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.

Double Busted Seatpost

From Mark:

I broke this Zeus carbon fiber seat post while transitioning from a golf cart path to the street. The uppermost fracture is from the event; while the lower fracture was made while extracting it from my Orbea Orca by my favorite bike shop in Peachtree City Ga, Bicycles Unlimited.

Crashed Trek

This arrived in my inbox recently:

Hi,

This is already from the end of April. But back then I didn't know your website yet.
This was a bit wide corner from my side...
...and the car won.

ciao,
Tonny (from The Netherlands)

Busted Dog

Marcus Burghardt hits a dog in the 2007 Tour de France and his front carbon rim collapses. Poor doggie.

Aerospoke

I'm surprised I hadn't posted an aerospoke yet, they are popular with the fixie crowd, and those guys break a lot of stuff. Luckily Stuart sent these photos my way.

Trashed Cervelo

Tim sent me this trashed Cervelo. I'm not sure where the front of the bike went, into the trash bin perhaps.

Orbea Alma 29er

Mark sent me a photo of his Orbea Alma 29er downtube after minor race crash.

Twice Busted Madone

Mark send me these photos of his Trek Madone. First the seat tube cracked and was repaired. Then 10,000 miles later Mark hit a pothole at 30mph and it broke again. The 2nd time Trek gave him a new frame.

No Carbon Wednesday: Cranks Are Still Falling Off

Remember when I reported there was a global pandemic of cranks falling off. It's still going on. Here's a report from Paul:

Here's a shot of my (insert brand here) bottom bracket that was kind enough to break off. What the photo can't show is that there's a crack extending up the spindle, too, right up inside the bearing race. And yes, that's a shard of BB spindle sticking out of the crankarm!