sad days...
 

so i was adjusting my seatpost today and as i was tightening down the binder bolt, the seat stay cracked. the bike is probably salvagable, but its hard to excuse yourself to throw down time, money, and effort at rebuilding your somewhat-unique/special conversion frame.

basically, it sucks to have your frame die in such an anti-climatic way; i always figured i'd lose the frame someday but hoped it would be in some epic crash where i got up unharmed with a totalled bike and got to claim $800 in damages or something... at least then i could post a crazy HAY GUYZ I CRASHED photos.

so somebody, share with me your sad breaks that just kindof happen on a normal day, but aren't necesarily a product of user error.

OT but

When i used to race RC. I just finished rebuilding my truck. Put alot of money into it and went out to the RC track. Started it up and took it for a few laps. Forth lap going down a straight with a wooden wall my front tire caught a hole in the wood and ripped the entire front suspension and wheel off. That was pretty anti climactic and upsetting.

Radio-controlled?

I feel some of your pain. I broke my chain putting it back on after cleaning. It got cocked in the chain tool or something. Went to the LBS, "I broke my chain." Eyes light up. I wanted to say "while schooling a Ninja crotch rocket on the quarter mile." Truth barges in. "While cleaning it." Eyes shift to sympathy mode as I get my wallet out. Hopefully upgrading to a master link will compensate for my clumsiness. Sigh.

Same bike, different week. Seat tube is 27.0 mm. Bike came with a 27.2 mm seat post. Wouldn't fit. Duh! So LBS cut it. I later decided I needed to raise the saddle, but there was not enough post left. :mad: I took the oversize but stumpy post to (different) LBS, said "I need a seat post this size." They gave me what I asked for. :eek: Seat tube hadn't grown. Replacement post did not fit either. So I cut it, longer this time, but I knew something was still wrong. Measurement and research revealed the actual problem. Waiting for a 27.0 mm seat post (odd size) left me bike-less for a week. A sad week. Hopefully all the shoving and yanking didn't weaken the seat tube or stays. At least now I have a nice, uncut, 27.0 mm Tomson seat post and two ragged reminders of the importance of measuring twice and leaving the hack saw on the shelf.

if the chain was still new i'da bought the same replacement chain and just taken a link from the new on and replaced the broken old one (THEN save that new chain).

COULD STILL WORK IF YOU AIN'T THROWN IT OUT YET ;)

Good advice. LBS did not have a match. Old chain is in pack rat pile should such an expedient offer itself in the future.

Man - I do these kind of little breaks all the time. Once I was being too paranoid about cranking down the nuts on my rear wheel and cracked the little retainer washer thing that came with the wheel (not hard to replace, but annoying). I've also destroyed a few old cranks' extractor threads by cranking too hard when the crank-puller wasn't properly threaded in. And I've destroyed two cheap open-face quill stems by wanting to tighten them too much and stripping them. It's annoying as hell, but I don't know how to stop being an idiot.

Hulk smash!

When I first got my fix, I was in such a hurry to put it together and ride it that I only hand-threaded in the pedals... and then forgot that they werent all the way in. A few stomps on the cranks, and they were ruined. Learned my lesson: Take it easy.

That cola is third-rate, man. Probably not your fault.

Assuming your new chain is not an exact fit, save the left over links in the event that it happens again (or you break one while school an ninja et cetera et cetera).

My father-in-law likes to put peanuts in the bottle while he drinks RC.
He swears it only works with RC.

Rednecks.