Steel is real..

I was driving the support vehicle for the Mazama ride this weekend, a mountain pass ride that goes through several different weather zones. about 10 miles into the ride, I found a guy in trouble. It seems his derailleur got bent in the shop and he could only use certain gears.. He thought he only had to muscle up a few more miles to the rest stop, it it turns out he had about 10 miles to go and eventually the riders that were with him caught up to me there and told me to pick him up.
The derailleur bent further because of his powerful stroke and it actually bent the derailleur hanger, a piece of steel on his bike. It drew the derailleur into the spokes and he fell over, his bike completely non functional. His ride was over that day, but he went into Winthrop to the bike shop there and 2 hours later, they had replaced the derailleur and bent the derailleur hanger back to where it should be.
He finished sunday's ride (with some more heavy duty climbing ) with all of his gears!!!