Ouch

[nobrakes]

I went out for a ride today in some strong winds. A 57 mile there and back again type ride over some hilly terrain. I nearly got blown off the road it was so windy, I had to do an emergency stop as I was heading for the ditch

Managed 46 miles and was coming down a small hill and I heard a small metallic clink as I went over something, tyre blew out and I took a tumble. New Castelli bib tights and jacket - ripped. Race case scuffed badly all along one side and I got some quality road rash. Scraped up the front wheel rim too, not happy! The new bike is now well and truly battle scarred.

I also spent 30 minutes faffing with the front tyre which I couldn’t get close enough on the rim to even try and reinflate, all I did was spread sealant everywhere

Am wondering if there’s any way of buffing out bad scratches on the race case? It’s pretty messed up. Am also thinking of putting clinchers back on for general riding until the sportive season starts, I had to phone my wife to pick me up and she’d only had an hours sleep after a night shift.

Lots of trashed gear and a bike needing some TLC. Ouch. I did get a third place Strava placing though which was nice.

 

[Lief]

UserName checks out.

Sorry to hear about your wreck! Never fun.
Which tire blew? Front I imagine?
I’m interested in more details of the dynamics of your wreck if it’s not too soon.

Take care!

 

[nobrakes]

Yes, front tyre. Was doing about 20 mph and it was an instant blow out, sealant all over the road. I lost control pretty much straight away and ended up sliding down the road on my left side, still clipped into the bike. My thigh and forearm took the brunt of it.

 

[Uphill]

Big rip in tyre as tubeless I presume?

 

[nobrakes]

I just took the tyre off and cleaned up the wheel. Just to top off a bad day - the tyre is in perfect condition, but the rim has taken a knock. I assume this is why the tyre blew out so dramatically. What does the hive mind think of sorting this rim out? Is it fixable or do I need a new rim?

Can't believe that a basically brand new pristine bike can be messed up so quickly. The race case is a state and the front rim is bent. Sometimes I just want to really scream.

 

[3WHELZ]

Sorry to hear about your accident. Regarding your tailbox. If you have no scratched in below the clear coat, you may be able to wet sand it with 1500 grit or higher and then polish it out. If it has penetrated the carbon fibre your will want to seal it. However, clear coat touch-ups can be tricky. An alternative would be to take it to an automotive paint shop and have them sand it out and have them apply a new layer of clear coat.

I too have had to call my wife for sag wagon support!!

 

[nobrakes]

Sorry to hear about your accident. Regarding your tailbox. If you have no scratched in below the clear coat, you may be able to wet sand it with 1500 grit or higher and then polish it out. If it has penetrated the carbon fibre your will want to seal it. However, clear coat touch-ups can be tricky. An alternative would be to take it to an automotive paint shop and have them sand it out and have them apply a new layer of clear coat.

I too have had to call my wife for sag wagon support!!

Thanks for the tip - I don’t think it has penetrated through to the carbon fibre so I will give that a go this week.

 

[Uphill]

The rim may be beyond fixing for tubeless but could be straightened for tubed clinchers.

 

[benphyr]

The rim may be beyond fixing for tubeless but could be straightened for tubed clinchers.

There's the problem and solution all in one: tubeless rim converted to regular rim - just add tube!

In this case would a tube setup have saved you the wipeout, rim damage, flat, loss of control, ? I'm asking not having any experience with anything tubeless but I have gotten flats and snakebites in tubes without damage to the rim, damage to the rim without getting flat, etc but mostly on mountain bikes.

(And much sympathy for the pain and glad you weren't hurt worse.)

Ben

 

[telephd]

Sorry to hear about your wreck. I hope you and the V heal quickly. I curious how much pressure you were running in the tire at the time? Do you remember hitting anything or maybe a pothole?

 

[bladderhead]

After falling off and getting up again, did you attempt to identify your nemesis? Is the wheel bent?

I am more worried about sharp objects and holes in the road than I am about cars.

 

[nobrakes]

Man, I feel really bad today. I have just spend some time looking at the V in detail.

Left hand bar - tape shredded, bar ground down to the metal. Can replace the bar tape and cover up the damage.
Rear QR skewer - scuffed, no big deal. Black paint pen has made that mostly invisible
Front Force 22 left crank - badly scraped. Paint pen again but it's more noticeable.
Race case - badly scratched but should be able to sort that.
Rim - dented and has a large pile of scrapes down to the bare metal all round the left hand side of the rim. The edge is quite ragged in places. I assume from where the rim ran along the road after the tyre blew. Am thinking of replacing and getting the wheel rebuilt, I'm not sure I will trust this rim again.
Left hand Force 22 brifter - brake lever is shredded and has lost about a CM of carbon. It's ragged, sharp and needs replaced.
Now for the worst bit. The left hand Garmin Vector 3 pedal is totalled - completely destroyed. Bent, bits missing, circuitry mangled. I'm not sure if you can get a left hand blank and run the right hand side as single sided, but there's no way I can afford another one of these.

