What would you do if...

[Jake]

oh well. Better clean the mud off the bike to see if its that whihch is holding it together lol. (kidding) Need to put her in for a service though, needs new back brakes, amybe new back tyre too, and a general look over. Sometimes feel the saddle is a little low, again, can do all this when take her in.

thanks

 

[swee'pea99]

I had one end break off in my hand once - just snapped, right by the stem. The sudden lurch made me swerve a bit, but I managed to stop ok just using the remaining 'handle'. Bit unnerving.

 

[CharlieB]

[quote name='swee'pea99']I had one end break off in my hand once - just snapped, right by the stem. The sudden lurch made me swerve a bit, but I managed to stop ok just using the remaining 'handle'. Bit unnerving.[/quote]

Exactly what happened to me about 10 yrs ago. Unfortunately the end of the bars went into the wheel before I could act and sent me over the top.
My helmet smashed - my head didn't. Apart from a bit of concussion diagnosed at the A & E less than 100 yds from where it happened I was fine.
Oh, and a very nice road bike was written off, because the frame suffered stress fractures.
Moral? Wear a helmet!

 

[Jake]

yikes!

 

[headhunter]

If the bars cracked apart you may find that one or both sides fall into the spokes, so that would probably cause a bit of a crash....

 

[Bigtwin]

I'd stop buying carbon steerers.

 

[yenrod]

if while cycling along and the handlebars came off in your hands? These kinda things keep me up at night.

This has happened twice once on a tarmacced dis-used railway line (just rode out the saddle a bit and then sat down and noticed the bars where at an angle inside the stem so stopped and they'd snapped inside the stem) and 2ndly on the road (dropbars) - was sprinting towards the end of a ride and noticed the bars a bit different so it turned out they also cracked under the bar tape.

Thankfully no disasters !

 

[house_trained]

I've never had handlebars break, but my frame snapped last year, and I've had "what if's" going through my mind from time to time since then. It snapped on the down tube, about a couple of inches from the head tube, so not wildly off the OP. There had been creaking form time to time, but I couldn't find the source, and certainly didn't expect the frame to snap. Anyway, this happened when I was stopping at a red light. The front end just went really spongey and took me a while to figure out what my eyes were looking at. If it'd gone while I was out of the saddle I wouldn't have known anything about it - think the bike would've folded and I'd've been picking up teeth. Like others've said, if your bars are gonna go, it'll most likely be when your putting stress on them. I don't think you'd have time to react.

 

[Crankarm]

.........I don't think you can really plan for this, it would all happen too quickly. Just maintain your bike well and check it regularly and the likelihood of this is minimal.

You don't say.......

I speak from experience. About 12 years ago my stem broke around the clamp for the bars. I was on the drops at the time accelerating away from a set of lights in London, not too energetically still in the sadlle IIRC but going fast enough to make hitting the tarmac very painful. I can remember thinking that I must try to maintain balance so I can unclip. I was wearing toe clips IIRC. I maintained my riding position as if on the drops trying to roughly hold them in place and stop the bike going AWOL. It was all over so quickly as I managed to brake without crashing and very fortunately did not get injured.

I have had two Cranks snap on me both Ritchey chainsets. One, the 2nd about a year ago, was the non drive side of a triple road chain set supposed to be one of their better spec'd ones as supplied to the Specialised Sirrus Sport back in 2002/2003 when they first came out. It happened on my commute home in the middle of nowhere with about 8 miles left to go. Fortunately I didn't lose control too drastically, go into the path of traffic, come off or injure myself. Although it could easily have been very different. I had fullish panniers as well. So tried to cycle as best I could with just the drive side. Believe me it is hard especially with a loaded bike. Took me nearly 1.5 hours to get home from there almost walking pace really and no one stopped, several motons blew their car horns as I walked along the edge of the road, a few even tried to drive straight over me to add insult to my misfortune.

I only use Shimano Ultegra or Campag Chorus/Record chainsets now.

Ritchey are crap.

 

[fossyant]

Arggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh........scarey thread !

Never had anything snap........

Good old Cinelli XA stem and 66 bars.... coupled with Deore LX, 600 an Dura Ace cranksets (that are old)....

Don't think about it...may break, may not....good maintenance helps, and don't carry on riding if something feels odd......

 

[marinyork]

Someone I know had half a handlebar sheer. It was only half so they didn't crash (I think).