Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

It’s Christmas time and even though news isn’t slow, the major news organizations have to trot out the usual “dangerous toys” stories. Although not as funny as the “Little Johnny Bag of Glass” skit on Saturday Night Live of years ago, this story packed all of the over-the-top gravitas that will make Steven Colbert proud.

The story involves Wal-Mart selling dangerous bikes. What is the dangerous feature of these bikes? They have quick-release front wheels that according to one of the plantiff’s lawyers:

“It ends up being, according to my metallurgist expert, a ticking time bomb, where in a matter of just days, weeks, months or years, that wheel has a very strong likelihood of coming loose,” Webb said.

You need a metalurgist to tell you that if you disengage the quick-release that it will make the front wheel detach?
Anyway, the gravitas is further enhance with tearful interviews with the mother of the child who crashed his bike and the child himself who said that he has not ridden a bike since that faitful day.

“I have dreams that it happens again, and I’m [in] so much pain, sometimes I die, you know,” Allen said.

That is sad that the kid was scarred from riding, but instead of the parents getting a lawyer, they should do the following:

1) Teach their son to get back on the bike and how to ride properly. This includes wearing a helmet.

2) Go to a Local Bike Shop to purchase your bike. Don’t shop at Wal-Mart because the folks putting the bikes together in the backroom aren’t experienced much more than any father on Christmas day.

3) Learn to maintain your bike. The excuse that these quick-releases are ticking time-bombs is outrageous.

The one fact that is not clarified in the overly sappy story about a frivolous lawsuit is if the company making the bikes did not spec them according to current regulations. My racing bike has little metal knurls on the end of the front forks that require me to do some extra twisting of the quick release before the wheel can actually come off. This is extremely inconvienient when placing my bike on a roof rack or doing a routine wheel change. I have calculated this extra motion to take up almost 20 hours of my lifetime so far. (This is an extreme waste of Americans productivity that can be used to help defeat the terrorists.)

Meanwhile these kids are either neglecting their quick-releases or do not have the extra metal knurls that help keep the wheel on even when the quick release disengaged. If the wheels do not have the metal knurls then Wal-Mart should pay since they violated a law that was setup by a previous frivolous lawsuit that required these annoying knurls to begin with.

ABC News: Parents Sue Wal-Mart Over Children’s Bike