Another safety tip from the Bunnyman Institute

Kids, if you have crashed the bike, carefully inspect your handlebars. If you have a long, deep scratch, it is a pretty good indicator that you should replace the handlebar.

Thorough and exhausting testing went into testing the theory that modern handlebars with the uber-light (sorry, no umlauts on my computer) materials that make them light have a brittle tendency. To make matter worse, the material can break away once there is a sufficient score, much like glass or ceramic.

The particular handlebar in question is the base bar of the ITM Dual F1. The scratch was about 5mm wide X 100mm long X .5mm deep. Had the scratch stayed within the welded part of the base bar (as the hook is welded to the wing), it might have been okay, save some new tape. But it went about 25mm outside of the welded area.

After some super-secret* stress and load testing in the bunnyman Institute Lab, the hook started to break.

What does this have to do with what anybody else uses? If you put a deep enough scratch into your base bars, you need to get home or to where someone can pick you up. You probably don’t need to be on the bike, anyhow, as pumping the blood by pedalling will result in more bleeding (as more than likely, the scrape in your base bars is caused by a nasty crash). After having a competent mechanic look over your bike, get him to order you a new pair of base bars, as you took your one and only fall on those, most likely.

  • Bunnyman Institute will NOT reveal its super-secret testing proceedures, protocols, or machinery.

B-man, I don’t know whether to laugh WITH you or send you a medic. No doubt your brave sacrifices in the name of scientific performance enhancement will contribute greatly to the body of multisport wisdom. Rest assured that your bodily fluids were not spilt in vain. In fact, you may even rate at least a Humanitarian Service Medal!

I’m sorry to hear you will not be sharing your super-secret testing process with us. As you know, there are those among us who distrust everything until they see positive proof for themselves. Without your guidance and superior testing protocol, I fear their results may vary, leading to various calls for your ouster as Rabbit Safety Guru. Please reconsider your position in the name of furthering multisport alchemy. Surely this contribution merits more attention than Dan’s Hedinstein project!

Consider this- the hook is broken. And you could see where the hook was scored. They went to the scrap- metal place along with several old, delapitated frames.

The Bunnyman Institute testing has to be patented, first. Then I can reveal it. But ze only ting ve should be concerned vith is ze fact zat ze bars be, how you say it? @#!$ed up!!!

So remember- a deep scrape in aluminum handlebars=certain failure.

Hats off to the bunnymanfor being a parts crash testing machine. Your scars will give your testing secrets away. When bars/stems/saddles break while upon your steed it can be nasty.

I did not have the bars fail on the bike, if that’s your question. I put it into my own super-secret fixture.