Safety First – Bike Snob NYC

In 1885, the transportation panorama modified endlessly when John Kemp Starley designed the so-called “security bicycle:”

This design continued and for the whole lot of the twentieth century, and it even made it into the twenty first, although by 2024 it was formally useless, having been utterly changed by the battery-powered stand-up scooter:

Ah effectively, the bike was enjoyable whereas it lasted.

In fact, a few of us nonetheless take pleasure in using the old style security bicycle, although more and more we’re turning into one thing akin to Civil Warfare reenactors or renaissance honest attendees. I personally experience a security bicycle frequently, though generally I prefer to negate the “security” half by equipping it with a pair of ass-ploding Spinergy wheels–, simply to maintain it thrilling:

[I’d remove the rim stickers, but I’m concerned they may be structural.]

The Spinergy Rev-X is arguably probably the most notorious bicycle wheel ever constructed, having acquired a repute for spontaneous failure that has supposedly despatched numerous unwitting riders to the ER. As a champion of primitive security bike expertise akin to metal frames and aluminum rims and wire spokes I’m naturally inclined responsible carbon fiber and cutting-edge bicycle for all of the ills of society, but as a contrarian and skeptic I’m additionally innately wired to low cost or snort off all types of mass hysteria. This places me in an ungainly place: do I reject the Spinergy as an emblem of bicycle business hubris and extra, or do I embrace it as a way to thumb my nostril on the “woosies?”

Properly, it’s a tricky name. On one hand, as somebody who was an energetic racing Fred throughout the heyday of the Rev-X, I by no means personally witnessed and even heard about any spectacular failures aside from these I examine within the newsgroups (bear in mind these?) and if something on the time the Rev-X had a repute amongst riders for being heavy but sturdy. However however there’s the well-known “Spinergy Accident Reporter” web site, which does make for some chilling studying:

Now, earlier than we go any additional, I ought to state for the document that I’m a staunch advocate for conventional wheels:

You desire a secure wheel? This can be a secure wheel:

So far as I’m involved, that is pretty much as good as a wheel will get, and if I have been placing collectively a motorbike from scratch, I’d select one thing like this each time, no matter whether or not the bike have been an upright rambler or flat-back highway racer. In reality, even whereas I used to be nonetheless racing, I ultimately gave up on “wheelsets” and went again to conventional wheels with 32 spokes. Oh, positive, when a motorbike arrives at my doorstep sporting a pair of superlight aero wheels I’ll completely experience and luxuriate in them:

However wheels like this aren’t my default, and in that sense I’m like somebody who smokes socially, or who has a drink or two at a celebration however doesn’t hold any booze in the home–I take pleasure in it infrequently, but it surely’s not a way of life.

By the way in which, the Rolfs have been trouble-free to this point, although they’re harmful in that each time I take away a tire I handle to nick my knuckle on the bladed spokes:

Anyway, it’s within the spirit of social smoking that I’ve been having fun with the Spinergys–and, because the failure web site itself notes, Spinergy had offered 100,000 Rev-X wheels by that point. I don’t know if which means 100,000 particular person wheels, or 100,000 pairs of wheels, however both method it’s so much, and in the event that they have been actually that harmful we’d have misplaced a complete era of Freds and weenies. As for why they’re harmful, based on the web site it may very well be type of an ideal storm of “whirl-mode flutter,” bending, and torquing:

Because the wheel rotates it develops quite a few frequency modes: a) whirl-mode flutter is attributable to the blade-like spokes interacting with the wind; b) the pure frequency of the spoke in bending (longitudinal to the blade): because the wheel turns the blades are alternately in excessive and low rigidity; c) Torquing of the blade-like spokes. These frequency modes, whereas maybe individually benign, could trigger a sudden catastrophic failure in the event that they change into resonant with a number of different modes. Within the case of the bicycle wheel, the supply of the vitality that builds up is probably going the pumping motion of the wheel going up and down, because the bladed spokes are bent and torqued, because the wheel rotates. This bending and torquing is because of the totally different hundreds imposed on the bladed spokes as they assume totally different factors of rotation. For instance, at 10:30 and 1:30 the wheel would are likely to sag considerably as in comparison with when the spokes have been at 12:00 and 6:00. A secondary vitality supply could be the interplay of the wind on the rotating wheel.

