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Advice on Cervelo snapped off derailleur hanger?

Julie PfeifleJulie Pfeifle
in General Training Discussions

Yesterday, I snapped off my derailleur hanger from my 2008 Cervelo P2C, and mangled the derailleur / chain into the rear wheel.  Called LBS, who said I need to work through them to file a claim.  Took the bike to LBS, and they said it appears to be user error and Cervelo would not replace, but possibly offer me a new frame with 20% discount through crash replacement.  Frame not available til November.

"User error", per LBS, is my switching out race wheels with training wheels and not getting derailleur adjusted, thus I likely shifted chain into the spokes and "that was all she wrote"!  Well... I've been doing this for years and never, ever had a problem.  But, I have had 2 instances of the hanger getting slightly bent from packing/transporting to/from races, the last time about a month ago.  Each time, mechanics bent hanger back ever so slightly to get it working again.

What do you think??  User error or faulty frame (with weak hanger to begin with??)  Don't a lot of folks switch out race / trainer wheels without adjustment?

If I do need to pay for a new frame, any suggestions on equivalent geometry and budget  (~$3K)?  Don't think I want another Cervelo (unless Cervelo replaces it), as that frame integrated derailleur hanger has been a PITA! 

Appreciate any advice!!

Julie

Comments

  • tgarsontgarson
    I definitely swap wheels without adjusting my rear derailleur all the time as I suspect many people do. The only time I think about adjusting the r-der with a wheel swap is when the wheels I'm swapping have big differences in the cassettes, i.e. going from an 11-23 to an 11-28... OR generally before a race I'll always make sure I tune up my shifting whether I've swapped anything or not.

    I'm a little confused as to actually what happened though, it sounds like you may have done a wheel swap to a wheel with a smaller cassette, then your rear derailleur high limit screw wasn't quite dialed in for the new cassette, which resulted in throwing the chain over the largest cog your cassette into the spokes, and that pulled the hanger off? Was this at high speed when it happened?

    It's a rather unfortunate series of events, but I'd suspect having your derailleur hanger bent out and then back into place a few times was a contributing factor in weakening it and allowing to ultimately get pulled off. The derailleur adjustment thing is a potentially valid point assuming you were swapping cassette sizes too, regardless of your frame or hanger type you never want to throw your chain over the top into your spokes, either mangling your spokes or locking your wheel and hitting the deck is a bad thing.

    In this situation though about all you can do is try another LBS and get a second opinion if anyone will pursue trying to have the frame warrantied. Otherwise a crash replacement rate is what I'd expect. As for going with a new bike, I'm sure someone else can chime in about what road or tri bikes actually still come with removable derailleur hangers anymore, but it seems like almost every one I've seen all have integrated hangers. The replaceable hanger thing seems to be much more common in mountain bikes than road or tri.
  • Julie PfeifleJulie Pfeifle

    Hi Trevor,

    Thanks for the reply.  Yes, I had switched from my race wheels to my trainer wheels (with the same rear cassette), and had ridden it twice on the trainer with no issues.  Circumstances yesterday were I had powered up a hill, descended, stopped at a light, then started again, and WHAM... off it goes.  Very expensive weekend!!

  • Brad MarcusBrad Marcus
    Julie - I have a Cervelo P2 tt bike and a Felt road bike. I experienced a similar thing last summer on my road bike. Rear derailleur bracket snapped off and ended up in the spokes and my wheels locked up...very scary! The only difference is that felt does not have an integrated hanger as does the Cervelo which is part of the frame. My guess is that either the hanger was weakened from being bent a couple times or make when you swapped the wheels out you did not put the replacements all the way in to the drop out groove. With the Cervelo, the drop out is horizontal vs vertical on so,e other bikes, so if not pushed all the way in before you tighten the skewer it would put extra pressure on the chain and derailleur. Either way, it's a sucky situation to be in. Sorry to hear and hope you didn't take a spill!
  • Darren FreemanDarren Freeman

    Julie,

    This happened to me at the IMLP Camp last weekend (yes, just a week ago) but for a different reason.

    There are really two options..  Order and install a temporary replacement hanger.  This is the cheapest option but this has long term consequences  as it is held on by the wheel skewer and some replacement hangers are better designs then others for the P2.  In my case I rode the rest of the IMLP camp with 18 instead of 20 gears because the design of the temporary hanger was too thick and moved the derailleur away from the cassette enough where I couldn't access the 25 cassette ring.  There are other replacement derailleur hangers that are better engineered for the task but I have yet to fine the one I currently have on my bike.  My LBS mechanic loaned me his so I could race this weekend at IM Syracuse 70.3.  Worked like a charm.  But it is just a band aid fix and not something I want to have long term.

    Like I said, it is a good temporary fix (and that is all it is), if you get a flat on the rear you'll have to take the derailleur off with the wheel to replace the tube and it will take twice as long to get it back especially if you are racing..  The only other option to get you back to 100% to the pre-broken hanger state is to see if Cervelo will crash warranty the frame.   Basically the LBS will call Cervelo, send pictures and if they accept it they will order a new frame then move all your components to the new frame and ship the broken frame back to Cervelo to be destroyed.  It will be a sad day for me to see my frame with my EN Stickers go bye-bye as I've gotten a bit attached to it.    The crash warranty of the frame is a very expensive option but Cervelo will offer 20% discount on the new frame cost if they accept it..  Of course this doesn't include the LBS transferring all your components onto a new 2013 frame and making all the tuning adjustments.. It pretty much will be a pro-bike build at that point.

    Sorry for the bad news but in this situation there really isn't any good news.. I didn't take this well either..  Cervelo and many other bike manufacturers design most bikes  with replaceable hangers so that if something like this happens it can be fixed with a $40 part instead of replacing the whole frame.  Only the Cervelo TT frames have a fixed derailleur hanger on the frame which enables this to happen.  IMHO, this is a terrible design and ends up costing the owner way too much money because it is engineered this way.  There are plenty of rants on Slowtwitch.com and other websites where other riders of Cervelo TT bikes have had the exact same issue.  See below..  

    My only suggestion would be to go back to you LBS and see if they will ask if Cervelo will crash warranty the frame to get it replaced. If not you might just want to buy a new bike.  

    Let me know if you have any questions...

    Darren

    http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum....%20hanger;

    http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum....%20hanger;

    http://forums.cervelo.com/forums/t/1038.aspx

    http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/i...01177.html

    Here are some pics of what was left of my derailleur after it ripped off my frame.  The other pics are images of the temporary hanger that gave me all 20 gears and which I used at Syracuse 70.3 today.

     

  • Julie PfeifleJulie Pfeifle
    Here's one option for a new bike if I have to go this direction - LBS has a new 2011 Trek SC 9.8 size S for $4600 (inc. Bontrager Aeolus 5.0 ACC) that they said would fit me well. I currently have a road bike w/ 700s and the Cervelo was 650s (with nice ZIPP 404s), so it would mean I'd be a fully integrated 700 household, BUT would not have really nice race wheels (not sure how good the Bontragers are??). I would have a bunch of 650 stuff to sell though.

    Is this a good deal? What other frames should I consider? Even if Cervelo offers me crash replacement, I'm kind of hesitant to get another Cervelo. I've had two too many stressful travel races with a bent rdr hanger.

    Thanks all!
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