Maintenance Accidents
I've posted this in a couple of places already, so if you've seen this before feel free to skip this thread :)
This one isn't related to cycling safety as such, rather the damage you can do yourself while maintaining your wheels if you use improper techniques.
A couple of weeks ago I was swapping out some pedals on my wife's mountain bike in preparation for a group ride. The pedals that were on there hadn't been removed in years, and were quite stiff. As I was struggling with the spanner, applying a lot of force to try and crack the thread, the pedal suddenly gave, and my hand slipped right into the big chainring.
The result was a 4cm long gash about 4mm deep and 4mm wide, full of grease and road grit.
I'm a massive wuss when it comes to the sight of my own blood so I went inside, in mild shock and on the verge of passing out/throwing up/both, held up my bloody hand and begged my wife to "fix it please".
I didn't know if it needed stitching and I seem to recall from Scouts that if a wound is to be stitched it should be done within 12 hours, otherwise it might not be possible. It was 8pm at night so I ended up going to emergency just in case. No stitches but a drowning in betadine, 10 or so steri-strips and a 10 day course of antibiotics, just in case.
Obligatory gory wound pics:
5 Hours after the incident
http://timparkinson.net/pics/hand_0414.jpg
All butterfly'd up
http://timparkinson.net/pics/hand_0415.jpg
A week later
http://timparkinson.net/pics/hand_0419.jpg
2 weeks later (pretty sweet scar)
http://timparkinson.net/pics/hand_0430.jpg
In short, when changing pedals, before to push AWAY from the chainring, not towards it.
Anybody else have gory tales of maintenance misfortune ?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Martin Turner on -
Desoite
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Permalink Reply by Martin Turner on
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LOL....surfing the net with a cranky browser working off a very slow satellite com system.
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Permalink Reply by Martin Turner on
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Also typing wearing gloves doesnt help
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Permalink Reply by Clive Palfrey on -
Try putting the gloves on your hands, it'll be less distracting.
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Permalink Reply by Martin Turner on
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Its cold in the hills
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Permalink Reply by David Southern on -
It's also amazing how much heat and ice can unfreeze parts. E.g., heat (hot air gun) on the crank, and then ice on the pedal spindle. And remember, that one pedal has a left-hand thread.
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Permalink Reply by Tim B on -
Yep, always undo them toward the rear derailleur (assuming bike is right side up). Im sure a lot of people inadvertantly tighten them first not really sure which way they should be going making it worse. A bit of grease when putting back on and not overtigthen them should make it easy to get off next time
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Permalink Reply by Pascalo on -
One of the most common ones found in the fixie community forums are people that have their fingers caught in a pretty well tightened chain. This can lead to really really nasty wounds if not amputations.
http://www.lfgss.com/thread19930.html
Also Sheldon Brown has a warning on this:
http://sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html
Don't click the links if you don't like nasty pics
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Permalink Reply by heather on -
Pascalo, I will believe you rather than check the link with possibly unpleasant photos.
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Permalink Reply by Pascalo on
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Yep, so be careful with your chains people, especially when on a fixed wheel bicycle. With a derailleur there is of course more give in the chain, so it shouldn't result in such drastic injuries, but of course the cogs still have sharp teeth. Got cut a couple of times meself.
Also, if you jump on the fixed bandwagon, be careful to not have any shoelaces or anything else getting caught in the chain or around the pedal, because as the motion keeps going on you could be in for an ouch pretty quickly :(
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