A week ago, 50 miles into a 206-mile endurance bike race on unpaved roads through the countryside around Emporia in Eastern Kansas, the derailleur on my bike failed. The mechanism that shifts the chain up and down gears on the cassette twisted and folded itself into the spokes of the rear wheel. My bike seized up, and I jumped off just in time to avoid crashing.
The surest way to understand the importance of any piece of technology is when that tech breaks. A functioning derailleur is a beautifully crafted contraption made of springs and arms and small cogs. Not only does it push the chain sideways to move between the gears, but as it does that it also extends outwards to adjust the chain length. When the derailleur breaks, the bike breaks.
The race I was competing in, Dirty Kanza, is well known for wearing down humans and bikes. When 70 percent of riders finish, that’s considered a good year. In 2016, following an early morning, pre-race thunderstorm, sticky mud and sharp gravel wrecked dozens of derailleurs and chains just a couple of miles in.