veganbikes

Woosh you don't know much cool! Good to continue confirming that.

You clearly don't know in your single riding experience but it's cool. Some people know certain things and others know other things.

njkayaker

Stop saying stupid crap about things you are having trouble following.

njkayaker

It's possible (even if it's unlikely). The problem is that suggesting it's typical.

veganbikes

You accidentally quoted me when you were talking with yourself. It is a mistake that people can make. It is an odd one granted but I am sure someone has done it in the history of forums.

Jno

Apparently the supposed benefit to udh is less that it is one more type of hanger, with its own benefits and shortcomings, and more that derailleurs can then be bolted directly to frame (not like Shimano’s “direct mount” but actually directly). Sram has a new (wildly expensive) system to make use of the possibility. Because it is fixed so exactly to one spot, they can do away with limit screws. It is popping up on some spiffy but impractical (for me) bike packing frames and I’m planning a trip that, naturally, “needs” n+ 1

staehpj1

Yes, I never doubted that it happened. I was kind of shocked by the number though. In addition to my own bikes, I have maintained a bunch of bikes for friends and family over the years. Given that I have been a very active rider over the decades as have some of my family and that I am 72 that amounts to a lot of bikes and a lot of miles. I have never replaced a bent deraileur and have rarely seen even a bent one. The one experience with it was a guy I was travelling with on the Southern Tier who did bend one on a brand new bike and ultimately needed a replacement. He apparently bent it multiple times on the trip. He had all manner of problems with the bike including wheel problems. He had delays at multiple shops while he dealt with getting parts and arguing with the manufacturer over warranty issues. He had a wheel replacement and a hanger replecement covered under warranty, The mechanic at one shop blamed the Bob trailer stressing the rear triangle with all of the issues.

I'd think that supplying an extra hanger with every bike would mean 99.9% would never be needed and many of the ones that would be would be lost long before they were needed. Making the hanger an inexpensive part and making it quickly available when needed is what they should do.

Tourist in MSN

Yeah, it was a surprise to me when so many rear derailleurs would not shift well. The two guides had touring bikes, and I had my folding bike. Everyone else had road bikes, which makes sense because it was a van supported trip, you only had to carry your water and lunch so it was the type of trip that most people would bring a road bike. Almost all the bikes had been shipped there, either on a plane or by a shipper. And shipping a bike is a good way to bend something. The road bikes that had been packed and shipped or flew by airline were the ones with bent hangers. There were a few fairly new bikes, but a lot of ones that had a lot of miles on them without much care.

Two people had Ritchey Breakaway bikes, they packed their bikes themselves for the flight. One had a front derailleur that was out of adjustment but both of the Ritcheys had good shifting rear derailleurs. I was so impressed with the Break Away bikes, that I bought one a few months after the trip.

The ACA van had a bike stand, but their tools left a lot to be desired. I was using my tools for almost everything and I did not plan on that so did not have a lot of tools. I had to borrow a tool from someone because my spoke wrenches would not fit the nipples on one of the wheels that needed truing.

Tourist in MSN

This is the touring forum. Since most of the touring bikes have steel frames and most steel frames do not have replaceable hangers, I suspect that most people that are touring have no need for a replaceable hanger. My medium duty touring bike has a steel frame without a replaceable hanger. And my heavy touring bike has no hanger, uses an IGH instead. My Lynskey (titanium) and my folding bike (aluminum) are the only bikes I have ever owned with replaceable hangers.

The first tour I did with ACA, one rider had a bad bottom bracket. Was a new bike, the manufacturer shipped a new bottom bracket to a bike shop on the route. And one rider had a front derailleur fail, it either had a spring break or the stop for the spring broke, I do not recall which. I used a piece of bunge cord to make it shift again, but the bunge was a lot weaker than the spring so downshifts were quite slow.

My point is that on one tour with a dozen bikes, would you expect both a bottom bracket and a front derailleur to break? Unlikely things happen. But one out of six bikes having a serious failure is unusual.

I advised the owner of the broken front derailleur to replace it at a bike shop in Waterton, but he kept using it until he got home. I did not think that the bunge cord would last as long as it did, I had to stretch it pretty tight to make it work.

staehpj1

I was wondering how the bends occured, but that makes sense. OTOH, that kind of damage really should be pretty rare with care in packing. A carefully packed bike is fairly hard to bend the hanger on without destroying the box.

cyccommute 

The universal derailer hanger is actually pretty smart. There are more than 400 different derailer hangers out there…DerailleurHanger.com has 33 pages of them. Every manufacture has its own design and even the different models within their line may have different derailer hangers. It’s a nightmare to find a replacement. The UDH is more than a “bandaid fix”. It solves a very large problem…albeit way too late.

SRAM offered up the idea as a free open technology without licensing which is good on them. They did have a bit of an ulterior motive in that they then designed a derailer that essentially doesn’t need a hanger but conveniently fits on bikes that are built for the UDH. By all reports I’ve read, the new derailer is a marvel in that it is far less delicate and shifts under load better, even to the point of shifting best under load.

