This might be of interest to some of you. My neighbors brother and his friends get together each year, this being the 21st, and do a 100+ mile road ride here at the resort. It takes place the first weekend it May, Cirque weekend that is why I didnt ride this year. Twenty-four riders from around the country gathered Saturday morning to start their ride. Eleven miles down the road they start a 4-mile climb followed by 4 or 5 miles of rolling terrain then a 5-mile downhill. Kim, my neighbors brother, was third man back and by his accounts they were doing only 40-45 mph because of the wind. The front man, who was from California, hit a very small hole and his handlebar broke. He went down and the fellow behind him hit his bike and went over the bars. Kim did a panic stop into the gravel and said he was glad that he had practiced those kinds of stops. The lead fellow hit hard and ended up with holes in his ankle and knee to the bone, a punctured lung and a collar bone broken in three places. He was known as being a very frugal person and not one to buy anything new. I saw his bike last year and it is vintage, which almost seemed out of place with the latest greatest that the other folks were riding. Several years ago, after many broken bar episodes in mountain biking, the recommendation came that after two or three years, any scores in the metal or a hard crash the bars should be replaced. Now I know that road bars dont come under the same abuse as a mountain bikes, but nonetheless the latter of the three should be considered justification for replacement.
BTW, he is still in West Virginia, as he cannot fly with the punctured lung.
Just food for thought,
Mark, keep the rubber side down, Poore