Parts is parts. Parts is pieces.

Moving to GJ has really let us get out more. One downside we are discovering is that we are breaking more bike things than ever before. By that I mean more THIS SPRING than in the past 5 years! We also seem to be particularly hard on hubs. Here's a sampling.

First was our tandem rear hub. We were riding with some friends from Denver when suddenly pedaling no longer moved the bike forward. Looking inside the hub showed this:

You can see the deformed metal where the little cylindrical piece is. That is where the pawls seat into the freehub. Years of grinding up steep hills had damaged where they seat. It also damaged them!

The one on the right has the most normal shape, except it should still be connected to the little cylindrical part in Picture #1. All the pawls had snapped, probably not at the same time - first one then when the stress of contact was spread over two instead of three, it overloaded another one. The last survivor (my guess is the really bent one) held on until it couldn't take it any more. Both of these are easily replaceable, but sadly the drive ring (toothy part) that is screwed into the hub shell was cracked (about 9 o'clock in the photo). This part is really hard to replace.


Shortly after getting a new hub for the tandem, we were riding with friends from Denver (again!) when something went wrong while climbing. Looking back we saw that our rear derailleur had broken.

This usually happens when a stick gets caught somewhere in it, but we don't have many sticks so it just decided to fall off.

Next was my single bike. First a bearing went out in my bottom bracket. Not catastrophic, but moderately costly to replace. Then came my rear hub. We were in Durango riding with friends (we have to stop doing this, it's killing our bikes!) and during a short, hard climb my pedals started slipping forward whenever I tried to put pressure on them. In this case the drive ring which is threaded into the hub shell (similar to the tandem design) had stripped out the threads and now could spin around inside the hub. Also not fixable.


Now it was Heather's turn! Heather is really not hard on parts. In fact we make jokes about the one time she actually wore out a tire. Anyhow, I was cleaning her bike when I noticed that when the rear wheel was spinning, the rear cassette tried to rotate as well. It should just sit there if the chain is on. I thought that it might have just gotten really dirty since I have never actually cleaned anything in there. When I pulled off the cassette I found some fishing line wrapped around the freehub body. As I pulled out a few feet of line, I could tell that it had gotten down around the axle as well. Since I don't have those tools, and because I though the Bike Shop employees would get a kick out of it, I took it in to the shop. The next day it was all fixed and they gave me this:

They were surprised and amused. And made several comments about getting Shimano fishing products confused with Shimano biking products.

That's where we are at now. I ordered a new wheelset for my bike since I have long suspected that I am a bit too heavy and clumsy for the really light one I had. Then ordered a new hub for the light (broken) set and will put it on Heather's bike to let her try to break it. Hopefully we can get everything going by next weekend as we hope to camping in Crested Butte as a scouting trip for when SCAQ are here.