A triple whammy within a mile.

[Gearoidmuar]

Riding an Orbea Terra gravel bike, year and a half old today.
32 mile hilly route. 25m into route, I get this vague rattly noise. Eventually spot broken spoke on cluster side. Wind around other spoke.
One mile later, chain breaks. I'd inspected it at start of ride, was fine. Turned bike upside down and got out my chainbreaker. Didn't have spare pin but did a perfect fix on this 10 speed chain within 5 mins. Delighted with myself. Went to pedal off.
Wheel wouldn't turn. What the hell. Took some inspection to spot the problem. The broken spoke had become free and had managed to get stuck in one of the holes of the brake disc. What?!! yes. Took it out altogether. Now sorted! No.
Tried to pedal off. Pedal crank getting blocked by something.
The front derailleur, Shimano GRX had cracked at its upper pivot and was blocking the crank.
I've never heard of, or had such an occurrence before.
Managed to buy a replacement derailleur this afternoon. Will replace cluster (has had 3 chains through it) derailleur chain and gear cable as I'm at it, tomorrow.
What caused what?

[Nearholmer]

Wow!

I wish you better luck next time.

[rjb]

Blame it on the Leprechauns.

[TheBomber]

What caused what?

The despicable things you did in a previous life caused all of them

[Gearoidmuar]

I was an evil leprechaun!

[cycle tramp]

What caused what?

Er.. the laws of probability... which suggest that if you only cycle a mile in your life, then that will probably never happen, but the more miles you cycle the greater the probability is that a multiple break down will occur...

..I guess most of us here are lucky, something breaks or needs replacing and then partway through the repair we notice part x, y or z is also on its way out and we fix that at the same time....

[axel_knutt]

I recently calculated that I've had a component break on average about every 6,000 miles. The nearest I've been to a multiple breakdown is front and rear punctures at the same time independently of each other, one a piece of grit, the other an old patch lifted.

[roubaixtuesday]

Blimey. What <i>[rude word removed]</i> luck!

[rjb]

It's possible the broken front derailleur caused all your problems.
Derailleur fails and the chain pulls it into the wheel causing the spoke breakage. At the same time due to the angle of the cage it twists the chain causing that to fail too. The broken spoke going in to the brake disc was just unlucky.
If you had a single speed set up it would never have happened. I'll get my coat and helmet.

[Cowsham]

I had a row with the wife -- sorry gearoidmuar

[simonhill]

The laws of probability.

If I've got this right then this will happen at sometime to someone.

Thanks mate for taking the hit. That's another few million miles the rest of us are safe for.

[Gearoidmuar]

I've got to fix it today, though I've several bikes.
Take rear wheel off, remove tyre and rim tape, remove old spoke head, remove cluster. Replace spoke, true wheel (I'm very good with wheels) replace rim tape and tyre. Pump the tyre. Put on new cluster. Cut old gear wire. Remove front derailleur, replace. Peel back gearlever rubber, replace wire, which is fiddly. Put on new derailleur, adjust the thing until it works perfectly having replaced the chain.
I'm losing the will to live having seen all that!
Why don't I take it to the shop?
I was very big into bike touring and I intend to tour this year, having had 5y with no tour (I've done about 87), and being able to do most things is a big help. I've twice had to buy a new rim and rebuild a wheel by the roadside on a tour. Cracked rims. And, coincidence of coincidences, both were bought on different tours in a bike shop in Broadford on the Isle of Skye!

[531colin]

Spokes break from fatigue, particularly in wheels which haven't been adequately stress-relieved.
Broken spoke stopping the disc brake is just where it went....I haven't broken a spoke in at least 30 years, certainly not on a disc bike!

Chain link parted, snagged the F. mech and broke it....I had that happen once.
Moral of that story.....use a joining link, don't re-rivet any chain with "peened-over" rivets....thats just about every chain these days!

IMG_5481 by 531colin, on Flickr

Thats the business end of my rivet tool, showing the broken-off "peened over" bits of rivets from shortening 8 speed chains.

Leprechaun are the fairies shoemakers; but the F. mech. going into the back wheel is a fairy tale!

[Gearoidmuar]

I seldom break a spoke but this was a wheel on a shop bike and I didn't build it. I'm totally into stress relieving, Colin. I have Jobst Brandt's Book, the Bicycle wheel and have built quite a few wheels. The spoke didn't break at the disk but on the cluster side and it didn't go into the disk hole till later. I don't know if the chain did the damage or the derailleur, but I examined all the chain before the ride and saw nothing.

This morning I replaced the spoke and put on a new gear cluster. Getting lost spoke head out of the rim was a pain. Rolling it on the floor eventually brought it out. I took off the chain and the old derailleur. I had enough at that stage. Will do the rest tomorrow. New wire, new derailleur and new chain. I use links when I have them and they're great.

The front mech went into no wheel, but it could've caused the chain to break. It was a violent looking break...

[offroader]

My personal bests in the what next category:-
Many moons ago on a coast to coast I snapped a chain and managed to run it over which bent the rear mech into the wheel. Luckily running over the chain stopped the wheel turning so no spokes were damaged. I was able to straighten the 90° bend in the chain and single speed to a bike shop
A few less years ago I was pootling round the Algarve hills on a supermarket special mtb when I broke a spoke. I wrapped it up, trued the wheel and carried on for 20 mins or so until the nds crank arm fell off. Fixed that with the Alabama hammer and turned tail for home. By the time I'd mostly single legged it home the bottom bracket had disintegrated with 1/2 the drive side balls death star shaped.
Then there was the time only a couple of years back where I got 6 or 7 punctures at once - failed to spot that the blackthorn hedgerows had been flailed riding a dirt road at night until the clunk-scrape clunk-scrape of something fouling the mudguard brought me to a halt. Used one (of two) spare tube and half a box of GP-2s before carrying on. It was only a couple of miles to the now inevitable Smurf arrow puncture...

There's lots more bad/memorable day moments including an unforgettable improvised shin repair, some brown chamois wildlife encounters and a painfully spectacular failed superman exam just before xmas but those are the most "what next" rides

There are even more great/memorable moments which make it all worth while