Uhhh. yeah, thanks for the obvious. but throw in the surprise element and crash or not I still would be looking for a new chamois afterwords. I guess I am just getting old, too afraid of pain.

If your fit is right, there isn't that much weight on your hands.

I was expecting the pot hole, and braced for it. I wasn't expecting the bar to come apart but I was expecting a big jolt so it wasn't a complete surprise. Plus what bdcheung said, not much weight on my hands.

Tin is in!

pot hole was too big to bunny hop? especially if you were expecting and bracing for it.

you should apologise for that one.

i'm curious about these funny shaped bars. do they suit you because you spend a lot of time in the drops? i spend most time on the hoods or tops, but i'm starting to wonder if it isn't because of the shape of my bars that i don't use the drops more.

on past rides, when i got lower back pain i could relieve it by getting lower and using the drops.

Got any shots of the end in focus? I would be surprised not to find an area of darker color in the area where the break occurred. This discolored area is the crack propagating from the notch created when the pedals were tightened onto the crank arm. The dark area is where the crack started and oxidized, and most likely would start at the side of the crank arm the pedal screwed into. This is why a lot of newer modern alloy and carbon crank sets come with a steel washer that fits into the crank arm, to prevent this type of galling,which creates the notch. But under normal use would probably have lasted a long time but with your higher out put greatly reduced the life span of the crank end.
The point is they were fine to you until they broke. Had you examined them earlier and found the crack before failure what then?

Upon inspection after the break (of the crank), it was apparent that there was a micro crack that probably could have been spotted if one checked it over every day with a magnifying glass. Seriously, who is going to do that, especially for a part like bars that are under tape. It's not common, sure, but my point is that there were no obvious warning signs and it was a catastrophic failure. Carbon may be more prone to it, and the warning signs more hidden, but aluminum is not immune.

I wouldn't really say that they are "funny shaped." These days "classic bend" bars seem to be in the minority. I do spend a lot of time in the drops, especially when racing or otherwise riding agressively (see the thread a week or so ago about this subject).

I considered hopping it but it was really big (long) and my experience with holes that size is that I usually end up landing on the edge and making things worse. It wasn't really a pot hole, but that seemed to be the most expedient way to describe it.

I agree that aluminum, actually nothing is immune given the right set of variables. but without the inspection one never knows for certain. That is the point I was making, most times we only learn of a problem after its to late with aluminum. with carbon its even harder to spot the problems because so much less is necessary to cause a failure. I am not saying to inspect your bike with a jewlwers loop, I say learn from these things, know that the curl of aluminum coming off the crank arm as you tighten the pedal on is a warning sign. ( I exagerate for illustation purposes) The micro crack tells the story, It presented as a catastrophic failure, but upon further inspection its not really. Could you have found it if you did inspect it before failure? who knows, but there was a chance. carbon would have let go when the micro fracture occured.
I am not saying that there is anything wrong with any of these materials except the reputation that they get when the facts arent looked at completely.
Justs for fun, there used to be a web site for failures like this one many good examples on there.

Gotta really be careful with those potholes. You never know how deep they might be!!

vw_golf_pot_hole.jpg

Do you recall if the bars were aluminum or carbon fiber?

Sounds like classic over torqued carbon. But I have no first hand knowledge of this incident.

thats why i still use alloy bars

this has been covered already, but dude - nice save. seriously. you could have jens voigted.

Glad you're okay, that's funny you continued to ride even after. Assuming they're like a carbon frame (one chip and the rest can fail), they could have broken more at any given moment?

Wut

why is it so funny when you do this?

sigh

Since they were broken they could have continued to fail during the ride, right?

No. Not any more likely to fail than before. I figured if I avoided bike swallowing potholes for the rest of the ride I would be fine.

Ah, alright.

Plus I was out in the middle of friggen nowhere

Looks like that carbon flew out on you. Over time.