Monday, March 17, 2008

Do Not Try This At Home

Hello, my name is Ken and I am not a fixed-gear purist. I ride a bicycle where the pedals are mechanically linked to the rear wheel in a means that prevents me from coasting. While this is the style of bicycle that I tend to ride most frequently, I am not one of the trendy messenger types. I believe in the use of brakes, both front and rear.

While riding home on Saturday, some vibration while braking. A little evening maintenance session last night and opportunity to inspect, I found that the sidewalls on the rim had failed in two different places.



And on the opposite side of the wheel:



Fortunately, I have a different wheel to use until I can rebuild the other one. In the process of mounting the new one, I was cleaning the chain. While wiping down the chain, the rag along with my thumb snagged on the chain and got dragged through the cog.



Top of my left thumb nail pierced by the tooth of a brand new Phil Wood cog. Bled profusely for a while and is going to take quite a while to grow out. I wouldn’t recommend trying this at home… Hurts like the dicken

6 comments:

this verdant country said...

Saw a similar rim failure on a ride with friends last year. Is that a Mavic?

Reflector Collector said...

Yes, it is a Mavic rim with lots of miles. The sidewall/brake surface of the rim is worn to the point where it eventually failed.

Riding all winter with wet rims, sand has made for an abrasive slurry that has worn through 1 ½ pairs of brake shoes this winter. I am afraid that the rim has not faired all that well.

I will be needing a new rim. I will try my local shop, likely be disappointed, then make a trek over to Hiawatha where I will likely have multiple choices for a replacement.

Anonymous said...

Upside?

You can drown that there spotty thumb pain in all the new fresh snow...

Yippee!

[Not]

-Me

. said...

errrOUCHAARRRRRRGH! (inhale...) AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! (insert explative here) did that once...ONCE. OOOOO, I can still feel it.

If you can't find a rim, lemmie know and I'll send you one. Got a bunch of older new-old stock sitting around.

Doug said...

Eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww!! Man that had to smart!!!! I had a very close call once with a fixed gear while cleaning. I luckily was able to stop it as my finger got caught up in the chain. Only a small amount of blood lose.

I had a rim fail like that last winter. It had only two winters on it. Same situation. All the sand and grit eats rims. I vowed to do a better job at cleaning the rims and brake pads. It's working. I clean it at least once a week. Twice a week in recent weeks with all the snow melt and wet roads.

I'm starting to wonder if disc brakes would be better suited than rim brakes for this kind of winter grit?

rigtenzin said...

The injury photo is a real surprise.

I had a rear Mavic MA2 go like that last fall or so. I was proud of riding something into the ground.

My brother, when he was about 10, chopped off some of his finger tips while putting his chain back on his BMX bike. He was riding at the time. He has a "do it now, think about later" attitude.

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