Snapped hanger on new bike

wimbedon99

Hi Folks,

I'm new to both road cycling and the forum and am looking for some advice re. a snapped rear hanger.

I was out today on a bike that I purchased new about 4 weeks ago when everything just locked up. When I looked, I realised the rear hanger had snapped and it led to a buckled wheel, bent front chain ring, damaged rear derailleur and some paint damage. Not sure how I managed to get away unscathed but I did. I was cycling on a slight incline, had not changed gear and the bike has not had any knocks. In fact, she's received better care than my car!!

Anyhow, the shop have the bike now and they said they will look to see if the work can be covered under the warranty. My view is that there should be no other option! I've lost a bit of faith in my choice of bike (Cannonade Synapse) now but I'm hoping the shop will do the right thing.

The questions I have are:

1: Does anyone have any idea what could have caused the failure?
2: Where do I stand if the shop say they won't carry out the work under warranty?

Cheers

sloppyschleckonds

!. JRA
2. Outside the shop waving a wad of money

Garry H

Usual cause of that is user error.

bristolpete

Tricky one, but without stoking the fire, it could be that the mech was bent / misalinged out of the box since purchase and the 4 weeks of use have led to this, However, it is hearsay for us to write this at best.

The best bet is to have a reasonable chat with your LBS and come to an agreement regards getting the bike sorted and back out there. Mech's generally don't break or bend, unless serious damage / force twists it. The hangers do - some people call them 'frame savers' - made from malleable alloy - to bend / break on impact, thus save the frame and the rear mech so this sounds 'normal'. The only caveat that could be shop error is that the indexing / gearing was poorly set up but you would likely have picked this up on the maiden voyage.

Finally, worth noting that if running 11 speed, use the block wisely, use the inner chain ring more and trim the gears as much as required. A simple one too, but unload the pedals slightly as you change, certainly if gearing up or down when climbing.

Hope it all works out. Very painful, but don't not enjoy the bike - they are superb machines.

Monty Dog

Hard to detect the sequence of events when presented with a mangled pile of metal but usual causes are a weakened hanger due to crash / damage in transit or a transmission jam, often due to a forced shift under load. Good luck with pursuing your claim but 99% of these incidents are not due a manufacturing or product defect but down to something that the user has done.

wimbedon99

Thanks for the replies folks.

The bike has been ridden on what I would term as flat ground and has not taken a knock at any time. Hence, I guess I must take from the helpful replies that it could have been damaged prior to the time of collection.

Fingers crossed that the shop concurs

Cheers

jgsi

Well.. you sound like a new cyclist who thinks that bikes are like cars.... maybe I'm being a little harsh but knowing the mechanics of the bike can help in understanding that you dont trust some bike shop monkeys to be able to set a bike up properly.
Truth is , Mechs dont break unless something was seriously fkked up. If you dont understand , then the cost of repairs is incentive enough to get a bike manual and learn.
If you think getting a car warranty honoured is tough work, you aint seein nothing yet when it comes to the bike sector in swerving.

cougie

You weren't changing gear?
You weren't climbing a hill?

And no hills in a month? Where is this wonderful place you live!

giropaul

I mangled a rear mech very early in the ownership of my first derailleur bike. Hangers were steel back then, so mech took the damage. Entirely my lack of a experience. It did get me to a bike shop, who is hen got this 14 year old into the wonderful sport/ lifestyle of cycling, and I was racing within a week.
Maybe there's something to be said for putting the bike on a turbo on handover, with some skill training.
I was out with a fairly new rider the other day. They thought that I he big ring was default, and was trying to use the big/big ratios - a recipe for damage.

First.Aspect

cougie wrote:

You weren't changing gear?
You weren't climbing a hill?

And no hills in a month? Where is this wonderful place you live!

Surely the hills make it fun?

Could have been the chain was too short (gear can then jam when they are crossed). Could have been a bent hanger in transit. Chain could have been bounced off somehow on rough road, and everything bollickssed up by pedaling through at that stage - which would be "user error". Rear wheel might not have been in straight, etc. etc.

So, have a constructive convo with LBS. Regardless of cause, they might take the far sighted view and help you out more than they strictly need to, so they have a potential customer back on the road.

Pituophis

I have to admit that I have had it happen once.
The bike had never been dropped/crashed and was well maintained. The gears were not under any particularly unusual strain either! I was pulling away from lights, in a perfectly "normal/acceptable" gear for that manoeuvre (far from new to cycling at that point), but the extra force just happened to be enough to cause the chain/gears to snag up!?
It obviously had to be "something" that I had done, but what it was, I genuinely don't know?
Was there something caught up in the chain momentarily? Was the alignment out briefly? Had my own poor technique been weakening the hanger over a period of time, until it eventually gave?
It has never happened in the years since, and I have not changed the way I ride in any way, so I have to put it down to "one of those things".
I do carry a spare now though, just in case! :roll:

wimbedon99

Pituophis wrote:

I have to admit that I have had it happen once.

I do carry a spare now though, just in case! :roll:

I think I'll be doing the same thing moving forward!

wimbedon99

JGSI wrote:

Well.. you sound like a new cyclist who thinks that bikes are like cars.... the cost of repairs is incentive enough to get a bike manual and learn.

Many thanks JGSI - Can you recommend a good manual??

bristolpete

Youtube. All on there. DId you get it sorted ?

wimbedon99

bristolpete wrote:

Youtube. All on there. DId you get it sorted ?

Thanks - I had a good look round YouTube a while ago and like the GCN videos

Spoke to the shop today. As the bike is only a few weeks old they have confirmed they'll repair the lot under the warranty - maybe even provide a new replacement.

