A few years ago I saw a little crack on my handlebar and I decided to buy a sturdy looking not so expensive aluminum one as a replacement.
Last week, while on a gentle slope 2 blocks into my morning commute, it just decided to stop being one single piece of metal. Went hard to the left and into the pavement. Luckily no other bike or car was around at the time.
After checking the damage done to myself, apparently minor, a kind police woman escorted me and my bike back to my home, where I called off work and laid in bed waiting for my blood pressure to stabilize.
A couple of hours went by, blood pressure was not recovering at all and abdominal pain started to appear, leading to difficulty in breathing.
Ambulance came, went into the emergency room, got a CT scan that revealed a lot of liquid lodged in my abdomen. Emergency surgery, spleen removed, and about a week of ICU stay. 4 weeks recovery starts now.
So my advice is this: Wear a helmet, do not cheap out on critical components.
by Basssico
9 Comments
Do you know what might have caused it to split?
Yikes!!! I hope that you recover well.
Get well soon. I always try to remind myself that it could’ve been so much worse.
All aluminum fails eventually. Only steel and titanium have a fatigue limit, but you’re reliant on never exceeding the failure point on the stress curve of the design of the equipment under load.
Carbon fiber is complicated, but effectively it does not have a limit as well.
Bummer, glad you lived to give the warning. Stay safe out there.
Do you have any more details about where you bought the bars? “Cheap” can have many levels…
Geez, I just had to replace my shifter yesterday and when I pulled off the grip, the handlebar was starting to rust underneath it. The bike and handlebar are 34 years old, so I figured it might be a good idea to replace the handlebar.
I looked through all of the options on Amazon, and I couldn’t even find another steel one listed. They are all aluminum.
The photo shows the break between the two bends where they had to heat and stress the material to make the two bends. It argues for buying a flat bar instead of a riser bar like yours, though even a “flat” bar is bent slightly.
There wouldn’t be an easy way to check for hairline cracks on a painted handlebar, so this would have been impossible to avoid.
“liquid lodged in stomach”
Was this because of the fall?
The handle bar snapping is one of my worst nightmares while riding the bike.
Sad to hear that! I hope you recover well and can be on track soon!
Def sucks to have that happen. Of course there’s always a chance something will break from fatigue or defect that isn’t caught during manufacturing.
Someone buying a $100 bike and that thing is going to have even cheaper parts then what you paid for that handlebar and they may not have issues for years.