Sudden failures - what goes wrong unnoticed by the uninitiated?

[Brucey]

what's the best way to check a handlebar?

inspect the surface for cracks, and check that it is still airtight (= no through-wall defects). There isn't much else that you can do beyond that.

cheers

[Brucey]

I commute into London on a folder. This happened last Thursday. I was riding past the station at home, on the way back from an evening meeting. I hit a bit of a bump in the road, nothing serious, so clearly the fault had been developing and that was the last straw. I had inspected the frame a while back, but not recently.

I once had a fork fail, but only one side of the pair, so (unlike with the above) I didn't come off.

I hope you are OK.

Such breakages are not uncommon; I saw the break in the frame and guessed the brand before I read the label.....

cheers

[drossall]

I'm fine thanks. Scraped elbow, minor scrape to back of hand, oddly a bruised heel, and a pair of trousers destroyed.

I have rather lost faith in the brand. I'm replacing it with a Brompton...

[PH]

I'm not sure it's the component that determines which failure is most dangerous, it's a very fine line between an amusing anecdote and a visit to A&E (Or worse) and it's largely down to circumstance and luck.
I had a handlebar break last year, it was the most frightening experience I've had on a bike. It was so sudden I didn't even realise what had brought me down, I think as it snapped the wheel turned sharply, I can best describe it as like hitting a glass wall. Luckily I walked away, though the injuries were so diverse it's hard to picture just what I hit where Even more luckily the driver going in the opposite direction was was able to swerve onto the verge and miss me. So I'd put handlebar failure in Brucey's Cat 1, except that I have since been inundated with others amusing tales of handlebar breakages...

[mig]

I'm not sure it's the component that determines which failure is most dangerous, it's a very fine line between an amusing anecdote and a visit to A&E (Or worse) and it's largely down to circumstance and luck.
I had a handlebar break last year, it was the most frightening experience I've had on a bike. It was so sudden I didn't even realise what had brought me down, I think as it snapped the wheel turned sharply, I can best describe it as like hitting a glass wall. Luckily I walked away, though the injuries were so diverse it's hard to picture just what I hit where Even more luckily the driver going in the opposite direction was was able to swerve onto the verge and miss me. So I'd put handlebar failure in Brucey's Cat 1, except that I have since been inundated with others amusing tales of handlebar breakages...

did it break near the stem? quill stem?

[pete75]

what's the best way to check a handlebar?

When I worked in engineering we used dye to check fr cracks etc. It's available on ebay quite cheaply. You need a penetrant and a developer. A good cleaner before hand helps helps - trike is the best but it's not overly easy to get these days but most good degreasers should be ok.

[PH]

I'm not sure it's the component that determines which failure is most dangerous, it's a very fine line between an amusing anecdote and a visit to A&E (Or worse) and it's largely down to circumstance and luck.
I had a handlebar break last year, it was the most frightening experience I've had on a bike. It was so sudden I didn't even realise what had brought me down, I think as it snapped the wheel turned sharply, I can best describe it as like hitting a glass wall. Luckily I walked away, though the injuries were so diverse it's hard to picture just what I hit where Even more luckily the driver going in the opposite direction was was able to swerve onto the verge and miss me. So I'd put handlebar failure in Brucey's Cat 1, except that I have since been inundated with others amusing tales of handlebar breakages...

did it break near the stem? quill stem?

Ahead stem, bar snapped pretty much flush with the stem,from the pieces you can see where a crack started, though I have no recollection of it having any previous impact that would have started it. Mid price kit, tightened to the correct torque and around six years old. I didn't notice anything unusual at any time before, I hadn't removed or examined it at any time, the area was pretty much covered by a bar bag fitting.
It's easy to get paranoid about such things, but sometimes you just have to put them down to bad luck. I will no doubt be checking it more frequently in future, but there's no indication of when the failure started.

[cycle tramp]

what's the best way to check a handlebar?

..you may consider replacing any aluminium handle bars on some sort of regular basis... or swapping to steel and keeping an eye on any rust....

[drossall]

When I worked in engineering we used dye to check fr cracks etc. It's available on ebay quite cheaply. You need a penetrant and a developer. A good cleaner before hand helps helps - trike is the best but it's not overly easy to get these days but most good degreasers should be ok.

I've told this story before, but...

When I was a student, I broke a Zeus crank whilst riding a team time trial. Luckily I was on the back at the time. I was at Leeds, and only a short ride from Ron Kitching's at Harrogate, the Zeus importer at the time, so I replaced the broken crank. I must have had grazes and so on, can't remember, because my supervisor in the physics lab found out about it, and was fascinated that human effort could break a crank in that way. He was mostly a utility cyclist, but interested enough to have discussed bikes with me occasionally.

Anyway, he sent me off to a friend who lectured in mechanical engineering. This friend did a die test on the remaining crank, and assured me that it was fine. It broke less than a year later. Fortunately, this time I recognised the signs and didn't fall off.

