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Today - July 2013

Still off the bike after the "incident" that happened on Saturday's ride (crashing, slashing my neck on a guard rail and breaking my teeth, being taken to hospital in an ambulance etc...). Still can't determine if my frame is damaged, but want to be sure somehow. Any tips? There's a frame replacement program so if I can find the damage I guess that's a possibility.

At work, but not complaining - being alive is better than the other option.
 
Still off the bike after the "incident" that happened on Saturday's ride (crashing, slashing my neck on a guard rail and breaking my teeth, being taken to hospital in an ambulance etc...). Still can't determine if my frame is damaged, but want to be sure somehow. Any tips? There's a frame replacement program so if I can find the damage I guess that's a possibility.

At work, but not complaining - being alive is better than the other option.
Eh? Dude, where was this? Sounds pretty bad.... glad to see you are still kicking tho....
 
Oops

hfcluv100-2.jpg


Still experimenting.

Banana, anyone?
 
Still off the bike after the "incident" that happened on Saturday's ride (crashing, slashing my neck on a guard rail and breaking my teeth, being taken to hospital in an ambulance etc...). Still can't determine if my frame is damaged, but want to be sure somehow. Any tips? There's a frame replacement program so if I can find the damage I guess that's a possibility.

At work, but not complaining - being alive is better than the other option.


Jez... Sorry to hear that. Nasty barriers. Glad to hear you are ok.
 
Still off the bike after the "incident" that happened on Saturday's ride (crashing, slashing my neck on a guard rail and breaking my teeth, being taken to hospital in an ambulance etc...).

When I read you mention an "incident" here I assumed a fall with some minor road rash, but this sounds pretty bad! Very sorry to hear that... :( I hope they can do something to fix the teeth.
 
Titanium, disc an couplers for traveling. That and the new ultegra di2 would be my dream bike. Anybody else interested in such a frame?

sod Di2 - if you are looking for the ultimate groupset with coupler system then you want the TISO wireless shifters - no need to worrk about snagging electrics!
 
crashing, slashing my neck on a guard rail and breaking my teeth

Ulp. Descending? Get well soon!

sod Di2 - if you are looking for the ultimate groupset with coupler system then you want the TISO wireless shifters - no need to worrk about snagging electrics!

Sounds great! Me and you ride next to each other; I shift gears for both of us.

Apropos of wireless, In the space of just nine or so months and for just two bikes, I'm onto my fifth and sixth speedo/odometers. (Three were crap, one fell off and was destroyed.) Today (before the rain) was the second time I looked down while cruising at 30 or so to see that Mr Cat-Eye thought I was doing zero. (Do these things not like steel bikes? Should I not carry my keys in my pocket?)

Yes, today. Well, I traversed Lake Tokyo, somehow avoiding piranhas, serpents, beavers and alligators. Tokyo certainly does have a rich collection of manhole covers, some of which were completely submerged and thus barely visible. I got so wet that for example my banknotes turned into a translucent slab; back at home I carefully peeled off each sheet and each is now hanging from a clothes-peg.
 
Still off the bike after the "incident" that happened on Saturday's ride (crashing, slashing my neck on a guard rail and breaking my teeth, being taken to hospital in an ambulance etc...). Still can't determine if my frame is damaged, but want to be sure somehow. Any tips? There's a frame replacement program so if I can find the damage I guess that's a possibility.

At work, but not complaining - being alive is better than the other option.


Hope you have a quick and full recovery.
 
Thought I'd do the Boob ride today. Needed an early start but only made it out the door by 7:15. Coming back over the hill what must be some kind of aerial sluice gates were opened forcing me to seek shelter before trying the descent. Stopped for lunch at the bottom of the hill and noticed some clouds behind me juicing up for a second go at washing me away. Cue 70 km of earnest drifting and 50/11 pushes on a tailwind along route 29 and 20. Within flobbing distance from home and the sluice gates caught me, washing me off the road and into a public park to ponder why there was a urinal in the women's toilets.
 
Apropos of wireless, In the space of just nine or so months and for just two bikes, I'm onto my fifth and sixth speedo/odometers. (Three were crap, one fell off and was destroyed.) Today (before the rain) was the second time I looked down while cruising at 30 or so to see that Mr Cat-Eye thought I was doing zero. (Do these things not like steel bikes? Should I not carry my keys in my pocket?)

I have a wireless cateye on my steel bike. Not failed in over 3000km.
However, I do occasionally get the "0km/h" reading - every time the problem has simply been that the wheel magnet and sensor were too far apart. Check that before binning this latest one!
 
Thanks all, I'll be fine after a lot of expensive dental treatment (and when I finally get these stitches out of my neck).

Anyway, I'm cautious about riding my carbon frame again until checking if it's damaged or not. I don't *think* the main frame hit the barrier (can't remember everything), but the front wheel definitely hit it head on which makes me wonder about the fork. Is there any way at all to conclusively check for damage?

