The Front Fell Off

2020-08-03

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I had an atypical ride last week, the front fell off [1] my bike.

Specifically, I snapped my handlebar 25km from home.

As best I can tell it was a fatigue failure, a small crack formed at the clamp point and slowly propagated around the tube.

There was no drama, it didn't snap off in my hand and I didn't crash. Between one second and the next, riding along, _something_ changed and stuffed the handling. It took me several seconds to figure out what had happened, my first thought was that the rear quick-release had snapped. I soon realised that one side of my handlebar was now floppy and braked gingerly to a halt.

Looking at my recorded distances over the last few years I can account for over 17,000km on these bars and I estimate over 21,000km ridden total on two different bikes, with one _(very minor)_ crash several years ago. I hadn't noticed any oddness prior to failure and have no idea how long the crack was propagating for.

I don't think I can be mad at the bars for failing given those distances. Aluminium is prone to these kinds of fatigue failures over time.

[1] Clarke and Dawe - The Front Fell Off (youtube)

-- CC BY-SA 4.0 - dave@dnhome.uk