of the bikes that come into my shop looking like that got that way because the hanger was bent and the rider didn't realise it and shifted into the spokes. check the drive-side spokes for any gouges. if you're going slow enough, you won't actually get any cut spokes, it'll just go "clunk clunk clunk" until the inner pulley cage bends enough to get caught on a spoke, and then around she goes.

you can sort of see where the pulley cage might've gotten caught. the cage near the top pulley is bent waaay inward. that's probably where it hooked into the spokes.

or, the low limit screw was misadjusted and the chain went behind the cassette, which would explain the "vrrrrrrr" sound. that would've sucked up enough chain to pull the RD into the spokes as well. you should check the spokes behind the cassette for gouges. any damaged spokes will need to be replaced.

Whoa, okay, thanks! I thought I was NOT doing something here.......(whew! )

"May I ask, why are you tuning her bike EVERY ride? Am I not doing something I should? Granted, my bike has not a problem shifting yet, but, is there a base for how often it is to be tuned?"

It starts to skip, auto shift, not index correctly , etc... I dont know why. I have never had a problem tuning any deraillers. It works great on the stand and around the block when I test ride it after I tune, but then we hit the trails and BAM...shes whining about it doing everything it should not be doing so I ride next to her to make sure shes not just whining because the trail sucks and low and behold...she has reason to complain. On a side note she shifts like an animal at all the wrong times so that may have a lot of reason why it gets beat up so fast.

I am going to purchase the park derailler hanger tool and check to see if hers is out of whack as I have no clue why it is so easy to knock out of tune...

I rode a Coiler tonite and last nite that was loaned to me from the LBS owner while my bike is being fixed and it has low level components on it and the rear der is an LX and shifted great but the front was a deore and it was figgity...but the bike is loaned out often and I am not sure how often it is tuned.

I don't care what kind of RD you have, it shouldn't need adjusting every ride. How old are the cables?

The wheels are XT RhinoLite XL's ...Sun SUV wheels on XT hubs is what they are and I havent trued them yet.

The brakes are hayes FX9

kritter - check the cable housing on your wife's bike. I had a similar problem this past weekend and it was caused by the housing having some rust in it. This would not allow the cable to move freely causing some ghost shifting. It only costs about $5 - $10 to buy new housing and cable to replace it. It also helps if you use brake housing rather than shifter cable housing. It is a little wider and allows the cable to run smoother.

On a side note, this reminded me of why I like sealed cable systems so much.

I've never had it happen to me, but I have seen it happen to someone. Stick in the spokes = torn up derailleur and wheel.
I guess if your derailleur hit something and was bent into the wheel the same thing would happen.

Got her back with a fresh RD, BB and spoke tightening. They split the cost on the BB as it should have been under warranty so I dont know if I made out on that or not.

Gettin geared up to go right now...YAHOOOOOOO

W.T.F. ????