I'm going to write about the "Metal Stag Beetle" that I've been dragging on about up until now.
↑This is the bollard you see in the Yodo River (and probably other places).
↑Same thing at a different location
The fangs point inward,
and the fact that the lower one is longer is what makes it so vicious,
It's not super tight, but it's pretty narrow.
I don't know if the Metal Stag Beetle is nocturnal,
but I am. This photo was taken in June 2016,
and the light I'm using is a VOLT 1600, before I bought the VOLT 6000.
When you cruise through the Yodo River floodplain at a decent speed,
you get stopped by the Metal Stag Beetle pretty often,
so even though you could safely pass through by dismounting,
I tend to cut corners and try to squeeze through while still mounted.
The fact that you can sometimes slip right through if you approach the Metal Stag Beetle straight down the middle
is also a trap.
The reward for not dismounting and getting through faster
is vastly outweighed by the risk if something goes wrong.
And you never realize the risk until it actually happens to you.
Let me show you some actual examples.
This is the rear rim of a Shamal Ultra that we did a rim replacement on.
According to the customer's account, it was definitely hit by a Metal Stag Beetle.
Since there's a dent in the rim, I used a Chibadanu (→here) to pull it tight.
It's heavily dented.
The dent isn't so much at the rim's apex but rather off to the side,
This shows that the Metal Stag Beetle's fangs don't have to hit the rim's apex directly—
even just grazing it causes a dent.
Even starting from a standstill, the rider's body weight is involved,
so if it catches, it can cause enough damage to the rim
that replacement becomes necessary.
Actually, I heard from the customer that yesterday's Racing Zeroナイト rear rim damage
was also caused by a Metal Stag Beetle.
But here's my question:
does a rim really get crumpled just from failing to squeeze through?
When I ride through the Metal Stag Beetle, I'm confident that "I can make it!"
So it should be impossible to fail at getting through such a small gap, even if it's tight.
Actually, the Metal Stag Beetle has a secret, and
↑it's embedded in the ground like this,
waiting for prey to get caught.
And I don't know how it senses this, but
only when the conditions align of
・someone trying to pass through while mounted
・nobody watching
・the fang passing somewhere around the rear derailleur
does it snap its jaws shut with a \\CLANG!/ and clamp down on the rear rim!
I've seen so many rear wheels damaged in a way that only makes sense if it has this habit,
so as the method to definitely avoid getting hit,
I recommend dismounting every time you pass through a Metal Stag Beetle.
I've seen examples where someone said
"The Yodo floodplain is my commute route, and I always make it through mounted, no problem!"
and then one day suddenly got nailed.
The Metal Stag Beetle patiently adjusted the gap between its lower fang to match each rider
and waited for its chance to hunt. It's the perseverance predator's victory.
A while back, we did a rim replacement on the rear wheel of a Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 (→here)
and the cause was also a Metal Stag Beetle. According to the customer,
"the rear wheel got stuck and I did an endo,"
but the truth is, the Metal Stag Beetle clamped down on the rear wheel
and thrashed its head around. The rim was clearly bent.
Two weeks later, that same customer came back,
and the rear wheel we'd just replaced had a slight wobble.
When I asked what happened, they said "I got hit by a Metal Stag Beetle again."
Why are you being lazy again after getting hit once?
At least this time there was no crash, just a minor rim truing.
Bonus
The term "Metal Stag Beetle" isn't new to this post—
I've written about it before—but someone commented
"Isn't the Metal Stag Beetle the expansion joint of a bridge?"
and they were right.
When a rim can be damaged in this way, it may constitute
road maintenance negligence, creating
a liability for damages on the part of the road administrator (the construction division of the city/town, prefectural civil engineering office, national highway office, etc.).
Someone commented about this, and since I've actually experienced it myself,
I'll write about it here.
Before Nomu Lab opened, while riding on Osaka's Rinkai Line.
