Saturday, March 24, 2012

Felt seat post bolt went 'snap'

Seat post bolt_1674 by gtveloce
Seat post bolt_1674, a photo by gtveloce on Flickr.

Having previously broken the clamps it was inevitable that the bolt would be next. It went 'crack' over some bumps at about 40kmh. Clearly something has broken, I thought.

The saddle fell off as I battled to keep straight and slowly brake around a curving road through the Davo swamp. The bolt and the clamps landed and bounced on the road as I continued onward another 20-30m so so. They were a bit hard to find but I got the important bits.

Luckily the saddle was tied by its rails to the post with a tyre-sock or I would have been searching the roadside for it, too. I sat it on the post for the slow, mostly-out-of-the-saddle trip home. (Once before I had done this on a Gitane and rode over 30km back home, out of the saddle.)

Could have been worse.