Ooooooh, SNAP!!!

A while back the rear wheel on my bicycle seemed to be out of true (which is a fancy way of saying bent). It would rub up against the brakes (which I then disengaged) and eventually began running up against the frame, which is pretty untenable. I had the wheel trued (unbent) and began riding it again and the same thing seemed to be happening. I put up a posting on the Craigslists bicycle forum asking if I needed a stronger rim because I was bending it, or what. Someone mentioned that I may have broken the rear axle, which apparently is a relatively uncommon happening. Nonetheless, upon taking it into a bike shop I was informed that that was exactly what had happened. Coincidentally, Alex had just snapped the crank arm (the part a pedal attaches to) on his bike that week, again, another pretty much unheard of occurrence.

In any case, I then went to Costa Rica and it’s pretty much rained every day since I got back till today. Now finally having some spare money I took the I took the rim into the Local shop and had them replace the axle (I guess you need a special tool). I asked for the broken one and that is what you see below. Hardened steel with a clean snap in half.



When I posted my reply on CL explaining that, yes I had actually snapped the axle I got a couple of replies asking how I managed to do that on a road bike. I dunno, how does one snap a crank arm? Just lucky I guess.