The wheel is still true, rather impressively.
 
Sounds great! Me and you ride next to each other; I shift gears for both of us.

Quite possibly, going by how easy it is for a Garmin to pick up the wrong heart rate belt or power meter. I've seen rides on Strava with an average power output of zero or some silly heartrate, just because the bike briefly passed some other guy with a power meter or HR belt somewhere along the ride, so that type of data was included for the whole ride.

I don't think wireless shifting is a great idea, for several reasons.

One is that both shifters still need a battery beefy enough to drive the stepper motor. If you do away with the cables each needs its own battery capable of delivering enough amps. That means more weight and a higher risk of having at least one battery that doesn't work. If you run both the FD and RD off the same battery then all you can save is the wiring from the shifters to the FD.

With wireless shifters you need to give them their own little button cells, such as CR2032, like an ANT+ sensor (HR belt, cadence sensor). These batteries will run out at the most inopportune moments, because they won't get recharged with the main battery. That happened to me at my brevet in May, as the HR cell decided to run out of juice just as I was cycling to the start of the 300 km brevet. I am much happier with the AA cells (Eneloop NiMH rechargeables) in my rear lights, as I simply swap them for a freshly charged set once a month and pop the other set into the charger over night. For the HR belt I'll probably swap the CR2032 on a fixed 4 month / 2,500 km cycle, just in case. I don't think there are any rechargeable cells as small as a CR2032 or CR2025.

In the space of just nine or so months and for just two bikes, I'm onto my fifth and sixth speedo/odometers. (Three were crap, one fell off and was destroyed.) Today (before the rain) was the second time I looked down while cruising at 30 or so to see that Mr Cat-Eye thought I was doing zero.

Until last December I also used a wireless cycle computer, but often had the same zero speed problem. Its usually magnet problems! It often happened when I packed it into my rinko bag and something pushed against the magnet. Even just putting the magnet on the rear wheel was dodgy, as it pushed the limit of how far the signal would carry. Now I use the GPS-based speed readout of the Garmin, which is good enough for me. I go more by heart rate than speed anyway.
 
I destroyed one cadence/speed sensor by sprinting with non-cycling pants. Now I bought my first stationary trainer and want to buy a new sensor to get wattage readings via Golden Cheetah and trainerroad. Any recommendations?
 
the front wheel definitely hit it head on which makes me wonder about the fork. Is there any way at all to conclusively check for damage?

The wheel is still true, rather impressively.

Going by somebody else's experience who was recently doored by a Tokyo taxi and also hit the door with the front wheel: His bike seemed OK at first, but then developed clicking noises when turning the handlebar all the way and finally, over the course of the following week or so, gradually cracks started appearing in the head tube of the carbon frame, which is now a write-off.

It makes sense, because the long fork would have had a good amount of leverage on the relatively short head tube absorbing the momentum of the rider and bike. On the upside, he can now justify a brand new frame!
 
Same happened to the owner of CS Japan - steerer tube was damaged on the fork, you would only see the damage by completely removing the forks.
 
I'm cautious about riding my carbon frame again until checking if it's damaged or not. I don't *think* the main frame hit the barrier (can't remember everything), but the front wheel definitely hit it head on which makes me wonder about the fork. Is there any way at all to conclusively check for damage?
Same happened to the owner of CS Japan - steerer tube was damaged on the fork, you would only see the damage by completely removing the forks.
Not definitively and exhaustively, unless using imaging technologies that would probably be more expensive than your frame.

Bike shops and insurance companies treat any crash damage to carbon frames, forks or other components as a write-off. I think they have good reasons for doing that. You might be lucky... but assume not.

Heal well and quickly, mate.
 
Going by somebody else's experience who was recently doored by a Tokyo taxi and also hit the door with the front wheel: His bike seemed OK at first, but then developed clicking noises when turning the handlebar all the way and finally, over the course of the following week or so, gradually cracks started appearing in the head tube of the carbon frame, which is now a write-off.

Same happened to the owner of CS Japan - steerer tube was damaged on the fork, you would only see the damage by completely removing the forks.

Not definitively and exhaustively, unless using imaging technologies that would probably be more expensive than your frame. Bike shops and insurance companies treat any crash damage to carbon frames, forks or other components as a write-off. I think they have good reasons for doing that. You might be lucky... but assume not.

Eek. I feared as much. Thanks guys.

Heal well and quickly, mate.

Thanks a lot. Will be back on my (steel) bike as soon as these stitches are out, but taking it easy for a while.
 
Still off the bike after the "incident" that happened on Saturday's ride (crashing, slashing my neck on a guard rail and breaking my teeth, being taken to hospital in an ambulance etc...). Still can't determine if my frame is damaged, but want to be sure somehow.

Sorry to hear that, Tom, please get better soon!

A couple of years ago, I had a close encounter with a guard rail too, these things are sharp as razor blades...
 
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