cyclezealot

My motto speed kills. Ever since a crash on a fast downhill, I favor burning up my brakes. All it takes is a small pebble on a fast downhill. It caused me shoulder surgery.

DrPete 

If you only hold pressure on arterial bleeds, you'd be watching a lot of people bleed from their wounds. Puncture wounds will usually stop bleeding on their own and you should NOT try to make them bleed. Those can be arterial bleeds too... Any wound deep enough to require being seen by a doc is going to get aggressively irrigated anyway, so the "let it bleed to keep it clean" thing isn't something I'd do.

Where/when was that taught, out of curiosity?

DrPete 

I'm glad it's just a few bad apples. Are you sure you're not looking for a job?

Bobby Lex

I'm wondering if that rim wasn't overtensioned....

Bob

Trouduc

God, the whole episode makes you think twice about equipment. Its amazing how our lives are pretty much in the hands of manufacturers...
I hope the guys is ok.

waterrockets 

Yeah, it's tough to say, but I wonder if stress-relieving our wheels every 6 months might expose imminent failures. Put on some leather gloves and squeeze adjacent pairs of spokes with both hands, hard enough for it to hurt your hands a little.

I've done this whenever I've had a broken spoken spoke (following replacement) -- to check that no other spokes were close to going. I broke another spoke one time, figured the wheel was done-for, and rebuilt it.

Could be. I'll bet the stress-relieving test would expose that.

woodcycl

Possible - yes. Obvious - no. They put him on a backboard with plenty of head/neck/shoulder stabilizers before picking up the backboard (which was NO easy thing given he was down in a ditch and is a big guy). I would imagine adrenaline was masking a lot of his pain initially. His wife mentioned that when she first saw him in the ER he was complaining about the pain (and this guy usually doesn't complain about anything!) so they gave him morphine. If he gets away without at a minimum a broken collar bone, I'd be very surprised. At our speed, at his weight, and going STRAIGHT down with such force, if he gets away without any other problems, he'll be one lucky guy.

Last I heard, from his wife, is they had taken a CT while in the ER awaiting results (1.5 to 2 hrs they were told) and until those results NOTHING was to be removed in terms of stabilizing his head, neck and shoulders.

I hope to hear an update some time today/tonight ... but may not be till tomorrow evening.

Mariner Fan

Wow, that wheel is messed up. You say it looks worse than the picture?

slowandsteady

Was this a low spoke count wheel?

DrPete 

Looks like a standard 28H or 32H from the pic...

Denny Koll

If this fellow's weight is a contributing factor I'm concerned. I don't see why 250 pounds is too much for the rim to hold.

DrPete 

Folks like to come up with reasons like that so they believe it can't happen to them. It's only natural.

blonduathlongrl

that's really awful!!!

I sure will pray for him and his family.

maalea

Profound. Care to expoud?

Are you a big guy on lightweight wheels?

DrPete 

I'm going to die too.

maalea

Correct, but you're a doctor and already knew that.

Nachoman

Another good reminder that we all need to be extremely careful out there.

sweetnsourbkr

We're all gonna die.

blonduathlongrl

No kidding, you go about carefree and when you hear bad incidents like these, it makes me think of my family and how they need me.gosh this is really terrible

DrPete 

+1,000,000. The rim in question looks like a CXP33, a big heavy hog of a rim, laced what looks like 32H to a standard hub. This is the "safe" wheel that all the anti-low-spoke-count folks tell us we should be riding because they're so very safe.

Stuff happens out there. People can get hurt. Take care of yourself, take care of your bike, and live your life to its fullest.

Mariner Fan

I was an EMT in my younger days and once in awhile a nurse would be at the scene. You can tell right away if the nurse was trained in emergency response because they would be a great help. The ones who weren't generally were a bit of a nuisance because they would try to direct us to render aid that wasn't part of our protocol. As you can imagine, this causes trouble trying to give efficient aid to the patient.

idcruiserman

That's true for anything.

Trouduc

Yeah, but it doesn't matter as much if your hobby/passion is crosswords and your pencils keep breaking unexpectedly....

ElJamoquio

The CXP is definitely a hog, although someone said this was a 30. I have one on my bike, it's definitely strong.

It looks like 24H or 28H to me, though. Perhaps it's just the angle, etcetera...

merlinextraligh

I counted 28. A little difficult from the pic though.

Stuff happens, but I would think there had to be a precipitating event, i.e. pot hole, debris in spokes.

If it just flat failed, there were likely some signs before, i.e. uneven tension, small cracks starting around eyelets. Definitely pays to inspect your wheels from time to time.

Possible there was nothing the guy could have seen or done, but it's still definitely a good idea to inspect wheels periodically.