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Catastrophic Failure

July 23rd, 2007 by Brad Quartuccio

I love looking at pictures of broken componentry, hoping to never ever experience it for myself.

One of my favorite sites out there, albeit a bit dated at this point, is this page of Broken Bike Bits. A wonderful collection of images and brief explanations of failures, there is much to learn from this text based site. Industry names like Ric Hjertberg of FSA and Wheelsmith fame along with Jobst Brandt of The Bicycle Wheel are listed as contributors, along with a myriad of folks from across the land.

Check it out… And tell your stories of catastrophic failure in the comments section. I’d love to hear them, they make me wince.


2 Responses to “Catastrophic Failure”

  1. 1 Jonathon 

    Yeah, I got one for ya. This past winter, riding my favorite downhill in the dark when I had a metallic taste in my mouth all of a sudden. A few moments later, I realize that when I go to brake, my front brake lever squinches all the way to the grip. My front brake’s hydraulic hose had disconnected from the main caliper. The metallic taste was the fluid squirting all over me. The happy ending is that I didn’t die.

  2. 2 Marc Chimonas 

    Got a cool picture like the one above. Only it’s of my wrist and not a bike part. It’s a cycling injury of course. I would love to post it but I don’t know how.

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