Tom,
Similar experience but not while young and stupid. A few years ago I had decided to get back to cycling after a long time away and went to meet fellow list member David Bilenkey who had very kindly offered to help me overhaul my one and only bike at the time - my 81 Ilkeston Raleigh. I rode over to his house and we put the bike on a stand and checked everything out and got the bike running smoothly. On my cycle back (and trying out clipless pedals for the first time) as I approached our place I had to brake suddenly (fortunately not going too fast) - brakes grabbed and the bars kept going forward -down and around. I went down spectacularly over the bars in a crumpled mess on the road in front of a large number of bystanders - a few scrapes but pride definitely hurt! The one thing I hadn't checked in terms of secure fastening was the stem-handlebar bolt! Won't do that again!
Paul Williams,
Ottawa, ON, Canada
>I haven't been following this thread, but I did enjoy the last couple of
>posts. It reminds me of an experience I had when I was wrenching at an
>un-named LBS in Wisconsin. After work one day I overhauled the headset on
>my race bike, then got distracted chatting with one of the other mechanics.
>As I recall there was some mention of beer, or a party, or something really
>important, and we decided to head out in pursuit of whatever fun was to be
>had. It must have been an urgent matter at the time, because we hopped on
>our bikes and started hammering down the road. At the first corner, my
>bars turned left and my wheel stayed straight. Whoops! Forgot to tighten
>the stem binder. Being young, stupid, and reasonably flexible, I had been
>running my stem at the lowest possible height, so the portion of the 1-A
>stem that is too fat to go down into the steerer was providing a small
>amount of coupling against the top of the locknut, but not enough to get
>the bike to corner.
> Somehow, I didn't crash. I did have to take it easy for that last half
> mile of the ride home.
>
> Tom Dalton
> Bethlehem, PA USA
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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