Bicycle riders' knowledge and experience of structural weakness in bicycles
injuryprevention.bmj.com
injuryprevention.bmj.com
A common problem I've seen, where it's invisible damage, is rust on the handlebars below the bar tape. Especially bikes used on indoor rides during the winter where you sweat much more than on an outdoor ride, corroding the material below.
But honestly, I don't think this is where cyclists should be the most concerned. Separate infrastructure, lower speeds of passing cars etc will do a hundred times more in reducing risks and injuries.
They seem to be totally different people making those changes, though. Spending millions on cycle paths is not going to be stopped by people checking their frames for weaknesses.
Which is why I, on the board of the bicycle association here, spend most of my energy on the infrastructure. The main blocker for people biking is safety, and perceived safety. Lots of other stuff we can do as well, but this is the main point to make it possible for more people to bike. And since it takes long from planning a road to it being built, and it will remain that way for a long time, getting it correctly planned now is the biggest contribution I can do I feel. So spend my time pushing city planners and politicians.
As a Dutch person though, I see no safety issues in this picture :P On my morning commute people would be side by side on that lane, with two more people on the outside trying to overtake each other, relying on the cars to avoid them haha
My US city has been buying abandoned rail lines and creating biking/walking path instead. I like being away from the streets. Some streets have a barrier that protects the bike lanes and I prefer those with my kids in tow.
Abandoned industrial rail line:
Edinburgh managed a compromise design that absolutely everybody, cyclists, pedestrians, drivers, and bus drivers is unhappy with. https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/edinbu...
Selfish and entitled behavior like that makes my blood boil.
Carbon frames and forks I have seen in freak accidents. Like snap-cracking by not even hitting some hard. This too me has been pure structural issues, since with metal, it has always been the weldings.
Titanium I have seen tore apart as well, again all about the weldings.
As for component failures, I have experienced rim-walls explode due to brake heat, rimes fall apart on flat tires, chain snapping and seat post clamps suddenly break and riders losing their saddle :)
I am going for a ride in a few hours. Can't wait!
I must say, the more I research this, the more I admire aluminium. Other than street cred and the alleged road vibrations, it's incredible how strong, light and cheap it is.
Over my 10k km or so mileage on my current alu frame, I had 0 issues so far, despite a few crashes.
Congratulations on reaching your 90th birthday!
3 frame failures of which 2 caused by broken tubes, 1 by failing solder joints - bikes with lugs are soldered, not welded.
2 front fork failures, 1 of which caused me to roll over the handle bars at high speed.
1 front drum brake failure which caused the front wheel to lock, rolling up the front fork like the lid of a sardines can and me to fly off at high speed
1 broken crank axle
1 broken crank
1 rear derailleur failure which caused the rear wheel to lock up, sending me flying
Several handle bar raiser failures
Thus far no broken bones, all the failed frames were replaced at no cost, the other failures I've fixed myself - I always maintain my own bikes, did that since I was about 14 (now 59).
I also maintain our cars, motorbikes and other vehicles (tractors) which does give me some insight in the frequency of failures due to structural weaknesses in these categories. Bicycles do experience far more failures due to such causes than any of the other categories, most likely due to their lighter construction as well as a possible lack of quality control - those frame failures, especially the one involving the failure of the solder joint at the rear risers should have been discovered before the (BSA-branded, manufactured by Raleigh) frame left the assembly line.
Does that mean I want the government to get involved, mandating regular inspections? Certainly not, one of the big appeals of riding bicycles is the lack of any government involvement and I'd like to keep it that way.
1. Santa Cruz aluminum frame, snapped a few inches above the bottom bracket, at a weld line for a reinforcement. I was sprinting and heard it, frame didn't fail/fold but felt weird, didn't realize till I looked close. SC had me a new frame in a few days after I sent pics.
2. Light weight road racing seat, I think they were aluminum rails, snapped when I leaned back on the seat, my hands weren't on the handlebars. I landed on the road on my back. No warnings at all.
3. Cannondale aluminum crit frame. Back before replaceable derailleur hangers. It snapped clean off, got a new frame for free, even asked which one and which color I wanted.