I'm now wondering to stay with the bike or look at alternative manufacturers :?

veronese68

wimbedon99 wrote:

I'm now wondering to stay with the bike or look at alternative manufacturers :?

It's not the bike's fault, that's no reason to change.

apreading

Count your blessings. The shop obviously did a good job negotiation with the manufacturer/distributor.

If the bike rode fine and all the gears worked for 4 weeks then there was nothing wrong with it to start with, its something that happened recently. Whether it took a knock leaning it against something, got kicked, stick got caught up in the gears or chain came off and locked up - something happened that was not a manufacturer defect and you were just fortunate that it was new enough and the shop looked kindly on you.

Its rare but it can happen to any bike. Its meant to happen to protect the rest of the bike. No reason to switch to a different bike because they all have the same design in this respect.

cougie

FWIW never happened to me in 30 years but the hanger is meant to snap to save the frame.

Something has happened to the bike since you originally bought it.

wimbedon99

Folks,

Really appreciate the feedback but I can't be more adamant that nothing has happened to the bike in the time I've had it. It's been wheeled into the house after every ride (and cleaned, degreased and lubed after every other ride).

I'm now awaiting a replacement and will hopefully never have to experience this again.

Cheers

apreading

Adamant or not, its the laws of physics - something HAS happened to it, it wouldnt have snapped otherwise. You might not have noticed, but something did happen. Perhaps it hit the door frame when being wheeled into the house, or a stick got ingested in just the wrong place during the ride. Whether you noticed or not something did happen. If it was broken 4 weeks ago when delivered then it would not have lasted this long with no sign of anything wrong.

wimbedon99

apreading wrote:

Adamant or not, its the laws of physics - something HAS happened to it, it wouldnt have snapped otherwise. You might not have noticed, but something did happen. Perhaps it hit the door frame when being wheeled into the house, or a stick got ingested in just the wrong place during the ride. Whether you noticed or not something did happen. If it was broken 4 weeks ago when delivered then it would not have lasted this long with no sign of anything wrong.

OK - I bow to your knowledge


No matter, it's being sorted by the shop

wimbedon99

Picking up the bike this weekend following the repairs.

In addition, the shop offered an upgraded set of wheels at 70% discount and a free set of GP 4000s II's to go with them by way of an apology for the issue and the hassle.

Now THAT'S service

FishFish

apreading wrote:

Count your blessings. The shop obviously did a good job negotiation with the manufacturer/distributor.

The distributor is not relevant. Buyer has a contract with seller. Seller has contract with distributor who in turn has a contract with the manufacturer. The issue is between buyer and shop and that is it. I agree that they are all too willing to bring someone else in to the loop but in truth the retailers (all retailers of all products) know consumer law back to front but just like to play cute and pretend they don't.

apreading

FishFish wrote:

apreading wrote:

Count your blessings. The shop obviously did a good job negotiation with the manufacturer/distributor.

The distributor is not relevant. Buyer has a contract with seller. Seller has contract with distributor who in turn has a contract with the manufacturer. The issue is between buyer and shop and that is it. I agree that they are all too willing to bring someone else in to the loop but in truth the retailers (all retailers of all products) know consumer law back to front but just like to play cute and pretend they don't.

Distributor IS relevant here because the shop didnt have to fix the bike, they could easily (and we could debate whether justifiably) have claimed it was not a defect and nothing to do with them. They almost certainly negotiated with the manufacturer/distributor that they would cover it under warranty before offering to do so. If the distributor had said no, the bike shop quite possibly wouldnt have agreed to do the work.

slowbike

apreading wrote:

FishFish wrote:

apreading wrote:

Count your blessings. The shop obviously did a good job negotiation with the manufacturer/distributor.

The distributor is not relevant. Buyer has a contract with seller. Seller has contract with distributor who in turn has a contract with the manufacturer. The issue is between buyer and shop and that is it. I agree that they are all too willing to bring someone else in to the loop but in truth the retailers (all retailers of all products) know consumer law back to front but just like to play cute and pretend they don't.

Distributor IS relevant here because the shop didnt have to fix the bike, they could easily (and we could debate whether justifiably) have claimed it was not a defect and nothing to do with them. They almost certainly negotiated with the manufacturer/distributor that they would cover it under warranty before offering to do so. If the distributor had said no, the bike shop quite possibly wouldnt have agreed to do the work.

Not wanting to bash what appears to have been a good LBS (and we do want them on side) - the contract was between the retailler and the consumer - the consumer has 6 months where if any unexplained breakages occur it's up to the retailler to prove it wasn't at fault at the time of supply - beyond that the consumer must prove that it was (both with the usual reasonableness tests).
At no time does the manufacturer or distributor need to come into this - they choose to do so as it protects their brand.
(all my understanding of UK consumer law - may be flawed - if so - tell me!)

wimbedon99

FishFish wrote:

apreading wrote:

Count your blessings. The shop obviously did a good job negotiation with the manufacturer/distributor.

The distributor is not relevant. Buyer has a contract with seller. Seller has contract with distributor who in turn has a contract with the manufacturer. The issue is between buyer and shop and that is it. I agree that they are all too willing to bring someone else in to the loop but in truth the retailers (all retailers of all products) know consumer law back to front but just like to play cute and pretend they don't.

This was my stance and the shop Manager was in total agreement.

They said the failure was not my fault; especially as it happened before the '6 week service'. They were apologetic and a real pleasure to deal with. Whilst needing to speak with the distributor re. parts, they were in no way dependant upon them for sorting the problems.

Things have ended up brilliantly. I have an upgraded bike for the fraction of the cost (which is an unexpected bonus) and they have a very happy customer.