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D.I.R.T. Gear
Buddy Replacement Mech Hanger £5
(Pre-production)
Please Note this product is sadly no longer in production.
There is only
one component on most mountain bikes that's designed to fail. This
very small, light piece of metal will save your ride one day.
Shown way
larger than life size.
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Review D.I.R.T. Gear Buddy
This unassuming little piece of flat black steel is a top ride saver.
In all the guides it tells you that if you break your mech hanger
that's no problem. Just get out your chain splitter, break the chain
and re-join it around a favorite chain ring and cog to make a great
single-speed! Fantastic, except in our experience this invariably
results in a chain which jumps up or down the rear cogs and then jams
or seizes up your rear end. You jump off and force the chain back on to
the chosen cog again. Now repeat this a dozen times a mile and you can
see it's a pretty desperate bodge. The Gear Buddy (not invented by that
kook guy in the film Gremlins, honest...) is the first universal
emergency mech hanger replacement we've seen.
This is
what happens when your mech hanger breaks, like it's
supposed to.
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This is a
suggested bodge-fix.
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The smart thing
would be to always carry a genuine replacement part, wouldn't it?
Trouble is genuine hangers are expensive and easily lost whilst
rattling in your tool kit. The Gear Buddy is cheap, and it will fit
a friends bike if they break theirs. If you ride with friends the
chances of having the right hanger when one of the group whacks
their mech on a rock big time, is actually zero. There's more
chance of finding a spare in the gutter than in your tool bag. With the
Gear Buddy it becomes quite simple to remove the broken end of the
hanger, slip the replacement under your skewer and set up the gears as normal.
The 'temporary'
replacement is good enough to last you until you can get hold of a
genuine part. Highly recommended.
Dead easy
to fit and works like a charm.
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Latest
The design has been tweaked with the removal of the notches.
These were thought to be necessary at first, as the steel used might
have proved strong enough to cause frame damage during an impact.
This was found not to be the case and the product is better for it.
The price has been fixed at £4.99 and D.I.R.T. are looking for a
major distributor in the UK.
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