Many years ago when I lived in Davis, a local rider knocked his top- tube mounted pump loose while riding along. It jammed into the front wheel, sending him over the bars. He died on the spot. I knocked TT mounted pumps loose a couple of times myself while reaching for a bottle or a shifter. I no longer will use a TT pump mount, I don't think it's the safest place for a pump. It looks like the Roadeo has a pump peg on the head tube. Accident waiting to happen?
Also back in those years, my (then) sister-in-law was riding a bike without toe clips. She stood to get started from a stop sign, her foot slipped forward off of teh pedal and went through the front wheel (between the spokes), wedging behind the fork. She was thrown forward and went down hard enough that a traffic cop that saw her fall called an ambulance. In the ER her belly was so tender they took a fluid sample and found internal bleeding. She was immediately taken to the ER, where they opened her up and had to sew up a tear in her liver caused by her hitting the stem. I don't ride without foot retention, having had a few near accidents myself due to a foot coming off of a pedal at an inopportune time. I commute with toe clips, and ride Speedplay x's or Frogs the rest of the time. Grant actively promotes riding without retention, I feel it's *much* safer to use at least a toe clip. When I went looking for a new club-sport bike a year ago, I couldn't afford a new custom, and the Roadeo was not yet announced. I looked at a fair number of steel frames on CL and ebay, but none were close enough to giving my the fit I wanted (bars up close to saddle height with a shortish top tube). I thought maybe it would be fun to try a Ti frame, and a few have been made that might have fit, but in every case the fork was carbon. What I wound up finding was a lightly-used Calfee at a very good price. The sizing was perfect (2 cm head tube extension, 56 x 56, 73 deg parallel). I can't find any history of Calfee's frames failing randomly, nor have I found reports of incidents related to the Easton fork. So far, I have had no problems with the bike and find it both fast and comfortable (even though the fork limits me to 25 mm tires). I only use the Calfee for sporting, unloaded bike club rides on paved roads. I have other bikes (Riv Road, Kogswell P/R, Miyata 1000) for other riding. Do I feel unsafe on this bike? No, not really. I do baby it when I'm not riding it, and keep a close eye on it, but the frame is conservatively designed and has a long track record. The fork is the most likely failure point, and my plan is to inspect it regularly, and perhaps to replace it after a few season's use. Should I buy a new fork, one likely candidate would be a Wound-Up, which is available with a steel steerer. I could replace the fork twice over and still have spent less than a new Roadeo frame would cost. There are many potential risks in cycling. I think that the risks involved with sharing the road with automobiles, with descending steep hills at high speeds, with riding close in a paceline, and with riding lightweight tires that can flat at speed outweigh those from riding a *well-designed* composite bike. Just my opinion, Bill On Mar 6, 10:13 am, James Warren <jimcwar...@earthlink.net> wrote: > I agree with Tim. I like some of the carbon frames out there, but if I ever > bought one, I'm pretty sure that I would upgrade the fork to steel. I know > there could still be a catastrophic failure in the frame, but I would buy a > conservative design, and it seems that you minimize risk with a steel steer > tube and fork as opposed to a carbon steer tube and fork. > > A lot of the things on bustedcarbon.com are from crashes. Are there many > cases of carbon frames from reputable bike-makers where the head-tube "just" > detached from the top and downtubes without there being an external impact? > > I think Rivendell's steel forks are a good thing. There is nothing negative > or manipulative in Rivendell's "anti-carbon" statements. It's based on > genuine concerns for safety and longevity. Grant's statements on record are > consistent with this, going all the way back to early Readers' Progress > Report journals when Grant would talk about safety as a primary concern. And > he would often talk about safe frames in general, not just the carbon issue. > He's been genuinely devoted to this design philosophy. It's not necessarily a > negative thing to bash a material. Materials don't deserve benefit of the > doubt, while people often do. > > -Jim W. > > > > -----Original Message----- > >From: Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net> > >Sent: Mar 6, 2010 12:41 PM > >To: rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com > >Subject: [RBW] Re: Carboon Bashing- was: Riv resurrecting and selling > >crashed frames > > >On Mar 6, 2010, at 10:22 AM, bfd wrote: > > >> I know many here will disagree with me, but I'm tired of Grant's > >> constant carbon bashing. What he doesn't mention is that carbon frames > >> can be repaired. Craig Calfee repairs carbon fiber frames and does a > >> fantastic job. > > >Unfortunately many carbon repairs fall into the scenario of shutting > >the barn doors after the horse is gone. Since the first inkling of a > >carbon failure is often catastrophic, your frame or fork might be > >repairable but you may be preoccupied with recovering from your > >injuries when your steerer tube snapped or the head tube parted > >company with the rest of the frame. > > >E.g.,http://www.bustedcarbon.com/ > > >Steel just does not fail in this manner unless you ignore obvious > >warning signs for a very long time. You could run over a steel bike > >wiith a cement mixer and it would fare better than many of the items > >on that blog have fared in pretty normal accidents. Grant's pointing > >out the problems with carbon doesn't strike me as desperate, it > >strikes me as concerned about people's safety. > > >-- > >You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > >"RBW Owners Bunch" group. > >To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. > >To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > >rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >For more options, visit this group > >athttp://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
