A very near thing
12 03 2008The Wee ‘Un and I rode the Kangaroo Bike into the village this morning, flying along at a fair rate of knots with a very stiff breeze at our backs.
It was exhilarating but not dangerously so—until we came rocketing down Dunnideer hill.
As the road started to level, I began to crank hard to maintain our momentum and keep the speed to 25mph or so.
I pushed forward and down hard with the left leg, pushed forward and down with the right…
Bump!
Wobble!
Bang!
I was suddenly freewheeling with no resistance, the bike was fishtailing and I was almost thrown off in the split second before I realised I needed to hold the handlebars harder.
I couldn’t look down as I was too busy trying to control the bike, but I was fairly certain I’d thrown the chain at very least. This was confirmed when I tried to use the hub brake and the pedals spun backwards as fast as they did forwards.
The bike was snaking viciously and the only way to get out of it safely was through hard braking, but with only the front brakes I was really in trouble.
I squeezed the brake handle as much as I dared but the combination of the bike’s speed, the weight of the Wee ‘Un over the forward axle and the wind on my shoulders meant I couldn’t use as much force as I needed or I’d have gone over the handlebars.
All that was left to do was to use brute force to steer the bike left when it wanted to go right, go with it when it wanted to go left and steer into the mud at the side of the road.
It seemed like, and reads like, a very long time but, as I found out when I viewed the footage from the bike cam later, it all happened in a few seconds.
As the front left wheel hit the mud, I dropped a booted foot to the tarmac on the right to balance the drag and prevent the bike pivoting around that wheel.
I was able to use the brakes harder now that the momentum had dropped and with a shrill squeal we stopped.
“Weeeeeeee-ooooo!” from the cabin.
“You all right in there?”
“Yes, Pa. That was scary. What happened?”
Before I could answer, a 4×4 pulled up and the owner of the local plant hire company stopped to ask if we were okay.
He’s a good bloke and I appreciated him stopping. I told him we were okay, looked down and said “the ****** chain came off”.
“You wouldn’t catch me on that,” was his reply. “That looked like a brown trouser moment.”
He went on his way while I checked the bike over.
The chain had indeed come off, but that was only a symptom of the problem—and it’s one I’ve written about before.
The Kangaroo Bike has an aluminium frame and the rear wheel, which has a combined 7-speed hub and brake, is held in place with toothed anti-turn washers in addition to the wheel nuts.
Unfortunately, the washers are steel so they gradually wear down the aluminium and I have to reseat the wheel about once a month, before retorquing the nuts.
It’s normally little more than an inconvenience, but this time the anti-turn washers had suffered a significant amount of movement, jolting the back wheel loose, loosening the chain, and then throwing the chain.
I suspect it would not be a problem for a bike used less often on hills, with less weight on board and with less muscled legs propelling it.
I’ve emailed Winther, which makes the bike, about the issue before and not heard back, but I’ll try again.
As for the video footage, I was sorely disappointed when I watched it as all that can be seen is very fast forward motion changing to a drift into the verge and then a noisy stop.
It would have looked a lot more impressive if I’d come sailing over the top of the bike and suddenly appeared upside down in front of the camera.
Perhaps next time.
Thank goodness you were both ok! Whew!
So I guess you and the little one might start walking, or least taking it slower on the bike. Or maybe like your wife car pooling.
Bu**er Dennis…I’d have given an awful lot to see some antipodean ba**ard doing that!
Seriously, I’m bloody glad to hear you and Wee’un are ok…with the price of that bike being what it is, I think the firm owe you at least the courtesy of a reply to your original letter, and rather more than that, bearing in mind this experience…
Very glad you and the lad are OK.
Now, all I need is some way of using this to recumbent propogandise you. Hmmmm….. can’t think of any way to use it. Oh well, Recumbents rock so nyaah!
I don’t know if it would have helped but I tend to carry spare links and a little crank brothers link extractor when I go out. Never had to use it by the roadside though. A rear wheel that works itself loose sounds like a major design flaw.
The chain didn’t snap, but I too carry a few tools on the bike. In fact, there’s so much space and so many pockets that I could carry a very comprehensive tool kit if I wanted.
On the subject of the wheel, I’m surprised it doesn’t come up more often on cycling forums. The Kangaroo bike can’t be the only aluminium framed bike with an SRAM 7-speed hub. I’ll take the wheel off and take a photo of the dropouts.
As for converting me to a recumbent, if I could find a tadpole recumbent trike with a couple of kids’ seats behind the rider, I’d swap in a flash. I’ve seen a couple of cargo recumbents with this layout, but not one with extra seating.
Abrasive Scotsman here, just thought I’d try commenting with my blog account.
How about a Lightfoot recumbent pedicab trike Stoney?
http://www.lightfootcycles.com/pcmodel.htm
Also see this link from their page
http://www.lightfootcycles.com/childpassenger.htm
I was thinking more of something like a Troika Tandem, but with children’s seats behind the rider — and a tad shorter. Or, being an Aussie myself, the Greenspeed GTT but with seating for children.
The Transformation Trike is almost there — I love the photo of it with a trailer as well. It has to be as long as some trucks!
Greenspeed will build their trikes to custom order on request, although I imagine that would be very pricey. I reckon one of those Lightfoot quads with the kiddie seating on the back would be interesting, then you could take the whole family!
So will you be able to repair this one?
I fixed it on the spot—loosened the wheel nuts, reseated the chain on the rear sprocket, reseated the wheel sufficiently to cycle, tightened the wheelnuts and continued on the ride. Once home, I properly seated the wheel in the drop-outs to get good chain tension and then used the torque wrench to tighten the nuts to the right settings.