The light turned green and I started from the stop line, approaching the crosswalk,
when I found that the grating cover's grooves had rusted away, leaving only the vertical slots,
and I fell straight through and crashed.
↑This was a photo I took during an inspection with a different wheel later on,
but what actually got stuck was a Kksyrium ES.
Around Kishiwada on the Rinkai Line, the place where a Lawson and Yoshinoya are side by side—
people familiar with the area will know it.
(That Lawson is now closed and became a massage shop)
I could see there was a motorcycle behind me at a red light,
so I rode outside the roadway and got caught on the cover, jack-knifing and crashing.
I fell to the left and scraped my left elbow. If I'd fallen right, it would've been bad.
Also, the motorcycle rider did an emergency stop to help,
so the accident was just my own crash.
I happened to not have a cell phone, so I called 110 from a public phone at the Lawson,
got a statement for the self-accident, and later called the Osaka Prefectural Civil Engineering Office.
They told me it was under the jurisdiction of the Kishiwada Civil Engineering Office,
and while I was worried I'd just get passed around,
they handled it with practiced ease and resolved it pretty quickly.
The ErgoPower levers on my original Athena
↑have this scratch from that incident.
↑The Kksyrium front wheel has marks where it sank nearly to the hub.
The tire sidewall was cut and it got a flat, so
I used a Park Tool tire boot I had with me and replaced the tube.
↑Marks from when it got caught in the grating
After a second site inspection and discussion,
the compensation covered only the Kksyrium front wheel and helmet,
and the Ergopower levers and abrasions were not pursued.
I also signed an agreement not to revisit the matter.
Maybe they thought I was some kind of opportunistic complainer.
Also, the civil engineering office did a full inspection of all the grating covers in the area,
and found five locations including the site of my accident that needed replacement.
They marked them with red spray paint as a priority for replacement.
When I passed by later, it was just as reported,
and I still pass through there during night practice, but the cover has since been replaced with a different one.
I can repair the Kksyrium myself,
so financially I came out a bit ahead, but I was injured
and could have been hurt much worse, so it doesn't feel like a win.
In the photos above, I replaced the ES rim with another ES rim—
the K10 rim is being used for something else.
The large number of red spokes is just a coincidence.
By the way, if you break a rim from a Metal Stag Beetle,
this kind of compensation claim doesn't apply, so be aware.
It hunts our rear wheels from just beyond the line where it can be sued.
Just dismount quietly and walk through.
↑This is the bollard you see in the Yodo River (and probably other places).
↑Same thing at a different location
The fangs point inward,
and the fact that the lower one is longer is what makes it so vicious,
It's not super tight, but it's pretty narrow.
I don't know if the Metal Stag Beetle is nocturnal,
but I am. This photo was taken in June 2016,
and the light I'm using is a VOLT 1600, before I bought the VOLT 6000.
When you cruise through the Yodo River floodplain at a decent speed,
you get stopped by the Metal Stag Beetle pretty often,
so even though you could safely pass through by dismounting,
I tend to cut corners and try to squeeze through while still mounted.
The fact that you can sometimes slip right through if you approach the Metal Stag Beetle straight down the middle
is also a trap.
The reward for not dismounting and getting through faster
is vastly outweighed by the risk if something goes wrong.
And you never realize the risk until it actually happens to you.
Let me show you some actual examples.
This is the rear rim of a Shamal Ultra that we did a rim replacement on.
According to the customer's account, it was definitely hit by a Metal Stag Beetle.
Since there's a dent in the rim, I used a Chibadanu (→here) to pull it tight.
It's heavily dented.
The dent isn't so much at the rim's apex but rather off to the side,
This shows that the Metal Stag Beetle's fangs don't have to hit the rim's apex directly—
even just grazing it causes a dent.
Even starting from a standstill, the rider's body weight is involved,
so if it catches, it can cause enough damage to the rim
that replacement becomes necessary.
Actually, I heard from the customer that yesterday's Racing Zeroナイト rear rim damage
was also caused by a Metal Stag Beetle.