I also think the age of the bike is important too - especially carbon where the lifespan is expected 5-8 years
1. The right half of the handle broke off while I was mid traffic, gladly I could recover from this without falling since the left part was still firmly attached
2. The crankshaft broke off on one side with a sharp edge of greased up metal slicing into my leg, this happened on a bicycle lane when trying to accelerate from standstill.
I am still riding the same bicycle, I just had used it a lot back when those things happened and as a student I didn't really have the funds to maintain it properly when somehing made a creaking sound.
Crunch-Bang! Got my handlebar including the stem painfully into my chin. Guess what? Astonishingly (to myself) I did NOT fall, but managed to wobbly and swayingly brake to standstill, by the still attached brake wires, evacuating to the small sidewalk, and pushing it out of the underpass.
There https://maps.app.goo.gl/D26VGpXXZ3TJmbGTA from left to right.
I think it was a good thing to be ahead of traffic, and not between/beside it in that moment.
Even more funny, at that time there was a large bicycle store only a few 100m away, so I got a new stem in about half an hour, while calming down a little ;>
2) Yah, thats ugly. Almost tore up my ankle that way, but luckily it was only a deep cut, which took 2 to 3 weeks to heal.
Otherwise? Torn chains, mostly.
https://bikeleague.org/videos/basic-bike-check/
>Air: Be sure you have enough air in your tires
>Brakes: Look to see that your brake pads are not worn
>Chain and Cranks: Pull on your cranks to see that they are not loose and look to see that the chain is not rusted and it is free of gunk
Newer bikes add:
>Quick Release: Make sure all quick releases are closed
and it's a good idea to:
Check: Take a slow brief ride to check that your bike is working properly
and of course the recommendation has always been to take a bike in to a bike shop in the spring before resuming riding.
The notable mechanical failure I had was a broken gear on the rear cassette (and this in a lifetime of riding which has included a couple of bike tours, a lot of general riding, and a couple of years of almost exclusively commuting by bike (which I'm hoping to get back to)) --- fortunately, was able to pick up the pieces, set the bike on a particular gear, then continue riding --- getting hit by a car on the first day of summer vacation when I was 14 was far more momentous.
I also visually inspect the frame – especially on the underside and around the bottom bracket and head tube, and look for any deformations or cracks.
I have always wanted to try to apply bending forces to the frame and listen for creaking, but I haven't figured out a good technique to do so with a stationary bicycle. The best I can achieve is a test ride where I try things like accelerating hard on a high gear, doing little front-wheel hops, etc.
> ARN reports a relationship with Cycle Inspect Pty Ltd. that includes: equity or stocks. ARN has patent ##PCT/AU2022/051284 pending to Cycle Inspect Services Pty Ltd
Which is a company doing "Computer assisted inspection and modelling of fibre-reinforced plastic bicycle frames"
Here in the Netherlands I’m not aware of any such thing going on in our bicycles.
11.4%?? Are Australian bikes trying to eat their riders?
I live in Flanders, where bikes are used quite a lot for commuting, doing groceries, going to school, all that kind of stuff (less than the Netherlands, probably quite a lot more than many other countries), and also quite a lot for sport. The bikes are a mix between new and old (sometimes very old), and everything in between. Crashes because of structural weaknesses are really exceptional.
Why would this mean fewer riders? Are the helmets very expensive?
I first snapped the top tube of a stell framed BMX near the stem after many years of using it for a local paper round with a milk crate roped onto the handlebars. The weight of the papers was certainly a contributing factor.
I've snapped a chain while out of the saddle, accelerating a road bike. Nothing too serious, just banged by knee on the bars. Still, do not recommend.
While riding up a long steep hill, I snapped the nut off the outside of a clipless pedal. Luckily the pedal didn't slip off the axle and I could get to a safe stopping point.
I had a carbon top tube delaminate from some aluminium lugs near the stem. Something felt off with the handling so I glanced down and could see ~1.5 cm of the lug showing. Decided to walk the bike the rest of the way to work that day. Got a local carbon repair specialist to re-bond it and it lasted a few more years.
That carbon frame eventually developed a crack in the bottom bracket and frame from front to back right next to the seat tube on the chain ring side. When it failed, the bike started feeling "noodly" to ride, so I looked down and saw the crack opening and closing as I pedaled along.
