The plan:

Ride 13 miles along the Downs Link in the morning to a pub, have lunch, ride back.

I let my friend ride on Colossus (my Specialized Hardrock), my other friend had his Cannondale F6, and I rode on Carnage (my Marin East Peak)

What happened:

It was a bitterly cold morning, we set off along the Downs Link and after about ten minutes my fingers were turning numb in my thin summer gloves. Eventually I borrowed my mate's very chunky motorcycle gloves that he had in his bag, which I was thankful for as they kept my fingers warm.

That wasn't the biggest problem facing us on the ride though. About 4 miles in, Colossus had terminal failure, the rear derailleur hanger snapped (probably due to the abuse I gave it in the summer, it did have a massive scrape on the rear derailleur). This jammed the rear derailleur into the back wheel/gears. I'm mechanically inept so I tinkered about with my multitool not knowing really what to do. In a few minutes I took off the chain (losing the pin) with the chain splitter, and used a lanyard to tie the derailleur to the frame.

The bike got pushed back to the nearest road while me and my other friend rode back, got his car and drove back to pick up the bike.

Here is a photo I took whilst riding past.


We carried on driving to the pub for lunch. I had kangaroo and red wine sausages with leek and mash.

Conclusion/Evaluation

1) I really need winter gloves for this cold weather!!
2) Always bring cable ties on a ride.
3) Spare hanger as well would be nice, and some spare pins/links.
4) Check the bike thoroughly before setting off. (I did actually do a quick check of chain, tyres etc.)

As I'm not entirely sure what I've done, I decided to leave the bike with my LBS for repair. I'm sure I could replace and refit the hanger and chain easily but I think I might have done something to the cable whilst being mechanically inept.