Hanging On

Following on from the hit post before Christmas about a second view of the trip to Wales here’s some more thoughts from a mountain biker starting to rediscover the whole world of bikes.

Rear mech hangers - what the hell are they? Hazy memories of the bits of bike maintenance I did in my teens, before the long hiatus, suggest that they may not even have been used at the time. It certainly seemed like a new concept to me when I got halfway up a hill in a glorious part of Wales in hedge-trimming time of year and got a stick caught in my gears that ripped the hanger in half. I freewheeled off the hill with my chain in my bag and my derailleur in my pocket, left my bike at the Welsh Venison Centre and hitchhiked (or, as it’s known in that part of Wales, ‘walked’) the four miles back to the van.

Research yielded the fact that there seems to be not just no standard fitting but no standard at all in derailleur hangers. I expected to be able to look up the specs for the bike and find a little note saying ‘rear mech hanger: M type’ or something. Not so much.

So, after staring blankly at websites devoted entirely to selling hangers, and seeking the advice of a Local Bike Shop, I reasoned that perhaps buying a cheap replacement was the way forward - after all, it’s an intentionally breakable part, what difference could quality make, really?

During the first ride with the new hanger, I managed a comic still-getting-used-to-clipless-pedals fall and the hanger bent. Deciding that perhaps cheap parts were cheap for a reason I replaced the hanger at the trail centre bike shop and rode on.

Shortly afterwards I was riding a clear, flat, entirely unchallenging section of singletrack and something (still no idea what) happened that ripped the hanger in half, bent my derailleur cage, and broke my chain. I limped halfway back to the car park with the bike jury-rigged as a singlespeed, and then the rest of the way freewheeling after the chain broke again.

Sod this, I thought, and took it to a bike shop for repair.

So far, with a new chain, chainset, rear mech, and hanger, so good.

How exactly did I go through four hangers in the space of a month and a half? Was it just ill luck? Am I so bad at maintenance that I mounted the middle two completely wrong? How is that even possible with a part that bolts on securely to the frame at one end and the derailleur at the other? What is there to get wrong? I’m still mystified.

If you like this sort of stuff I suggest you pop over to The Bad Mountain Biker’s Guide where there’s more of the same. Expect more cross-posting this year.

A