Water inside the bike.

[Flying Dodo]

My Planet X Ti Sportive used to regularly get water inside the frame until I realised it was all getting in through the hole at the back of the bottom bracket area, designed to hold a bolt for the bottom of a mudguard. After drying everything out for the umpteenth time, I screwed a bolt in there, which stopped the issue.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

We had been down a very fast 20% descent about 30 minutes back along the road. It doesn't bear thinking about what could have happened if the forks had snapped coming down that!

A broken fork is one of my biggest cycling nightmares. It is absolutely catastrophic, irrespective of the speed. I once saw a sprint-for-50th-place funrider concentrate so much on his finish sprint that he forgot to look ahead and he hit the 500mm high speaker box at the finish line. His carbon fork snapped with the sound of a branch breaking off a tree and he faceplanted. It wasn't pretty.

My second biggest fear is a broken stem or just stem bolt. I've seen the results of such an failure too, but not live, just during the hospital visit. The live fork accident lives with me forever.

 

[screenman]

Had the stem bolt snap on the start line of a 50 as I pulled up on the bars, I was lucky.

 

[dan_bo]

A broken fork is one of my biggest cycling nightmares. It is absolutely catastrophic, irrespective of the speed. I once saw a sprint-for-50th-place funrider concentrate so much on his finish sprint that he forgot to look ahead and he hit the 500mm high speaker box at the finish line. His carbon fork snapped with the sound of a branch breaking off a tree and he faceplanted. It wasn't pretty.

My second biggest fear is a broken stem or just stem bolt. I've seen the results of such an failure too, but not live, just during the hospital visit. The live fork accident lives with me forever.

Oof.

I've had a carbon steerer snap on me, but I was climbing (honking) and luckily my reactions were good enough to stop me hurting myself.

 

[ColinJ]

I once heard a loud creaking noise come from the front of my MTB on a descent. I scrubbed off speed and got down to a walking pace and then the stem bolt pulled the thread out of the stem and my bars rotated through 90 degrees! Fortunately I was going slow enough to stop safely ...

 

[Andy in Germany]

Okay, will call and make suggestions. Many thanks...

 

[Ajax Bay]

Okay, will call and make suggestions. Many thanks...

Haven't yet had that call, Andy!!
But re-reading @Yellow Saddle 's posts were a useful reminder ahead of a wet winter and roads flooding deeper than they were earlier this week.

 

[presta]

Re breakages, I've had a saddle rail break without too much problem, and a pedal spindle, but the fatigue fracture on that only went 2/3 of the way through before the remainder bent. The big crash was when this crank broke:

 

[Chislenko]

Buy a dehumidifier.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Re breakages, I've had a saddle rail break without too much problem, and a pedal spindle, but the fatigue fracture on that only went 2/3 of the way through before the remainder bent. The big crash was when this crank broke:

Water inside the saddle rail? Water inside the pedal axle? Water inside the crank? Wat er is the point?
Water proximity has no bearing on fatigue failure.