On 7/16/2018 5:42 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-07-16 12:46, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, July 16, 2018 at 10:19:52 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:

I've use rope to tow another rider. When the rear derailer gets
pretzeled out in the boonies the only other option would be to hoof
it and be late.

Or straighten the derailleur with your hand and ride on. Again, we're
talking about road bikes. With my last crash, I not only straightened
the derailleur enough to continue riding, ...


In our case the outer shell of the derailer was no longer in one piece,
the chain was throughly mangled and IIRC one of the derailer idlers had
gone AWOL. That presents a minor inconvenience.

The classic solution is to shorten the chain so it fits from appropriate
chainring to appropriate rear cog, bypassing the derailleur. Start by
finding a nail plus a rock, of course...

I've fixed a couple rear derailleurs for riders that had overshifted
them into the spokes. They were mangled, but using normal bike tools I
got the derailleurs functioning well enough to finish long rides. But of
course, Joerg's disasters are worse than anything that happens around here.

This week's ride will be Lotus to Folsom and back. No roads, no cell
coverage, hoofing it out can easily take half a day depending on where
you crash. And only if both hooves still work.

I did off-road rides longer than that before there was cell coverage
anywhere.

--
- Frank Krygowski