November 9th, 2006 by erisian

I am attempting to make some alterations to make everything pretty and happy and full of joyful joy and joyness..

please escuse the mess. (or lack there of)
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November 8th, 2006 by erisian

it is in the shop..after busting out some work, i was able to take a 3 hour lunch today and get it down to the shop before they closed.

It will be there for about a week while they wait for a replacement stem.

i miss it already.. i will have to bus or walk to work.. either way i will be having a longer commute. walkign will suck because i hurt my leg when i fell backwards this morning, landed on it and it foled up a little. all sorts of sore on the inside muscles. dont know if it is just sprained or if it might be a little worse.. will consider a doc visit if it is still bad in another day or so.

what i WILL be doing is writing a letter to the manufacturer and ask them to consider the possibility of a recall on the production run mine came out of just in case… the metal was visibly dofferent where it broke vs where it was cracked. it appeared as if the crack existed in the factory and was missed during QA because there was paint seeped into the metal where it shouldnt have been.. leads me to believe that the paint ended up on top of the defect causing it to be invisible from then on.

i would hate to hear that someone was in a worse situation than me because of similar, easily bypassed circumstances.. check the hardware and replace it if there appears to be sanything questionable about it… not that much to ask i say.

shows me that i need a second bike though… if i had another one i would be less heart broken that this one was in surgery..

November 8th, 2006 by erisian

Today is a sad day.. my pimp green bike ate it big!

I was riding to work, going to be on time, but only just barely.

There is a pretty nasty intersection at 12th and Burnside on the east side where i live. Every morning i ride 12th ave north through the intersection.

Generally speaking, the traffic light at this int sucks. you have to wait for 3 minutes for all the different directions to have their turn at movement. once you can start moving, you are only allotted an average of 30 seconds to get in motion and through the light. In a car, this is not so bad, but on a bicycle it is no sweet spot to be in. i will now refer to this intersection as the “Bad spot”
Burnside has 4 lanes of traffic.
Sandy has 4 lanes
12th is one way with 2 forward lanes and one right only lane
12th merges on the northside to becme a 2-way road again.

in order to ride a bike through the bad spot, you must join traffic. the right hand lane can turn whenever they want so they get pissy if you are in that lane waiting for the light to morph green. this means merging with the middle (outside forward) lane and or sitting between it and the right only. Taking this latter approach allosw you to bump yourself into the bike lane as soon as you are past the right turners and get yourself out of way of motorists. it takes a few seconds to get through the intersection and generally it is changing red by the time a bike gets through.

So i am sitting this morning in between the lanes as listed above and have cranked my pedals up so i can stand on one, getting momentum up quickly. the light changes to green and i jump on my pedal, pretty standard practice.

FREE FALL ! I am falling backwards onto my back with my bike going forward into traffic. Did i get hit by a car? NOOO. the stem of my handle bars broke clean off.

My bike ended up out in bad spot traffic, i ended up on my ass, my bike is busted up, and my knee hurt like a son of a bitch… but i am glad it happened like this. the laws of forward motion would have made this a lot worse, so breaking while starting off was better than while full speed riding down the road.

When the handlebars broke, the front tire lost it’s counterbalance. the wheen no longer keeps going forward when it moves, it will consistently try to rotate to the right or the left. If this were to happen while in motion, i would have ended up with a bike shaped like a T with the Cross on the T being my front tire. at 25 miles an hour this would have meant me flying forward and being really hurt.

I am glad it occured when it did because thinking about it breaking last night in a torrential downpour while attempting to avoid traffic and keep from sliding about on matted wet fall leaves… yeah..

in the end, i will be taking a long long lunch today to get my baby fixed.. for free of course.. A stem should never break like this on a street bike.. can you say “Factory Defect”?