bike explosion!

[dpopiz]

true story:

this morning I was riding my bike and it was making a ricketty sound in the gears, so I was fiddling with the shifters a little bit to get the chain properly aligned and suddenly I hear all this racket and come lurching to a stop as several small and large pieces of the bike come flying off in all directions.
I looked around for the pieces and found some of them but not all. Then I looked back at my bike and saw that not only the chain but the entire rear derailer had completely come off and moved several inches to become tangled in the spokes of the rear wheel.
The rear wheel was this completely immobilized, so I had to walk it home by balancing the whole thing veritcally on the front wheel.

 

[FrustratedUser]

:camera:

 

[dpopiz]

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser
:camera:

wish I had a camera

 

[FoBoT]

were you injured?

 

[crab]

Brutuskend assembled it, didn't he?

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I would think the likeliest explanation is that a piece of road debris (it can be something pretty small) wedged into the lower rear derailleur pulley, breaking the cage off the derailleur. It could be worse - this can physically rip the derailleur hanger off the frame, effectively destroying it.

 

[biostud]

remember to tighten your bolts