The only saving grace is the frame and seat appear unscathed.

All in all, I would say best part of a £1000 worth of damage on a basically brand new bike. This was my present to myself after putting everything I have earned into the kids for the past 15 years. I can't tell you how low that makes me feel.

Sorry to hear about your wreck. I hope you and the V heal quickly. I curious how much pressure you were running in the tire at the time? Do you remember hitting anything or maybe a pothole?

I was running 75 PSI front, 80 rear.

After falling off and getting up again, did you attempt to identify your nemesis? Is the wheel bent?

I am more worried about sharp objects and holes in the road than I am about cars.

I did try to find something but couldn't find anything. I definitely hit something because I heard a metallic clang. Whatever it was must have been thrown off the road by the force.

 

[Bill K]

The only saving grace is the frame and seat appear unscathed.

The true saving grace: Minimal body damage. Bike damage can be fixed (it only hurts the wallet).
I'll take bike damage over body damage any day!
I had a similar crash on my 3rd ride on the V20, except it was operator error (how fast could I go downhill), but no Vector pedals to destroy.

Kinda like crash landing an airplane: any crash you can walk away from is far better than the alternative.

Garmin does sell a pedal body assembly, but if the spindle is damaged that won't help you.
Search ebay, maybe someone crashed on the right side and will sell you the left pedal (or you sell them your right pedal).

Ouch.

 

[nobrakes]

All very true Bill, thanks for the reminder. We live very priveleged lives when we can afford to buy high end Bikes and worry about them being damaged. It’s the destruction of something that you’ve put time and effort into that hurts. I am lucky it happened there and not 3 miles previous where I was doing 40. It was one of those situations where you had literally no chance of slowing down before the bike went down, so better at 20 than 40, and thankfully no cars coming because I ended up on the wrong side of the road.

The loss of the vectors is going to put a spanner in my training plans but there are worse things as you say.

 

[bladderhead]

Privilege schmivilege, it is a bummer. I know some people do a lot of miles, and still their bikes show absolutely no signs of wear and tear.

Bent a pedal - must have been a hell of a crash.

You must have hit the edge of the obstacle. Had you been just a bit over to the side you would have hit it properly. Tyre would have taken all the impact - probably less damage. Bloody unlucky. Ouch indeed.

 

[nobrakes]

The irony is I went tubeless to reduce the possibility of a rapid deflation at speed, but if I had been running tubes I might have got home without even noticing the rim had a dent.

I’m going back to tubes now though.

 

[John Dorlon]

The irony is I went tubeless to reduce the possibility of a rapid deflation at speed, but if I had been running tubes I might have got home without even noticing the rim had a dent.

I’m going back to tubes now though.

For what it's worth, I've always used tubes on my Cruzbikes. I've had flats on both front and back wheels, usually after hitting something, going both fast and slowish. None of them have ever resulted in a crash...usually just "am I flat? crap" and then I stop and fix it. Hopefully your future flats will be the same.

 

[nobrakes]

I hope so too!

 

[bazzawill]

The irony is I went tubeless to reduce the possibility of a rapid deflation at speed, but if I had been running tubes I might have got home without even noticing the rim had a dent.

I’m going back to tubes now though.

I understand how this might scare you off, but just another plug for tubeless once you get back up and running with confidence. I just had a puncture that I could hear in my rear wheel that didn't seal most likely because I lost most of my sealant when I redid the wheel; however it did slow and stablise enough to get me home (about 5km, however it stated that way for a few days as I did not have time to fix it immediately) so I could fix it in the comfort of my workshop. All that was required was to refill with sealant and reinflate.

In my experience with tubes and tubeless I get far fewer (almost nil) punctures and most self seal especially if my sealant level is correct.

I have had one DT Swiss alloy rim bend like yours (no crash though) which prevent a tubeless seal which hopefully won't happen with my Carbon's

All the best in getting your bike back on the road, sorry to hear of the damage.

 

[Uphill]

An impact that could bend the rim wall like it did, I don't think what tyre setup you had would make a difference.. I run tubeless on my road bike, no punctures in four years. Current recumbent the wheel sizes make tubeless a dream other than ghetto.