StanSeven

Three. Broken skewer. Snapped sestpost. Chain got caught in rear derailleur and snapped hanger off.

Had to call wife to pick me up on the first two.

Soody

I snapped a cleat standing to sprint at the crest of a hill.

I snapped a quill stem hauling on some pursuit bars on my road bike. I had 26mm mavic bars in a cinelli 26.4 stem with no shim... The fall wasn't too bad. I deserved it.

Snapped a bottle cage with my extreme drinking action.

The scariest was having my rear tire blow out descending a mountain ski road in summer. It was just below a hand glider launch site. BANG at 80km/h and somehow I didn't crash (would have been terrible) or ride off the cliff (I very nearly did ride off the cliff and I didn't have a squirrel suit on me).

My campy 8 shifter cables seem to go fairly often.

I just carry a 4mm allen key so if a cable does break, I can pick a gear and clamp the cable behind the front bottle cage.

It's pretty easy to cruise along, reach down, undo a bolt, pull the cable, and then clamp it again.

coppercook62

Mechanic didnt torque the clamping bolt on my THM cranks. Crank arm came off stripping the spindle. Luckly i wasnt out of saddle. They had to order a tap to rethread it.

B. Carfree

The only parts that have never broken on my bikes are the stem, handlebars, skewers, bottom bracket axle (although my son did break one of these), and fork. The only time I was jammed up by a part failure was when the headset of a tandem failed somewhere between Jasper and Kamloops on the Yellowhead hwy while on a month-long tour. It's damned near impossible to ride a tandem without a functioning headset. Fortunately, we met a lawyer who was part of a travelling court room show. He gave us a ride into Kamloops in his van, took us sight-seeing, put us up in his house and directed us to a fantastic bike shop that put a much better headset in.

indyfabz

The outside plate of my speed link somehow broke off. I noticed it a few miles from a LOCAL BIKE SHOP I patronize. The LOCAL BIKE SHOP replaced it on the spot. Five bucks for the part and no charge for the labor.

thump55

Does spontaneous explosive diarrhea count as a mechanical failure?



It should, cuz it's worse than any of these other posts.

bmthom.gis

My chain skipped behind the cassette. It was so stuck I had to take it to my shop and pull the cassette to get it out. That one was ride ending.
another time I ran over something that cut my tire right to the bead.Had to use a makeshift boot with an empty Gu pack and could only inflate to about 70 psi without the new tube starting to push the boot out. It was a fun last 6 miles

10 Wheels

Left crank arm fell off.

bobones

My worst mechanical happened to me on Sunday just there. I was plodding along alone in hellish weather when suddenly I had no drive through pedals as my freehub (Shimano 105) just span around in both directions. I carry 2 spare tubes, CO2, tire boots and chain links, but I had nothing with me to deal with this. I was about 12 miles from home and as I contemplated who to phone on the call of shame, a small public transport bus appeared behind me and I flagged it down and got back with just a short amount of walking. I've since learned I could have jammed the cassette to the spokes to create a makeshift fixie and pedaled home gently. I think I'm going to add some cable ties to my armory.

Fastfwd01

I'm new to all of this, but I have already experienced the r/d cable break - on my very first organized event. Great tip on how to make it less of a disaster - never thought of that!

dr_lha

I've had plenty of mechanical failures. Broken spokes, bent skewers, I broke the axel on my bike once. This was probably the worst one I had in terms of the amount of blood it spilled:

topflightpro

I had my stem face plate come loose once. But that was during a crit, not a ride. I was in great position too. I had to drop out with two laps to go.

Hornplayer

Another vote for crank arm came off.

RPK79

I shifted into the largest cog on my cassette as I was powering up a hill one day. I had too much torque and my flexy steel frame was twisted enough to allow the chain to jump off on the inside. It got jammed between the cassette and the freewheel, broke 6 spokes, and locked up the rear wheel which shredded the tire. Luckily the RD was fine, but I had to hoof it home two miles carrying my bike.

KonaRider125

That is another good reason to use SPD shoes/cleats/pedals. Very unlikely to break.

Been fortunate with my road bike, haven't had anything worse than a few flat tires a years.

RPK79

My current pedals have enough surface area that I could pedal home with them even in the event of a broken cleat.

nymtber

As a kid(14?) rode to a friends house about 3 miles away, we were riding around his moms yard on our bikes goofing around doing wheelies and endo's and all of a sudden the crank arm on my Royce Union "mountain bike" stripped out where it was crimped to the chainrings. Pedal all I want, and go no where.

He PUSHED me all the way home! He was a cross country and track runner, so he just thought of it as training. We routinely rode 15-20 miles around our county on our cheap mtb's. I miss those days!

mlander

Dear broken cleat people, OP included: wtf? Take off your shoe, put it in a jersey pocket, and ride home using whatever pedal you're using as a little platfrom pedal. What am I missing?

The seat broke completely off my fixie why I had a backpack full of groceries. (I'm sure the added weight is what caused it.) Managed to save it without a scratch.

The front brake ejected off the fork going down a VERY steep hill. The rear brake saved me. This was on an old, poorly-maintained beater.

If you go back to all the hack jobs I did on my bmx bikes as a kid, I would have plenty more examples.

bonz50

blew out a side plate on a chain, it grabbed the RD, whammied the hanger, riding buddy had me hold onto a strap on his backpack and he towed me about 4 miles. he didn't ride again for about a week cuz it crushed him dragging an extra 250lbs up a couple hills.

JohnDThompson 

Stem broke in the middle of an unsupported, fully-loaded camping tour in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Walked several miles to the Porcupine Mountains State Park Campground, and prepared to hitch-hike 60 miles to the nearest bike shop. Before I left, a bike tour group pulled into the campground and sold me a stem off of one of their bikes.

fietsbob

Sought out a Welder in Killarney Ireland on my Bike tour. in 1997.

RD, overshifted and cut 25% of the rear wheel spokes in one go.. just after building the wheel, back on Calif.

ColaJacket

Or this:



Hulk and elephant are for mashing.

The Flash is for spinning.



GH

PaulRivers

Had a frame break at the bottom bracket while riding it. It was an old steel schwinn that my had gave me, apparently they had a reputation for rusting out and breaking there.

It wasn't really nearly as bad as I had thought - the frame stayed together, it made this awful noise, but I was able to coast most of the way home on it still.

The worst ones are when the front wheel or front fork suddenly break. You go down instantly, faster than your brain can react.

zatopek

Many years ago, fully loaded touring around Lake Erie on a very heavily used Motebecane Gran Touring, while descending at high speed, I reached for the brake levers and the right lever detached from the handlebar. The bolt that tightens the band holding the lever to the bar had corroded from sweat and broke. Lever gracefully arcs laterally and down into front spokes, pings loudly but bounces back out and up. I had that one chance to grab it before it descended again as time stood still. Second time was the charm. Lever grabbed a spoke, locked up the front wheel, bending the fork something awful as I was launched over the bars. I still have scars from the crash 35 years later.

RPK79

Epic.