Freak stone strike kills my bike

[Hugh74]

Riding up a fire road at my local trail centre when all of a sudden the pedals stopped dead in their tracks. I look down and there is a small stone stuck between the crank arm and the motor cover on the left hand side. Remove the stone to see a big dent in the motor cover and bike is dead and will not turn on!

Underneath this cover are the electrical connections, battery cable, motor to display and motor to speed sensor. The stone strike had completely severed the cable from the motor to the display but as the circuit was broken it wouldn't power on. Thankfully the cable was not expensive to replace and more importantly was in stock. Bike is a Merida E140 which I love. Thankfully all fixed and back on the road but was thinking this has to be a bit of a freak incident?

 

[Tim1023]

Bizarre, but maybe a bit of a design fault (if only for such rare occurrences)? There's a bit of a ramp there, which would have the effect of anything landing above the axle having nowhere to go as crank rotates and getting caught. Took a snippet of a photo of my Levo to see what that had and it looks flat there:

Extensive testing of throwing junk into the crank area whilst hacking down the side of a mountain is clearly required.

 

[Hugh74]

Bizarre, but maybe a bit of a design fault (if only for such rare occurrences)? There's a bit of a ramp there, which would have the effect of anything landing above the axle having nowhere to go as crank rotates and getting caught. Took a snippet of a photo of my Levo to see what that had and it looks flat there:
View attachment 73110

Extensive testing of throwing junk into the crank area whilst hacking down the side of a mountain is clearly required.

Yeah the levo looks a lot smoother. I can see why they put all the electrical connections on the top of the motor as its unlikely to get damaged in a fall. I think mine was just a bit of a freak thing to happen.

 

[Nicho]

Thankfully all fixed and back on the road but was thinking this has to be a bit of a freak incident?

Zimmerframe has probably done it a few times.

 

[SwissMountainLeader]

I think mine was just a bit of a freak thing to happen.

not so unlikely I’d think, on rocky alpine trails I fairly often have a stone impact the frame at speed. I’ve had one hit my leg and it stung

 

[Strongbow64]

Riding up a fire road at my local trail centre when all of a sudden the pedals stopped dead in their tracks. I look down and there is a small stone stuck between the crank arm and the motor cover on the left hand side. Remove the stone to see a big dent in the motor cover and bike is dead and will not turn on!

Underneath this cover are the electrical connections, battery cable, motor to display and motor to speed sensor. The stone strike had completely severed the cable from the motor to the display but as the circuit was broken it wouldn't power on. Thankfully the cable was not expensive to replace and more importantly was in stock. Bike is a Merida E140 which I love. Thankfully all fixed and back on the road but was thinking this has to be a bit of a freak incident?

View attachment 73107

I had a similar freak accident my trek rail 9 was only 2weeks old and a flat stone flipped up and rammed my derailer into the spokes,came to a dead stop.
Bent a couple of spokes and twisted the derailer

 

[Just gan]

Riding up a fire road at my local trail centre when all of a sudden the pedals stopped dead in their tracks. I look down and there is a small stone stuck between the crank arm and the motor cover on the left hand side. Remove the stone to see a big dent in the motor cover and bike is dead and will not turn on!

Underneath this cover are the electrical connections, battery cable, motor to display and motor to speed sensor. The stone strike had completely severed the cable from the motor to the display but as the circuit was broken it wouldn't power on. Thankfully the cable was not expensive to replace and more importantly was in stock. Bike is a Merida E140 which I love. Thankfully all fixed and back on the road but was thinking this has to be a bit of a freak incident?

View attachment 73107

I had stone knocked battery connection off my levo on a fast down hill no damage done though. Probably worse if it had hit my shin