Somehow I snapped the rear suspension pivot in a Trek Y3 without realising it until the next time I went to ride it. I jumped on it to ride to uni and something felt off. Then I noticed the front and rear wheels were both tracking straight but significantly offset from each other. Took a while to get it repaired as it was a custom part.
When borrowing my brothers (pre-suspension era) MTB I tried a little jump up a kerb. The front fork folded in half. I bent it back straight enough to get sufficient wheel clearance to finish the ride (slowly).
I have buckled many rims over the years on BMX, MTB and road bikes. The early aluminium rims were expensive and really easy to buckle compared to steel rims.
Had the freewheel pawls fail in a rear cassette suddenly one day. They would catch once every few pedal rotations for maybe 1/3 of a rotation. Initially I thought I'd dropped the chain. It was a long walk home.
I was having trouble keep my front QR wheel on a road bike from vibrating mildly as I rode on it. I thought the bearing were loose, so I took the wheel off then found the hollow QR axle had snapped in the middle.
From riding with many others over the years, I'm also aware that larger (taller) riders can break stuff more easily as well. One work colleague who was probably 6'3-4" snapped a cog off the rear cassette almost perfectly in half while accelerating. He wasn't a strong rider, he'd started bike commuting a few months earlier. Maybe the crank length he needed brought extra torque.
Another very strong 6'1" guy I rode with for a few years cracked 3 carbon Bianchi frames within the first few months of owning them. All replaced under warranty. I think he was just heavier and stronger that the frames were generally designed for.
Frames are typically weakest at the joins as that is where the stress is concentrated.
Any rotating part will eventually wear and fail.
Ride a bike long and often enough and something _will_ give out.
But with that said, all statistics I've ever seen points to cyclists being better at following the laws than drivers (have you never driven above the speed limit?), especially in cities where the infrastructure makes sense for cyclists. Additionally, a cyclist breaking the law most often only put their own life at risk, compared to someone in a car doing it.
https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/document/download...
This is law in some places. It's known as the Idaho stop[0]. One of the most sensible laws IMO. It's almost like whoever came up with it has ridden a bike on the road like at least once.
Drivers who think others who aren't operating motorvehicles should have to follow the same rules need to grow up. They want all the privilege with none of the responsibility. I firmly believe the roads would be better for everyone if cycling proficiency was a requirement for even applying for a driving licence.
The case is not as strong as bike failures do not affect other people, on the other hand cars are, in many/most countries, also required to have seatbelts and other safety features for occupants.
It is interesting how hostile cyclists are to any suggestion of regulation, even for safety.
The fact that people can not put their money where their mouth is and face no consequences for failing to do so is one of the great tragedies of modern society.
I am broadly in favour of this requirement, although it is a cost and a nuisance, maintenance is a necessity, and I am happy that all the vehicles that might be a danger to me and to other people are also inspected.
I am pretty sure that virtually all cyclists are happy that cars are annually inspected (and have to pass to remain road legal BTW) so you are saying they should put their money where their mouth is?
Wait until you hear about this group of people called “drivers.”
Pretty much all drivers agree that most or all of these requirements are reasonable (although they might disagree about details). That does not sound like being hostile to regulation.
Twitter used to be a great source of taxi drivers bitching about getting caught on their phone, driving dangerously, driving drunk, no insurance, expired MOT, driving while disqualified, speeding.
I can continue but you can just watch Cycling Mikey for more examples. Oh, then look up the articles written on how much drivers hate him for checks notes reporting drivers for breaking the law.
But no, it’s cyclists who hate having their behaviour policed.
Does not sound like a drop in the ocean.
"The top causes of death can be summed up by "eating shit and not exercising enough", do you want to enforce these too ? "
By that logic we should get rid of a lot of existing regulation.
> ARN reports a relationship with Cycle Inspect Pty Ltd. that includes: equity or stocks. ARN has patent ##PCT/AU2022/051284 pending to Cycle Inspect Services Pty Ltd
> By that logic we should get rid of a lot of existing regulation.
No, we should go door to door and check what people have in their pantry, probably even scan their credit card purchases, enforce daily calories quotas, &c.