Further to yesterday’s post, here’s another pro cycling story I can’t believe I missed:
It wasn’t the rim, it was “prolonged riding” on the rim:
The Giant-owned brand, which has for a number of years produced hookless rims, says the “tire separation in this incident was not caused by hookless rim design”, with its assessment carried out with the team revealing that “prolonged riding” over cobblestones with a flat and damaged rear Cadex Aero Cotton tyre caused the rim to crack.
Hookless rims are perfectly safe if you don’t ride them.
Oh, wait, no they’re not:
In the days of tubulars, the pros could continue riding in the event of a flat because the tire stayed on, but thanks to tubeless they now need to rely on pool noodles inserted in their tires:
Images from the incident clearly show a tyre liner being used by the Jayco-AlUla rider, still in place around the Cadex Ultra 50 rim. This is a common addition to a tubeless tyre setup for teams, especially during the cobbled classics, in theory offering improved ‘run-flat’ riding in the event of a deflation, with a degree of protection for the rim.
Unfortunately, the rim’s still liable to collapse if you ride it with a flat, unlike the boringly reliable aluminum rims of yesteryear:
Cadex says the initial impact occurred at “approximately 47-48kph”. Capiot then continued riding on cobbled sections of the race course until the wheel collapsed. The brand says that “even when the wheel ultimately yielded to the extreme forces, it remained stable enough to prevent a crash”.
They’re bragging that wheel “remained stable enough to prevent a crash,” really?!? Now that is what the Italians call chutzpah! I mean holy crap, THE WHEEL COMPLETELY SEPARATED FROM THE BICYCLE:
What if it had been the front?
Seriously, that wheel had every gimmick going:
And when you put them all together, here’s the result:
Just look at that thing! Haven’t they been talking about the dangers of these side-entry straight-pull spokes for years now?
How could anybody think this is a good idea? Anybody who’d ever used a cheap umbrella in a high wind would see the problem here:
Did they not even bother to test the wheel to failure using a diminutive Frenchman?
May the ghost of Jobst Brandt haunt the designers for all eternity:
This wheel is basically the equivalent of the plane crash that killed John F. Kennedy, Jr. in that it’s a bunch of bad decisions that might have been overcome individually, but when made together can only have ended in disaster.