My only problem with them is that they come on bikes that I don’t want to own with gearing I don’t want. Modern “touring bikes” are harkening back to the bad old days of slapping rack mounts on what is essentially a race bike and telling people to go tour on it. Been there, done that, don’t wanna go back.

cyccommute 

What does a broken hub have to do with derailer bikes? IGH can break hubs and those would be just a difficult…no, far more difficult… to source a replacement. IGH is far more rare than derailer bikes. And what do pedals have to do with the discussion at all? Last I heard, IGH uses pedals as well. If the bike don’t got pedals, it’s not a bicycle.

Tourist in MSN

I remove the rear derailleur when I pack a bike.

I worked in a bike shop during the past millenium, had no clue how bikes are packed by manufacturers these days. That is until 2018 when I opened up my new road bike box, a Ritchey Break Away badged as a Raleigh. Bought it at Amazon so I took it out of the box, not a bike shop mechanic at a shop.

Rear derailleur was attached to frame (steel, no separate hanger). Chain was on biggest sprocket so the derailleur did not stick out more than it needed to. A plastic spacer was attached to the skewer to hold the side of the box away from the derailleur. That spacer made a lot of sense. I can see why derailleur was attached to the frame, everything was in perfect adjustment at the factory and was still in adjustment when I put it all together. (Front derailleur was close but needed a tweak to adjustment.) If derailleur was not attached, it might need an adjustment on assembly, even if it had been adjusted before.

mstateglfr 

Noted.

tcs

Still rockin' 70s music on vinyl. Cycletour on the Varsity? Hard pass.

tcs

Yeah (strokes grey beard, nods). Seems like an advancement.

tcs

"wants drivetrain to be future proof"

Sturmey-Archer AW. Remains in production after 87 years. Rebuilt my WWII-era AW with factory-new parts a few years back.

niknak

As far as I know 12-speed derailleurs aren't more fragile than others. They were first introduced in the mountain bike world, which is much harsher on derailleurs than other disciplines.

I've personally never wrecked a rear derailleur but have broken two front derailleurs, both 11-speed, one from Shimano and one from Sram.

As far as UDH goes, there's no reason for touring bikes to adopt it. But there's really no downside to having it either. It'll eventually make it to road and gravel frames because Sram already has spec sheets for a drop bar version of their Transmission.

Polaris OBark

We've probably just had bad luck with them. The death toll includes two GX Eagles, one XT and one SLX, all 12-speed. I probably have about 6 11-speed derailleurs and a few 10 and 9 speed ones on bikes, in some cases for more than a decade. The worst thing to happen to any of those is needing to replace the pulleys on a 9 year old Di2 Ultegra rear derailleur.

(As for the initial comment, I was half asleep. What I meant was that the direct-mount Transmission 12-speed derailleur (which uses a UDH compatible mount, from what I understand), I think is a response ("band-aid") to the fragility of 12-speed drivetrains.)

Tourist in MSN

I have not damaged a rear derailleur on a bike, but I did buy a used rear XT at a bike swap that I did not realize was damaged. Put it on a bike for a long ride. Shifting was not quite right. Figured out that someone had bent the cage. With a big vice and some other big tools, got it aligned right. But it was pretty clear that someone must have hit something pretty hard to do that.

staehpj1

Perhaps just a weird coincidence, but I have broken a bunch of front derailleurs and don't recall breaking a rear one. I know I haven't in decades, but likely did way back in the distant past. Most of the FD failures were due to them being made with too little material where the spring was held by a little nub in the casting. I think they just tried to keep them as light as possible and trimmed weight where they shouldn't have. These were in the 7 and 9 speed days and were shimanos.

I guess maybe it depends on what you want on your touring bike. My ideal touring bike looks more like a gravel bike than a traditional touring bike.

GamblerGORD53

So here's my update on the world traveler guy, his YT is > The Sunday Ride.
His bike is a Cube something. It has thru axle hubs of course. He was down 5 spokes before he got a new wheel. All they had was a 20H race wheel. LOL.
A machinist did rethread his left pedal ok. Haven't seen his latest videos in India.
And then 3 buddies joined him for 2 weeks. One of them got his mini velo hit by a car. He was not hurt but the frame snapped both tubes at the head tube. LOL. Got welded and on their way.

Yesterday I found a couple more deFaileur guys. Both had heavy rear loads.
One was a new tourer 55+ from Sacramento doing the Pac NW. He broke 1 or 2 spokes three times, about $65. Still a POS budget bike.
The other was two 30s inexperienced guys doing Vietnam. They bought likely 650B bikes for $500 in Hanoi. They started the hard way to the mountains from Hanoi, then went to the beaches, but made it most of the way I think and finished in Saigon.
1,931 km > 6 flats, 14 broken spokes, 2 broken racks and 1 new tire. LOL. They still had lots of fun and clowning around.

robow

Hey, I resemble that remark. I may not have the one I need but I'm sure I have the one for a bike that I no longer own : (