Cycling over speed bumps

D!armu!d

Does travelling over these every day on a commute cause damage to the bike? Even if taking it easy over them, do the daily jolts have any effect on the forks etc?

Chips Lovell

Your bike should be sturdier than that. I generally go over the edge of a speed bump, where the rise is lower and take my weight off the saddle, but that's just to avoid the shudder really.

mloc123

Pedals at 3 and 9, lift slightly off the saddle and you won't even notice them

Caroline_ie

Sprint and bunnyhop

CheGuedara

Caroline_ie wrote: »

Sprint and bunnyhop

+1, sometimes guilty of that, some nasty bumps around if you're off though.

On one of last years TOI stages, the peloton descended into Tralee at serious speed coming to a raised roundabout. Most slowed slightly and went through, except for one Garmin rider - he made no effort to go around or slow just crouched, popped a small bunnhop and went right over full pelt. Bunnyhopping speed bumps - amateur, bunnyhopping roundabouts flat out - pro

Jawgap

D!armu!d wrote: »

Does travelling over these every day on a commute cause damage to the bike? Even if taking it easy over them, do the daily jolts have any effect on the forks etc?

Speed bumps - pah!!! There's a pothole on the run into work that's so deep you can't get a mobile phone signal when you go into it!!:p

I wouldn't have thought speed bumps would offer any potential for damage unless they're those small hard rubber ones - they can give you quite a jolt, but no more than the unexpected bit of missing road surface.

SerialComplaint

I changed my commuting route to go over a grassy slope rather than a road with 4-5 speed bumps.

Civilian_Target

Yeah, frankly, give me speed bumps over potholes any day.

I hit one a few months back so hard it nearly ripped the bollix off me... bike was fine though

Mint Sauce

Caroline_ie wrote: »

Sprint and bunnyhop

often on my mountain bike, never on the racer, if not a speed cushion, or no opition to go round the edge, just slow it down a bit, ass of the saddle, knees and elbows nice and loose so not to much pressure on the oul joints or bouncing about on the bike

CheGuedara

From Bike Radar



"Speed bumps

To practise your distance judging, go and find some decent-sized speed bumps. Treat them as doubles or tabletops and jump them. There’s an ever-increasing number of them around town centres now, so you shouldn’t find it too hard to locate some to jump."


That's right, throw in a wee tabletop as you go over! (any euro points for this?)

NeilMcEoigheann

CheGuedara wrote: »

From Bike Radar

there's a set of these near my house on a good down hill buses crawl up it. i passed a bus with my cranks at window level, driver looked on in awe.

Húrin

No, it doesn't cause bike damage. It's annoying that the style of three separate bumps which you can slip between on a bike is not universal. Do they think that we need traffic calming?

monument

Normal speed bumps are ok, the plastic out side my apartment block are ok... but then there are ones on the DCU campus which are a pain in the hole.

Greyspoke

Watch out for the shiney black tar banding that you sometimes get on the cambered edges. Very slippy in the wet. Better to go straight over the middle.

CheGuedara

Greyspoke wrote: »

Watch out for the shiney black tar banding that you sometimes get on the cambered edges. Very slippy in the wet. Better to go straight over the middle.

+1, our club is having 'discussions' with our local council over the slick black edging material on what used to be part of a regular training circuit - caused several crashes in the last 12 months - serious caution advised if you come across the stuff