No cyclists were harmed during the making of this incident.
Riding from Henley to St Albans as I occasionally do, this time I decided to take the Stinger. All
went well until Rickmansworth, when the boom started to feel distinctly strange - and five yards
later the pedals headed for the road. The main part of the boom has fractured just in front of the
headset, a classic fatigue fracture at the weld. Needless to say I am not entirely delighted: I sort
of expected that a bike costing in excess of a thousand quid might make it at least to the 12 month
mark. The Stinger has done under 3,000 miles since it was delivered in September last, and has
already spent a month off the road due to a failure of the rack. / seat mounting.
I'll be taking it to Darth Ian tomorrow in my Mum's car because mine has an obscure fault in the
electronics. Mum has a Yaris Verso, which is quite handy for bike transport. Oh, and the bottom
bracket on my tourer went yesterday. Things seem to be going a bit pear shaped just now :-(
The blow was softened somewhat by a delightful chap named Peter who lives right by the roundabout in
Rickmansworth where things went wrong. He came to talk recumbents, being the owner of a PDQ, and
ended up supplying me with a consolatory Stella Artois while we waited for the sag wagon. What a
gent - and he rides his PDQ on the British Legion rides to Paris and Brussels.
The frustrating thing is, it's a really great bike to ride. But I wonder whether I should trade
it for a steel framed recumbent, or maybe a Trice, because it looks like it can't handle the
riding I do.
And now - beer.
Guy