Dead Front Derailleur

[Sky King]

The weirdest thing happened. I hopped on my bike to go meet a friend. As I started pedaling my chain jumped from the middle front chain ring to the big chain ring, kinda strange but I just assumed my bar end shifter had been bumped. Move the shifter and nothing happens. Front Derailleur doesn't respond at all. So try the back shifter and no problem. Had the Bike Hermit look at it when I got back and my derailleur spring had basically sheared off. He says, wow, I have never seen this before... Of course, we don't have what I need in stock so I will be riding the flats in the middle chain ring until next week. Should be fine at today's temperature is going to be 106. I attribute some of it to all the dirt and gravel road riding we have been doing. On a positive note, he rebuilt my headset while Sky was in the stand - I am so lucky

[ridebikeme]

Very strange indeed!

I had a similar situation with a friends bike. We were headed to a beautiful area to ride in NH, and it is quite hilly. At any rate, I drive to pick up my friend and see her riding her bike around her the area that she lives in. This is a bike that truly doesn't see much action with her, as she has plenty of other bikes to ride. Anyway, she mentions that her Front Derailleur isn't working and I look at it, and it isn't going to... it is absolutely gone! There was a tremendous amount of play in the derailleur laterally,although everything was tight. So she obvioulsy had to opt to ride another bike....

Anyway, I'm glad that you got the situation resolved, at least once the deraiileur arrives!

[thekarens]

Now if you lived here in Houston you could practically live with a single speed 24/7. I think I rode my bike for over 6 months only using 3 gears. It wasn't until we took a trip a little farther west that I discovered what those other gears were for :)

It's nice that you have a live in bike mech to handle these things. Hopefully it will be back in action soon.

[DebW]

I had a the jockey wheel tension spring break on a rear derailleur once. With a sagging chain, I could still coast downhills and pedal slowly on the flats but had to walk the uphills.

[OakLeaf]

Out of curiosity, about how many miles were on that FD? I've never heard of that either.

[Sky King]

"alot":) I don't track my miles but I have had Sky since 2009 (I think) or 2008 and while she gets regular checkups the front derailleur isn't something I think about and I don't know that I would have noticed a problem anyway. So my guess is well over 10,000 miles. Is a Shimano but not sure of the exact model number. So far I've only missed my small chain ring once but have been staying in the "flats"

Out of curiosity, about how many miles were on that FD? I've never heard of that either.