What's going on?

Sorry I haven't been posting. I dislocated my finger and I haven't really felt like typing. It's getting better, so expect new posts soon. Until then, check out these bike crash photos from Life magazine.

2nd Busted Look Seatpost

From Richard:

The brief story is my first Look seatpost broke after 2 years. The Look replacement (warranty) broke in 10 minutes at the exact same location. Look is scratching their head and generally not wanting to replace the replacement. For the record I weigh 165 lbs and ride a Look 585.

10 minutes has to be a record.

Destroyed Olmo

From Eric:

Plowed into a guy that crashed in front of me at a crit a few years back. Had the frame for 2 weeks.

Damn, that sucks.

Look 486

From Bryan:

A mini van made an illegal left turn directly in front of me, I was going 26mph when I hit the windshield with my head.

Yikes!

Bontrager Carbon Fiber Fork Failure

Over a Cozy Beehive, there was a photo and some analysis of a carbon fork failure.

I had an accident in May where the actual blades suddenly failed. It was a bontrager carbon fiber fork. The bike was a friend's, and had been ridden quite a bit. It failed right as I got up to sprint. Nonetheless, it was on flat ground, and wasn't involved in a crash.

Broken Handlebar

From a mountain bike race in Singapore. Less than 500m in to the race. You can't win if you don't finish.

Broken Lemond Seatstay

From John:

Here is a photo of a broken carbon seatstay – got hit by an oncoming car that turned left into me as I crossed an intersection. By the way, Calfee repaired this and you can’t tell it was broken.

Huge Crash

This one has been making the rounds on the internet on "funny image" websites and email forwards. No idea on the story behind it, but it looks very painful.

See you all in 2010 with more photos of broken bikes.

Non Catastrophic Failure

Sometimes carbon frames fail in less dramatic ways. Robert sent me this photo of his 2006 Time Edge First. The frame developed a small crack between the headtube and the downtube. Time had a new frame to him six days later.

Performance Scattante

Nhat alerted me to this photo album of a broken Scattante fork, no details other than "defective."

Aero seatpost on a mountain bike?

Jamie sent me this photo of his theme bike which uses as many components designed in the UK as possible. That included using an aero road seatpost in a mountain bike. Oops, not the best idea.

Rocky Mountain Slayer

Once again, I'm posting one of my wife's bikes. This her Rocky Mountain Slayer that she bought used from the Dirt Series. Second ride it tipped over and broke. Why do they even put carbon on bikes like these? It's not a cross country bike, weight just doesn't matter that much. Rocky Mountain was good about it, they replaced the part no questions asked.

Enjoy the carbon goodies you get for Christmas, and send me photos of them when they break.

Caloso and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Check out this thread on bikeforums for more photos and the story of how Caloso broke his bike in half.

Bike Rack Crunch

Here's one from Nic:

I was backing out of a parking space in a small parking garage of a San Fransisco hotel with my bike on a trunk rack when I hear a loud crunch. This is the result. Although I traded up for a Felt F1 for little money, it worked out for the best.

Busted BH

Liam sent me this photo of his BH. He broke the forks by running over a branch while climbing at 8mph. No photo of the branch. Check out his photostream for more info.