max power

Stage Two USPCC

as soon as he raises his hands at the end it looks like he gets epic wheel shake. At first i thought his front wheel was horrendously out of true, but looking at the slow motion replay you could see his entire bike frame starts resonating as well . . . . he quickly got back down on his handlebars


any explanations?

patentcad

It's a mystery.

bostongarden

mild earthquake or camera shake, or, perhaps you should get your eyes or dvr checked.

DropDeadFred

he's never ridden without hands...bad place for a first time...

Drag

You almost witnessed the often told but never seen traumatic incident of a carbon bike exploding.

ericm979

I saw it too. He probably bumped the bars when he let go to give his victory salute. It's not a big deal.

There are usually a pile of photographers and team helpers behind the finish line, so he would have to get his hands down and on the brakes after the finish.

dstrong 

I think it was a combination of he exuberance mixed with a rapid decrease in power mixed with the realization that the photographers and crews were 15 feet in front of him and he was still going 30 mph!

jfmckenna

High speed wobble maybe? Happens to me all the time. Big tall guys on large frames get this more often then smaller frames.

nhluhr

This. My old TCR with Ksyrium SL wheels would do this badly around 40mph. It's just resonance. Every system has a different resonance.

max power

yea i figured, but damn his frame was flopping around like a noodle! it looked like something HAD to be wrong there

jfmckenna

Yeah when it happens it can be quite a violent shake. The first time it happened to me I thought I was dead for sure. The secret is to touch the TT with your knee, takes the vibration right out. In fact on high speed descents till this day I always touch the TT with a knee as a habit. My current compact frame bike doesn't do it though. I think because the frame is smaller but who knows.

CbadRider

Moved from Road to Pro.

nhluhr

The noodle appearance is likely just due to camera effects, like when you use a camera to film a wheel spinning the spokes appear to bend.

max power

the frame didn't just bend it oscillated back and forth, quite a violent site!

daveF

High speed wobbles are more common when weight is taken off of the front wheel, such as sitting up and taking your hands off the bars. With motorcycles it is common during hard accelerations when the front wheel starts to lift. I had a post Lynskey Litespeed that was prone to wobbles. Fortunately, it was smacked by a car! A friend had the same model & year & the same issue. Tried it with 4 different forks. Wobble was less with certain forks but he could never completely correct it.

Hezz

I saw this happen to a Kelly Benefits rider in the Tour of Utah ITT a few years back. Down the final downhill straightaway coming out of a hard corner I had positioned myself so I could cheer the racers on. When they came out of this turn they had to take it wide enough that they came within touching distance to where I was standing. This one particular racer was going well and when I yelled "go, go, go", it was almost right in his ear. He took it to heart and got back in the drops really fast and started hammering really hard in the drops. Maybe he thought that he had the fastest time so far. I don't know, I was just a little too far away from the announcer to make it out. He started hammering so hard that his bike started to wobble and then a little more. All of a sudden it was like see-sawing back and forth out of control and he went down. He broke his shoulder blade. I felt bad, that I had kind of maybe contributed to his over zealousness. In the drops he couldn't control the front wheel well enough and I suppose that without hands on the bars it could have the same effect.