A new coworker who's also new to bikes, was going to get one for his commute. I commute to work on bike sometimes and may have talked about bikes/biking in happy hours. Maybe because of that he came to me one day to consult what bike to buy. I gave my *opinion* about what would make a good commute bike: wider tires, rim brakes, cromo frame/fork, upright riding, ability to carry some stuff, etc. I gave him an intro to Rivendell as well. Offered to lend my Joe A for a fews days if he wanted to get a better idea what I was talking about.
Like most folks who are new to the world bikes would be, he wasn't sold the need to spend $1.6k (a Clem) on a bicycle for his short 2 mile commute. He ended up buying a bike that cost him 1/3rd of that. It came with disc brakes. Quite sadly, he had a bizarre crash couple of weeks ago. Needed a surgery to fix his wrist, get stitches on his face and so forth. He now has a steel rod in his forearm. Here's what happened apparently: he was peddling back from an event in his neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon. He encountered a patch of potholes along the bike lane. He's not sure what exactly occurred next, but all of the sudden he went over the handlebars and landed on his chin :( I've been wondering how in the world a bike can simply flip at slow speeds. That too, on a flat road. I'm beginning to think the combo of disc brake and short wheelbase might have something to do. In my limited experience with discs, my impression is that they can be much sharper relative to rim brakes. They are perhaps less forgiving on someone not experienced in biking. Someone who does not have a feel for how much to sqeeze the front brake vs the rear. Once the front wheel is locked, an SWB is more likely to flip over than, let's say, an Appa or Clem, I'm thinking. In 2016, a cousine of mine had similar accident while riding with his friends on a flat trail. Both his wrists were shattered. It took him nearly 5 months to recover and return to work. (majority of the time he was dependent on his wife to shower, wear cloths, etc etc.) I’ve always appreciated LWB of my Appa and MIT Atlantis from comfort standpoint. Now on I’m also be thanking them for being safer by design. In future if I hear about someone shopping for a bike, I'll be sure to insert myself firmly into the process (even if it will annoy them) and try harder make them get a Riv. Sometimes it is a delicate task. I have to make sure I don't make them think bikes are unsafe except Rivendells. *A* bike is better than no bike. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
