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Comment by liftm | Hacker News Reader

I cannot count the number of times I trashed my gears. And the fail-safe is walking. (I assume you're using a fixie?)

Something is very wrong with your bike if you are frequently "trashing" your gears. I've been riding bikes for 30 years and have never had to walk due to drivetrain failure.

As long as the drivetrain is set up well initially, a traditional bike will go many thousands of miles on pretty minimal maintenance.

I suspect I'm just not taking good enough care - both while riding and with maintenance. Rusty bowden cables causing misalignment and the chain jumping into weird places… (I've also used some sketchy bikes. One literally had the rear derailleur bolted on because the mounting mechanism didn't fit the holes on the frame. I ended up completely twisting that one.)

Single speed transportation bicycles are extremely common where there aren't significant hills. Internal gear hubs have regained significant popularity, too - ranging from 2 to 11 speeds.

Not sure why you're "trashing your gears" so regularly. Older cassettes/chains didn't like being shifted under significant power but anything made in the last 20+ years by SRAM or Shimano or Campagnolo really shouldn't have a problem being shifted while full-on sprinting.

I think we may have different definitions of what significant power means. I managed to break the metal rod inside my plastic pedals one time… But yeah, I used an 8 speed hub gear with a toothed belt for ~7 years, which I don't see breaking any time soon. (Though I did have to walk home a few times due to other reasons, e.g. clogging the gears up with snow or flat tires.) But it doesn't switch gears when under power, and if you start giving power while it hasn't fully switched yet, it makes very unhealthy sounds.

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