Broken/Bent Derailleur

[Gatto27]

Hey guys never posted here before. I was riding my bike the other day while my friends were walking. I was on first gear the whole time so I could keep at a steady pace with them. They were getting a bit ahead of me and I had to catch up. I started pedaling hard on first gear when I hear this noise in the back of my bike. The tire stopped turning and the rear derailleur was bent in to the spokes of the wheel. I was just wondering how on earth this happened. My family thinks that something crashed in to it but I assured them that nothing touched the bike. Just curious. Hope somebody can tell me!

[Jordan300]

Well if your Derailleur wasn't set up right, and it accidentally shifted past your highest gear into the spokes, the chain would wrap around the hub pulling the Derailleur into the wheel. which if you kept riding would bend the Derailleur

[DaveM]

You'll never know for sure since it's definately bent now. But it's pretty easy to bend a rear derailleur by bumping it into stuff or laying the bike down on the gear side. But the "limit screw" adjustments are what is supposed to prevent this from happening.
The whole bike probably flexed jsut enough when you starting pedalling hard that the derail clipped the spokes. That's why nothing happened up until then.