Here’s a brief rundown of my derailleur experiences in the past year.
I got my bike in April of 2009. Exactly (almost to the minute) one week after purchase, I made the n00bsauce mistake of riding through an overgrown field and getting vines & crap tangled up in my rear mech. I take full responsibility for that one.
It was replaced then ridden all summer. Then, the Jet9 was recalled. I got a spiffy Air9 hardtail to ride in the meantime. However, within a month, I had another mishap when a stick found its way in to my drivetrain on one of my first few rides at Syllamo:
Syllamo is maintained, but no one goes around the 50 miles of singletrack with a rake, so there are sticks and rocks that are just waiting to strike at any time. About 3 weeks ago, one got me again. This time, the hanger only bent, but the DR cage cracked a bit. The DR still worked as a tensioner, but it wouldn’t really shift. I ended up riding pseudo-SS for the remainder of the weekend.
Over the weekend, I started my first XC race as a cat1. I wasn’t winning, but I was determined to go down swinging. Then, a few miles from the end of lap #2…
Yeah. I’m seriously considering selling the Jet9 upon arrival and buying myself some sort of really sweet SS frame. A Carbon Air9 would be my dream bike, but it looks like it’d be after the season before it’d arrive, so I might look for something else. In the meantime, I’ll be rebuilding and replacing to get ready for the Cohutta 100 this weekend.
You sure are hard on that thing! The more expensive the der. the faster it will break. Maybe try an X9 or something cheaper? The hangers are supposed to break BEFORE you break the der, that sucks that both are breaking.