Nasty little accident on the Dangarsleigh ride this evening – which offers a timely reminder that racing is hard on equipment and you need to treat it with respect (so, do as I say, not as I do!)
The accident involved a crank arm cracking across the threads where the pedal screws into the arm. Mark Bullen (quick plug: one of the clubs important sponsors) took one look at it and offered the following paraphrased advice:
If you ground a pedal hard enough, the crank will crack across the back, sometimes unnoticed, so that it fails quite some time after the accident. If you look at the fracture here you can see where the crack has been for quite a while as the metal is discoloured from weathering.
The rider involved was pretty beaten up from his attempt at street luge when he found out skin is no substitute for rolling rubber, hopefully most of the abrasions are minor. It’s worthwhile getting a professional to look your bike over once in a while, simply because experience they’ve gained over the years is invaluable in spotting little-problems-that-escalate like this one.
That beaten up rider had it easy compared to this guy who won a bronze medal at the Manchester World Cup after being impaled with a giant splinter!
Followed by a para-Olympic Madison.