However after all the salacious a part of the location is the crash studies, a few of which learn just like the outdated Penthouse boards in that that they’re typically a heady mélange of braggadocio that bodily fluids that leads you to query their validity as a lot as you’d prefer to consider them. To wit:

I used to be on a membership experience in Connecticut August 10, 1999. I’ve been racing a motorbike for about 12 yrs. I’m ranked as one of many nice sprinters in New England. I understand how to deal with a motorbike.

Presumably he was additionally 6’5″ with a Lou Ferrigno physique and the phallus of an Azerbaijani plowhorse.

However then:

I simply received away from the pack and I used to be about 30 sec. in entrance of them. I simply got here off a hill and was doing about 34 mph. I appeared again to see have been they have been after I went off the highway. I went about one foot off the highway and as I used to be turning to get again onto the highway the spokes exploded (the rim stayed intact). The wheel didn’t hit something. I used to be despatched about 30 ft by way of the air.

With out figuring out his id we now have no method of confirming whether or not or not he was certainly extensively referred to as “one of many nice sprinters in New England,” however turning round to look behind himself and going off the highway within the course of is at odds with the assertion about bike-handling. *

*[Please note I would typically not make light of a crash, but I maintain the statute of limitations runs out after 25 years.]

Then there are those from the self-styled engineers who supply spurious technical analyses:

The opposite factor that you need to take note of for those who experience these wheels is the trueness of the wheel. I did discover that the wheel had change into nearer to true because the vibration received worse over the past month. To ensure that the true of the wheel to alter one thing must be occurring with the spokes. This website certainly saved me from a really unhealthy crash. I had appeared on the wheel a minimum of a dozen instances and located nothing flawed. However by wanting with a vibrant mild and pinching the spokes collectively about 4 inches up from the rim you could possibly see the cracks open whenever you pinched the spokes. Thank You.

A wheel that will get extra true because it approaches failure?!? DEAR GOD, WHAT HOPE DO WE HAVE?

After which there are those which can be simply abjectly terrifying, and have the whole lot from sudden spontaneous collapse of a nearly-new wheel to reconstructive facial surgical procedure:

My Spinergy wheel failure is thought to just about each bike racer in San Diego. Thanks for this website, I hope it helps to forestall these sort of accidents. I purchased my Spinergys at Cycle World in San Diego on 3/13/97. As I purchased them for racing solely, I had solely 3 races (2 time trials) on them when the entrance wheel failed.

This occurred proper in entrance of the feed zone, which made for a lot of witnesses. There have been additionally many workforce mates behind me (Swami’s Membership), and buddies with the SDBC Membership. All of them say that I didn’t hit something, or anybody. The rationale the Spinergy wheel failed will at all times be a thriller, as I’ve no reminiscence of the crash. When my face slammed the bottom, it tore off most of my ear. My face was laid open from round my eye, down the size of my jaw. This required appreciable cosmetic surgery. My knee was floor to the bone, and is left with a horrid scar. I used to be unconscious for about 8 minutes. I used to be later given a bag of spokes, carbon fiber shards, a hub, and a rim.

That’s horrific, although to be honest a bag of damaged wheel components is a fairly good prize at a Cat 4 race.*

*[Sorry. Statute of limitations though.]

And sure, there are even mountain bike tales:

My shopper was using his mountain bike on Northstar Mountain in Lake Tahoe, CA about July of 1997. He works in a motorbike store that his dad owns. He races on an beginner stage and instructs the native bicycle police pressure. He’s an informed rider. He was taking his first run with a set of Spinergy Rev X Roks wheel which was newly bought. He started to enter a activate a single monitor run, when he heard a moaning sound. The rider behind then describes how the entrance wheel collapsed and the bicycle merely fell to the bottom throwing him over the handlebars placing a rock together with his head. The spokes and easily given method, separating from the hub connection. The design seems to have prompted the spoke failure. He suffered concussion with related signs (bloody nostril/complications for following weeks) neck and again ache.

Studying these makes me query each the wheels and tales, however largely it makes me query myself. It’s like studying about alien abductions. Do I query the tales as a result of I believe there should be a extra logical clarification? (Some prior injury within the case of the Spinergy failures, or the consumption of LSD within the case of the alien abductions.) Or do I query them as a result of the reality is just too horrible for me to ponder?