yankeefan

Yesterday I stopped at a cafe on the way home and as soon as I stepped outside I heard a cracking sound. I lifted up my right foot and lo and behold a piece of my cleat was laying on the ground. I couldn't stay clipped in for the life of me even though I dialed up the release tension to its max. The good news was that I was pretty close to a train stop so I took the train home. It would have been a nightmare if I was out in the suburbs when this happened. Funny enough, I have kool kovers but I always forget to bring them with me. Don't think I'll ever make that mistake again.

A friend of mine broke his quick release skewer while he was out riding; he had a flat and after changing his tubes and putting the wheel back into the fork he over-tightened the skewer and it snapped. He had to beg a passing group of cyclists to ride to the nearest bike shop, buy him a skewer and ride back.

Elvo

Forgot to start Strava

caloso

RD exploded.

bt

realized tire was at 90psi instead of 100

hueyhoolihan

pedal eye broken on my American Classic (ca 1995) crank while riding. rode home (8 miles) one legged.

Bunyanderman

Chain got overthrown while sprinting down hill, not really a failure but it sure was not designed to do so.

seymour1910

First, your avatar is the shiznit.

Second, the bold portion is one of the cool things about this sport. I would have done the same thing to help get him back on the road. Good stuff.

seymour1910

CliffordK

I've broken a few chains. I think they've always been within about a mile of home, but I try to remember to bring a chain tool with me.

Broke deraileur cables... and was able to limp home.

Hmmm... lost my RD years ago. Just eaten by the spokes

Was up playing around on a 20 mile hill climb when my front brake cable started disintegrating. I don't think it completely fell apart, but I didn't have much stopping power left.

Severely bent rims before, I think the last time was falling into a road crack ad dusk... After that, I always thought of my Wolbers as Wobblers!!!

Oh, and the last time I tried hands-free riding, my front wheel flipped 90 degrees... I went over the handlebars, and had a good walk back home.

bikepro

More than likely, the RD didn't have enough capacity for the gearing.

Drew Eckhardt 

I collapsed an under-tensioned front wheel on a small bump.

prathmann

Front fork and wheel fell off. Steerer tube had cracked at the base and examination indicated that one of the balls in the bearing may have split with a portion of it cutting a groove into the steerer just above the bearing surface.

datlas 

Chain broke and the twisted link got caught in RD and ripped it off hanger.

RR3

Broken seat post. Ambulance ride. Still have pain 20+ years later

Broken saddle rails several times, chains, broken axles, broken downtube, broken freewheel, collapsed front wheel at 45 mph, fender dropout, touring racks broke. I don;t want to think about it.....there is also a broke elbow, fingers, and ribs somewhere in there.

The absolute worst was the humiliation of rolling a tire in front a lot of spectators after taking a Prime
about a million years ago.

Tunnelrat81

Just a couple broken shift cables at inopportune times during long rides. Nothing terribly noteworthy. One was the R/D cable at mile 50 of the Palm Springs Century.. The second was a F/D cable at mile 5 or so of a 80+ mile climbing group ride that I had organized. Thankfully the Palm Springs century is pan flat, so it was a non issue winding in my limit screw to the 3rd cog or so and riding it out. In the second case I still had the use of my R/D so I kept riding to the midpoint of the ride where it was mostly small ring riding anyway and stopped in Big Bear at a bikeshop to pick up a replacement cable. A few minutes later I was on my way with two new cables for the descent back into the valley.

-Jeremy

bt

thus the need for lbs'

KevinF

Broke a rear derailleur cable once... I had a choice of a 39x25 and a 53x25 to get home (I think those were my gears back then...). It was pretty hilly, and the 53x25 made a lot of racket, so the 39x25 got a lot of use. Spin like crazy on the flat parts to make it home.

I was riding with a friend once when she stopped to adjust her seatpost slightly and wound up snapping the binder bolt. We were at the top of Pinkham Notch, New Hampshire (base of Mt. Washington), so we stopped in the visitor center, grabbed a roll of duct tape and managed to wrap it up enough for it to hold long enough to limp to the nearest bike shop.

Absolutely shredded a tire once... only time I had to walk back to the car (although a passing car took pity on me and gave me a lift).

The first time I installed a new chain I apparently didn't do it correctly as it was jumping off (I think... long time ago now) every time I shifted after a while, so I had to get it into a useable gear and single-speed it back home. That was "fun".

Those are the ones that come to mind...

stlcowboyfan

that very thing happened to me. Riding home from work one day. Stopped at a red light and clipped out my right foot like usual. Light turns green...I go to clip in and the piece that goes into the pedal snaps clean off. I had bought (at the recommendation of a friend) a set of Nashbar carbon pedals...that came with cleats. After realizing I was screwed, I started off on my 2 mile walk home, pushing a bike, in road shoes. About a quarter of a mile into it...a Ford Ranger passes me and immediately pulls over and starts backing up on the shoulder. Guy hopped out, I told him what happened and without blinking he starts loading my bike in the bed of his truck...on top of his bike. He said he had just come from a crit. We talked about different stuff and he told me I should look into Speedplay. Got to my house. I have him the $5 that I always carry in my jersey pocket. He tells me about a group ride he does every Monday. I open up my garage, walk in the house and without even taking off my gear go straight to my laptop and order a set of yellow, Shimano cleats. Never again.

alexaschwanden

The worst ones were a cassette 9 speed clutch(paws) blew out so I had to walk 3.5 hours to the nearest train and take it home. Next was a chain that after so many miles snapped in half and I had a friend let me use his chain tool to fix it, I was 50 miles in the middle of nowhere. Last one, I had a 1-2 inch gash in my front tire and the brake pad catched the inner tube sticking out and popped it.

caloso

Nope. Standard 12-25 cassette I ride 90% of the time. It's a first generation Red RD, probably had 20K hard miles on it. My mechanic warned me that it had a lot of play and was on the way out, but stupid/cheap/lazy me tried to get a few more miles out of it. I was probably only putting 250w through it when it failed. I was lucky it didn't break any spokes or cause a crash.

colnago62

I sheared the non drive side crank arm off during a ride.

mtalinm

Snapped my front derailed 40 miles from home, trying to pedal uphill while it hardest gear.

Should have thought to put it in the middle ring and head home, but called my wife. She has not forgotten it.

mtalinm

Have also done that. Did not have tools to reattach so got onto the subway during rush hour, with tons of people staring at me. Happened to run into the one guy at work who has a set of bike tools, so I was able to ride home. My lucky day!

Full story here: Westwood Biker » Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket?

SlowerGuy

Number 1: freewheel mechanism broke and the bike turned into a fixed gear cycle.
That was really annoying esp. since it was at the bottom of a climb and hence a subsequent descent.
The only time I rode a fixed gear bike before was on rollers.
Oh well, it wasn't that bad as I could still ride home.

Number 2: freewheel mechanism broke and the bike turned into a "no gear" cycle.
So now I had a "push bike" (luckily there was no hill between my location and the place I had to go).
I tried to put a tyre lever through the spokes into the cassette but that didn't work, neither stones nor pieces of wood...
After pushing for a while I found a piece of string which was rather thin but surprisingly it held after I wrapped it around the cassette and through the spokes as I slowly rode back.

bbattle

My chain got jammed in my rear derailleur and I broke the chain. Luckily, I was only a mile or so from the end of the ride. I Fred Flintstoned it the rest of the way. I have since bought a couple of mini-tools that have a chaintool just in case.

I've had a few flat tires but that's no biggie. And the broken chain was due to old parts wearing out that should have been replaced before they got so bad.