Spent 45 minutes untangling my bike chain because I ignored one weird noise

I heard this faint clicking sound for like two weeks straight, but I kept thinking it was just the derailleur needing adjustment. Then last Tuesday, halfway through my commute on Broadway, my chain came off and got completely twisted around the crank. I was late for a 9am meeting. Turns out a tiny rock had gotten wedged between the chain and the cassette. What took you way longer than expected to fix on your commuter bike?

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elliot_king17d ago

Honestly, that "just the derailleur needing adjustment" thing is a trap I've fallen into more times than I want to admit. For me it was a similar weird clicking sound that turned out to be a pebble stuck in the brake pad. Spent a good 30 minutes tweaking the caliper alignment and bleeding the brakes before I thought to actually look at the pad, and there it was, this tiny little rock just grinding away at the rim. Tbh, the whole process of realizing you've been overcomplicating a simple problem is a special kind of frustrating.