snapped handlebar

witty username

so this happened to me today in donnybrook. right side of the bar snapped straight off at the clamp and swung into the front wheel, with obvious results. wheel jammed, i took off into the air and landed on my head and shoulder (helmet did its job, only a mighty headache and some scrapes). no cars around so no drama there.

i think there was a thread about this lately and someone mentioned that handlebars should be replaced every two years or so, due to fatigue. BIG +1 on this. don't think I'll wait 7 years before replacing mine again (bars were aluminium alloy from an old bike).

Home:Ballyhoura

witty username wrote: »

i think there was a thread about this lately and someone mentioned that handlebars should be replaced every two years or so, due to fatigue. BIG +1 on this. don't think I'll wait 7 years before replacing mine again (bars were aluminium alloy from an old bike).

I was expecting to see carbon bars in this picture but I'm surprised I didn't and it was actually aluminium! Did they take a couple of bangs and falls over the years? Very strange for them to just snap, did you hit a bump or pothole at the time or out of the saddle?

Lumen

Ouch! Good that you're OK.

Similar happened to niceonetom in Feb.

You need to clean your bike :pac:

witty username

i think it was just years of abuse, didn't hit anything major today, the moment they snapped i was on fairly decent road.

seamus

Aluminium is naturally prone to catastrophic failure. When subjected to a repeated or continual stress, it won't warp or bend like Chromo (for example), it will simply fatigue and break suddenly. It won't necessarily fail from a big impact, if the metal has fatigued sufficiently, your own body weight could easily cause them to fail.

Manufacturing alloys makes the metal a good deal stronger and more resistant to this failure, but ultimately all aluminium bars in constant or heavy use will fail eventually. 7 years sounds like a good run tbh.

It's definitely worth inspecting your bars once or twice a year at the stem clamp for signs of cracking or slight bending. If they're even remotely looking iffy, replace them. Not that you need to be given an excuse to buy new stuff

witty username

Lumen wrote: »

You need to clean your bike :pac:

It's been said..:)

Aye, think i'll give it a good clean this weekend while transferring the STIs and clip-ons onto my new bar, which according to CRC will arrive on friday morning. fun-packed weekend ahead.

Captain Havoc

This happened to one of our guys recently also. He went into a car a few months ago and then a couple of weeks was out and snap.