Paul,
Fragile? Dude. He hit a pole straight-on at 50-60 km/h! The pole was bent back at almost 45 degrees. Where you think the energy of impact does?
I once got knocked off my old Bianchi at about 15 km/h, and when I got up, the fork was bent back so far, the front tire hit the downtube.
Modern racing bikes are far stronger for impact than vintage. The difference is they break instead of bend, since it makes no difference to the race result if you can't ride it home, it's trash.
Grant McLean Toronto, Canada
On Jul 18, 2008, at 11:06 AM, Dr. Paul Williams wrote:
> Having just watched the end of today's T de F stage, I was
> particularly
> struck by the seeming fragility of CF frames after the spectacular
> crash
> of the Gerolsteiner(?) rider and the pictures of his bike flying
> through
> the air and breaking into two halves upon landing. It got me thinking
> about past Tours (within the CR time frame) and whether any steel
> frames
> reacted the same way when crashed? I know forks broke, but did lugged
> steel framesets break in half or fly apart at the seams like this? Was
> it more a question of bent but not broken? I don't remember such
> things
> over the past 30 years of watching!
>
>
> Paul B. Williams, BAH, MPhil, PhD
> Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
> castell5@sympatico.ca