Grrr... bike tried to kill me*

[bigandclever]

* slight exaggeration

Pedalling along, as you do, changed up to the big ring and heard a clank from the back end and the rear wheel locked solid. Turned out that the front derailleur had rotated/twisted sideways and had managed to dig itself into the middle of the rear tyre. After ages trying to coax the derailleur out of the tyre, the 'fix' was to take the seat tube out and tt the derailleur back into position. This (of course) seems to have terminally knackered the whole setup, although it was stuffed anyway. So now I'm stuck in one gear.

Just after some thoughts on how this would've happened. Considering the bike is 5 months old, and I've had nothing but grief from slipping gears, phantom gear changes and the like, it's going back to the shop for a replacement anyway, but it would be good to have some ideas on what to rant about

I was hoping to have a moan about SRAM, since this is the first bike I've had without a complete Shimano setup, but it seems that the front derailleur is a Shimano LX jobby. So I can't even have a go at SRAM

[wildoliver]

Nothing wrong with Sram, and despite my general disdain towards Shimano this isn't a component fault but a maintenance fault. Either the wrong size mech was used for the down tube allowing it to be loose, or it wasn't properly tightened allowing it to twist, although I would have thought it would have moved vertically first according to the cable pull.

It could well be this has been the source of all your problems if it has been moving around.

[mat205125]

Where did you buy the bike from?

I'd guess that the problem (assuming the bike is a half proper brand) is most likely the muppets in the store not assembling the bike properly when taking it out of the packaging / box.

[bigandclever]

I think the whole unit probably wasn't tight enough, considering I couldn't move it round by hand (and of course I'd left my multi tool at home so couldn't slacken off a bolt, rotate back, re-tighten) but a quick tap with the seat post moved it back no problem. Now whether it's worked loose over time, or was never tight enough/aligned properly in the first place, I don't know. What I do know it's made a mess of my tyre and the derailleur is now kaput. It's going back to the shop for a replacement, whether they like it or not.

As far as Sram vs Shimano goes, I guess it's that age old dilemma; you spend years using one manufacturer exclusively with no problems, and as soon as you move to another you start getting issues, so therefore it's obvious to blame the new stuff.

Oh, and it's a Commencal Meta 5.2 that I luuuurve.

Edited by bigandclever on Monday 29th January 11:39

[mat205125]

Take it back to the same shop to see whether they'll do the work for nothing, or consider going to a different shop to have the work done.