I managed to break my rear shock in Baja. I wasn't doing anything silly, a la Pluric
no dented rims for example! Just did 70 miles of variable dirt on the east coast south of San Felipe, about 10% corrugations, 10% sand, 10% rocky, and the rest relatively smooth dirt. I guess the catch is I was carrying about 200lbs of luggage.
The shock didn't leak, it just lost all it's damping. I guess something internal broke.
I knew the shock was stressed and briefly considered changing it for an Ohlins before the trip, but I'd never heard of an S10 shock having a problem. On the other hand, I read of a number of Ohlins failures - does anyone remember the scene with Ewen and Charley inspecting a dripping Ohlins on a dirt road in Ethiopia in "The Long Way Down"? Lucky for them they just had to wait a few hours for the backup vehicle - which carried a spare. In fact IIRC it carried at least 2 spares. No backup vehicle for me, so I held off on spending over $1000 on an Ohlins.
But now I did anyway. I wound the rebound damping way up on the Yamaha shock which was made it rideable enough to get me back to San Diego. Jagermeister was selling his Ohlins and got it to me quickly, I visited the Yamaha dealer and they got approval for a new stock shock. (This will be my spare to be sent to me if the Ohlins croaks). There are none in the US so it will be a bit of a wait.
Luckily I have the Ohlins on now... finger crossed it will go the distance! It IS an awesome improvement tho, even if I am having issues getting the sag set correctly. If I can drop 20lbs, and drop 20lbs of luggage, then it might be right!