1) Which handlebar is the new one and which is the crashed one?
2) Assuming you correctly guessed the answer to No. 1, which tip of the crashed bar was my ribcage plunged upon hard enough to tear a hole in my beloved 2006 L.A. River Ride staff shirt and then rake down my torso from nipple to navel, like this (caution, dramatic photo of the wound by my friend Steve might be construed as rather graphic)?
And lastly a multiple choice for you physics nutz out there:
3) Newton’s First Law states “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Which unbalanced force was primarily responsible for the severe tweaking of the handlebar:
A) My stupidity in failing to heed the voice inside my head that told me I shouldn’t dare ride The Phoenix that night because of the crankset improperly mounted to the wrong bottom bracket, but that I thought just might be OK because I tightened it reaaaaaaaaaaaaallly tight?
B) Gravity?
C) A combination of tensional, friction, and air resistance forces working in conjuntion with gravity and my stupidy in failing to heed the voice inside my head that laughed guiltily when I plowed into the pavement?
It didn’t take much to fully unbend the damaged handlebar back into its original shape and since it felt pretty solid I was about to return it the bike until that voice inside my head said to me “Dude, you sure you didn’t hit your head during the fall?” And I asked the voice why it would ask that and it just laughed and made me remember what happens to clothes hangers when you bend them back and forth a bit. And I said yeah but this is butted 6061 aluminum, not some glorified piece of crapmetal wire, and the voice said “Like I give a damn what the thing is made out of!” And I said “But —!” And the voice said hat’s it, your idiocy is bonafide and I quit!”
So I threw the old bars away and the voice said that’s better but to quit testing its patience.
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