Been gone a while/crash question

[Bad JuJu]

I haven't been around here for a while, for various reasons, mostly to do with chicken-with-her-head-cut-off-level of busyness--I know, like everybody else, but...there it is. But I've been riding all the time, averaging probably 50 miles/week.

Anyway, I had a crash yesterday--only me, no cars, dogs, or pedestrians involved. Here's my question: it looks like the bolt that held my saddle to the seat post failed. The bolt looks like it was just sheared off. I felt it break, but not in time to stop my fall. Has any of you ever seen/heard of that kind of thing happening?

My right knee took the brunt of the fall: it's scraped, swollen, sore, but I am able to put some weight on it, and naproxen sodium seems to be keeping the pain under control. I've been neosporining and doing the RICE thing, and seeing my doc today for an xray to be sure that it's not hurt worse than I think it is. I've got some other miscellaneous dents and scrapes--scraped elbows, bruised hands, upper body soreness--but I don't seem to have hit my head--no damage to my helmet. My friend who was riding with me collected all the bits and pieces--saddle and hardware in particular.

So I kind of think I got off lucky, but I was wondering what you all think about this bolt failure--it seems unusual to me, and not really something I'd normally think of inspecting more than say, once a year.

[OakLeaf]

I know at least two people who've had that happen. Unfortunately I don't know the brand of seatpost - one of my friends was on a Spec' Allez and probably had the stock seatpost. He didn't fall, but had to ride the next 40 miles standing up! I have no idea about the other one.

I'm still fiddling with my saddle often enough that it gets an incidental "inspection" at least twice a year. Fasteners - all fasteners - are one of those things that the service intervals ALWAYS call for periodic torque inspection, and NOBODY ever does it, not even when you take your vehicle to the shop for scheduled maintenance and it's supposed to be done. It's only when something like that happens that you wish you'd done it. Or when a bolt fell out of the triple tree on DH's motorcycle ...

Anyway, hope you feel better soon.

[Bad JuJu]

Fasteners - all fasteners - are one of those things that the service intervals ALWAYS call for periodic torque inspection, and NOBODY ever does it, not even when you take your vehicle to the shop for scheduled maintenance and it's supposed to be done. It's only when something like that happens that you wish you'd done it. Or when a bolt fell out of the triple tree on DH's motorcycle ...

Thanks--good points all. And your opening point reminded me that at one time, I was fiddling with my saddle position so much that I was looking at the saddle/seatpost connection pretty regularly. It's only since I found the sweet spot that I've gotten more complacent about checking things, though I do take a look at all of it, like I said, at least once a year--usually around my birthday (just an easy day to remember). OTOH, we seem to check out motorcycle fasteners more frequently than that--more like quarterly (DH keeps on top of that schedule)--guess I need to get on the same schedule with my bicycle.

The takeaway lesson here seems to be not to get too comfortable!

[redrhodie]

I'm so sorry about your crash! I'm definitely going to have my bolts checked. I hope you have a speedy recovery!

[Biciclista]

ow! My husband's seatbolt broke off once, but he didn't fall, lucky for him. sorry you got so banged up!!