Carnage and for once NOT mine

Sam came by to show me his bike that he messed up but good in the collegiate race at WV. He was doing the downhill stage, and JRA off this jump, that 'wasn't that big' and his rear derailleur cage bounced into the spokes and got torn in half. Naturally putting a fixed object into spinning spokes also leads to spoke breakage.

His chain twisted a full 90degrees


and is now only good as jewelry.

His wheel is shot:


And his front derailleur even got bent to hell too.

I was just riding along I swear! This is mountain biking my boy. Not road riding. Things break all the time in this sport. In road riding, unless you are a big guy or ride unusually hard, things don't really break as much as just wear out.

One thing is that a lot of mechanicals can be prevented with constant maintenance. You just can't grab it and go as easily as you can with a road bike. I just changed my pads on my road bike after 5 years. But with the mountain bike it is on the stand getting adjusted just about after every ride.