Spent 3 hours chasing a rear derailleur ghost in my own shop
Swore it was the cable, replaced it twice, then found a bent hanger on a bike I'd just pulled out of a flooded basement in Council Bluffs, so now I'm wondering how many times I've blamed the wrong part on a repair.
A flooded basement in Council Bluffs? Dude, that thing was probably underwater for days and you're surprised the hanger's bent? lmao. But the part that gets me is you replaced the cable TWICE before you even checked the hanger. Two cables, gone, just like that. I've done the same thing though, chased a shifting issue for an hour once and it was just a sticky shifter pod the whole time. Makes you paranoid about every bike you touch after that.