Sunday, May 17, 2009

Bike Shop Horrors: Disc Wheel Explosion!



<===These used to be one piece. Not anymore!

Apparently the situation here was that a lady, who was sitting on the bicycle this wheel was mounted to, heard a big explosion, looked down, and saw her front wheel in pieces.






As you can see, the rim blew completely apart in two halves around its entire circumference.












Maybe the spoke tension was too high, maybe the disc brake caused the warping at the nipples, or it may be that the damage occurred at the time of failure. It's really hard to say here.










Oddly enough, it was a front wheel too. I also noted that the rotor bolts were not Torx head fasteners and the Allen heads were coated with something that made it so that my 3mm wrench would not fit into the Allen sockets correctly. I had to remove some of them with a locking pliers. Also, some of the rotor bolts were loose.



I still find it absolutely amazing that one of these low end companies hasn't been sued from here to next Tuesday over one of these bicycle shaped objects.

I think its just a matter of time.

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