[fastpedaller]

I've related this story on a thread before....... I had cleaned and polished my bike (including the cranks), and the next day I went out riding, had only done a few hundred yards when I stopped to post a letter and glancing down noticed a 'hair' on the R crank. I went to brush it off and found to my horror it was a crack! This definitely wasn't there the day before. It was on fixed wheel (if that makes any difference?) Anyway I rode home the few hundred yards, and whilst stationary I pushed on it somewhat with my foot. It didn't break, but how long would it last? - of course I removed it, so never found out. Stonglight 49D

[pete75]

When I worked in engineering we used dye to check fr cracks etc. It's available on ebay quite cheaply. You need a penetrant and a developer. A good cleaner before hand helps helps - trike is the best but it's not overly easy to get these days but most good degreasers should be ok.

I've told this story before, but...

When I was a student, I broke a Zeus crank whilst riding a team time trial. Luckily I was on the back at the time. I was at Leeds, and only a short ride from Ron Kitching's at Harrogate, the Zeus importer at the time, so I replaced the broken crank. I must have had grazes and so on, can't remember, because my supervisor in the physics lab found out about it, and was fascinated that human effort could break a crank in that way. He was mostly a utility cyclist, but interested enough to have discussed bikes with me occasionally.

Anyway, he sent me off to a friend who lectured in mechanical engineering. This friend did a die test on the remaining crank, and assured me that it was fine. It broke less than a year later. Fortunately, this time I recognised the signs and didn't fall off.

Yep but I bet the other crank was also fine 6 months before it broke. The tests are usually done when it's suspected there may be a crack or on items known to develop cracking after a certain amount of use.

[gbnz]

most parts on a bike are unlikely to fail suddenly ......... The exceptions to that are

Class 2;
- seat pins

class 2 = some immediate risk of injury through the breakage, but you will sometimes (but not always) be able to bring the bike to a halt in a semi-controlled fashion, rather than come off it.

Experienced my first ever bolt shearing at the end of a ride today.

Fortunately on the level, at a low speed (13-15mph), only five miles from home, though on a busy A Road. Failed without warning, one minute I'm on the saddle, the next the saddles rolling across the road, with half a dozen metal components following it. Quite a disconcerting experience, though managed to pick up all the bits. While I inspect the frame/stems/handle bars/rims et al fairly regularly for signs of any excess wear/cracking/tarnishing, can't say I've ever looked at the saddlepost bolt (It was tarnished on the outside, quite a cheap steel component). Will have to look at the bolts holding the rack/handlebars/stem on.

Actually cycled home at a speed 5mph faster than normal (Standing on the pedals for five miles, quite a straightforward end to the ride)

[Peter W]

A problem with rim braked bikes for those of us who do a lot of climbing and descending on gritty wet winter roads, is being unable to avoid the cringe inducing grinding noise on having to brake heavily down a steep pass, for all those sharp corners. You can't continually be stopping to clean out the grit from the brake blocks, so inevitably those alloy rims become ever more deeply scored. That must eat into the safety factor long before the rest of the rim has reached renewal thickness.

I had a rim suddenly fail (big bang as tyre burst and long sliver of alloy split away and waving in the breeze) on an early mountain bike with rim brakes. Face planting in gungy mud doesn't quite hurt as badly as catapulting off at 40+ m.p.h. down the Buttertubs (for example) while wearing flimsy road bike clothing, especially on those jagged granite chipping surfaces. That thought doesn't fill me with glee!

Consequently, last year I bought a new road bike with disc brakes (Specialized Roubaix). Now, all I need to worry about is carbon forks, snapped cranks, fractured seats, the handlebars, the stem. and perhaps a heart attack from pounding up the other side! And all that just from reading thois confounded thread. Bah!!!

[Tangled Metal]

Bike maintenance at its most basic is fairly easy and common sense. That's not to belittle trained and experienced bike mechanics but up to a certain level of jobs it's within the capability of most cyclists.

However, after a brake pad failure (please visit my other thread asking for brake pad recommendation, it explains it a bit), I've been wondering what else is close to failure without giving me any signs I can recognise.

Put simply, what bike parts can fall off suddenly mid ride and how can you identify a problem before it fails? I'm talking about the issues that aren't obvious to most cyclists who've been riding a number of years and been doing basic maintenance?

This enquiry is because my BB7 pads look like the pad on one side ripped off with a brittle fracture surface on the few bits still left on the frame of the pad. The other side looked to be worn a bit but had about 1mm depth of pad if my eye based measurement is remotely accurate. They had be working perfectly well before failure.

I'm just curious as to what the most common, sudden failures without obvious warning are. Probably newbie stuff this bit so be it, I need to know for my own confidence.

[horizon]

Duplicate thread alert - I think you'll be pleased with the depth it went into. I'll look for it.

Here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=120792

Feel free to read it and indeed add to it but you might not sleep well afterwards.