So im riding tonite testing out my new HID so I take a long route I have never taken and when the trail meets up with the familiar trail I ride I grind away for the last 100 or so feet of root, rock and rut in 2nd gear then BAM...it made a vrrrrrrr then a ting in less then a half rev and I clipped out and stopped thinking the chain fell off...and this is what I found...

DId I do something wrong? Would this be warranty? My bike has always shifted like a champ and never had any hiccups until this and I wasnt even shifting!!!!!

PS the light and motion arc HID is the SHIZ...

What you see is exactly how it was when it happened...I moved the cage a bit out of the spokes so I could roll it out of the trail to the road.

looks like you landed on the derailleur and bent it up a bit? I doubt that's covered by warranty.

There was no crash involved...I was riding up a hill! and if you think thats bent a bit...I would hate to see what a lot is. The thing is completly twisted 180 degrees and its upside down!

I want to know why this happened so it never happens again...im pissed!

The chain caused it via the chain is too short.

haha, yes, that was a sarcastic "bent it up a bit".

I thought it could be that the chain was too short, but I'm under the impression his setup isn't new - correct me if I'm wrong. That seems to be the only answer though, if he didn't crash.

Did the derailleur get caught up in the spokes? It's kind of hard to tell from the pictures. If so, that might be it.

the chain is not too short...I can go big big without any problems and when this happened I was in 2nd gear so there was def no shortage of chain! Isnt if the chain is too short it would pull hte derailler forward not backwards...direction of chain.

I thought it might have got caught in the spokes since it was bumpy and spun back around but nothing like that has ever happened before...is that common?

I cant think of anything else but the derailler has to flex a shat load to get into the spokes. I was thinking my brute force may have tweaked the wheel off center as I pedaled and made it go closer to the derailler and then the derailler went into the spokes and spun around...

I know the front wheel flexes side to side about an inch (much better then the original wheels and these wheels are true as the day I bought them when put on a stand) when im out of the seat hammering but I never thought about the back and I wastn out of the seat hammering...I was sitting hammering.

There would be broken spokes in that case. Come to think about it, a stiff link or a bent chain could have had a hand in this. I've never seen something like this happen before.

The loop looks to be a bit small, but that wouldn't have much effect unless you were shifting when it happened. Your deraillieur just simply gave up it's life, I have no idea how it happened now, never seen this happen before, time to replace and move on.

As a matter of fact it happened to 2 of my friends. One just this past weekend. Don't know what caused it, they were just riding along then all of a sudden bam, that's all she wrote. The only thing that I can think of is that they had cheap-ass bikes. Who knows...

yer if it is a manufacturor problem it will have warranty...How long have u used this bike for?

I did this twice, both time a stick flew up and got caught in the wheel long enough to fubar the RD. Both times the deraulier hanger snapped.

Yep. I was just going to say the same thing.

Sticks and stones can break your bike (but names can never hurt you!)

My bike is roughly 4 months old with 450 miles on it...

Sucks it happened and there is no way to keep it from happening in the future...this is the first tral ride ive ever had that bummed me out.

So do I go with another XT as it has worked flawless up until this or go with a SRAM X9?

I've got a friend with a habit of landing on his derailleurs who's got a full XT outfit, except he always goes for the cheapest RD he can find. I know for a fact you can get alivio for $6 off ebay

the diff between higher end and low end deraillers performance wise is rediculous...im not donw grading thats for sure!

I tune my bike which is full XT every 8-10 rides or so and it shifts incredible...I tune my ol ladies bike which is all deore...every ride and she complains about 8 miles in about out of tune deraillers.

I tune both bikes the exact same way so the only variables are riders and component level...I will probably be riding her bike tonite since mine probably wont be fixed and that will narrow it down to 1 variable...component level and I guarantee thats why they come out of tune.

Unless you want to change your shifters you are going to need to stick with Shimano.

As for the derailleur I had that happen once as well. My front tire kicked up a small stick that managed to wedge it's self between my derailleur and the ground. Had I not stopped imediately I would have never seen the stick.

I doubt that you are going to convince a shop to warranty this one. This is just part of the risk you take riding a bike off road. It's a risk I'm willing to take though.

If you get the X.9, you need a different shifter. But if the XT is working for you, stay with it...unless you want to try something different. My LX rear derailleur was working great on my bike but I put it on another bike and replaced it with X.9 rear derailleur and shifters...I am extremely happy with it. Once I got the tune down, I haven't had to touch it since.

This has happened to me and mine was caused by a couple of stiff links that got locked into a U position mid pedal. Completely destroyed everything.

That sucks. I feel for you. Don't feel too bad. I did it once 10 miles out on my brand new XTR wheel set. It was the first ride on the wheel set. I had to rebuild the entire wheel. The little stick cost me about $400.

Kritter - it's sounding like the chain caused this from the assessments above. How old was the chain (age, mileage)? How often do you clean and lube it?

Providing the info will help others avoid the same type of damage.

Thanks

Bike is cleaned and lubed every ride...chain was fairly new.

A buddy of mine had this happen to him while racing..started out as an out of whack der hangar the he just tuned the derailler around instead of straightening the hanger then he was climbing a steep rutted hill, the wheel went to one side and it ate the derailler with the spokes...

It sucks it happend, I will have the bike back on Friday and the hsop owner gave me a kona coiler to ride until then.

Please excuse my ignorance....I have Deore on my bike, just as your wife does. 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? I brought in to my LBS for it's first adjustment (after purchase) and he said it was okay and didn't need to tune it. But should I now? Or soon?..............

If it is shifting without any problems, it doesn't need to be adjusted. Tuning Deore level components after every ride sounds excessive. My wife's Kona Lana'i has a cheap Shimano Altus rear derailleur...she occasionally rides with me on some of the XC trails around our place and I rarely have to give it any attention.