But here's my question:
does a rim really get crumpled just from failing to squeeze through?
When I ride through the Metal Stag Beetle, I'm confident that "I can make it!"
So it should be impossible to fail at getting through such a small gap, even if it's tight.
Actually, the Metal Stag Beetle has a secret, and
↑it's embedded in the ground like this,
waiting for prey to get caught.
And I don't know how it senses this, but
only when the conditions align of
・someone trying to pass through while mounted
・nobody watching
・the fang passing somewhere around the rear derailleur
does it snap its jaws shut with a \\CLANG!/ and clamp down on the rear rim!
I've seen so many rear wheels damaged in a way that only makes sense if it has this habit,
so as the method to definitely avoid getting hit,
I recommend dismounting every time you pass through a Metal Stag Beetle.
I've seen examples where someone said
"The Yodo floodplain is my commute route, and I always make it through mounted, no problem!"
and then one day suddenly got nailed.
The Metal Stag Beetle patiently adjusted the gap between its lower fang to match each rider
and waited for its chance to hunt. It's the perseverance predator's victory.
A while back, we did a rim replacement on the rear wheel of a Nomu Lab Wheel No. 5 (→here)
and the cause was also a Metal Stag Beetle. According to the customer,
"the rear wheel got stuck and I did an endo,"
but the truth is, the Metal Stag Beetle clamped down on the rear wheel
and thrashed its head around. The rim was clearly bent.
Two weeks later, that same customer came back,
and the rear wheel we'd just replaced had a slight wobble.
When I asked what happened, they said "I got hit by a Metal Stag Beetle again."
Why are you being lazy again after getting hit once?
At least this time there was no crash, just a minor rim truing.
Bonus
The term "Metal Stag Beetle" isn't new to this post—
I've written about it before—but someone commented
"Isn't the Metal Stag Beetle the expansion joint of a bridge?"
and they were right.
When a rim can be damaged in this way, it may constitute
road maintenance negligence, creating
a liability for damages on the part of the road administrator (the construction division of the city/town, prefectural civil engineering office, national highway office, etc.).
Someone commented about this, and since I've actually experienced it myself,
I'll write about it here.
Before Nomu Lab opened, while riding on Osaka's Rinkai Line.
The light turned green and I started from the stop line, approaching the crosswalk,
when I found that the grating cover's grooves had rusted away, leaving only the vertical slots,
and I fell straight through and crashed.
↑This was a photo I took during an inspection with a different wheel later on,
but what actually got stuck was a Kksyrium ES.
Around Kishiwada on the Rinkai Line, the place where a Lawson and Yoshinoya are side by side—
people familiar with the area will know it.
(That Lawson is now closed and became a massage shop)
I could see there was a motorcycle behind me at a red light,
so I rode outside the roadway and got caught on the cover, jack-knifing and crashing.
I fell to the left and scraped my left elbow. If I'd fallen right, it would've been bad.
Also, the motorcycle rider did an emergency stop to help,
so the accident was just my own crash.
I happened to not have a cell phone, so I called 110 from a public phone at the Lawson,
got a statement for the self-accident, and later called the Osaka Prefectural Civil Engineering Office.
They told me it was under the jurisdiction of the Kishiwada Civil Engineering Office,
and while I was worried I'd just get passed around,
they handled it with practiced ease and resolved it pretty quickly.
The ErgoPower levers on my original Athena
↑have this scratch from that incident.
↑The Kksyrium front wheel has marks where it sank nearly to the hub.
The tire sidewall was cut and it got a flat, so
I used a Park Tool tire boot I had with me and replaced the tube.
↑Marks from when it got caught in the grating
After a second site inspection and discussion,
the compensation covered only the Kksyrium front wheel and helmet,
and the Ergopower levers and abrasions were not pursued.
I also signed an agreement not to revisit the matter.
Maybe they thought I was some kind of opportunistic complainer.
Also, the civil engineering office did a full inspection of all the grating covers in the area,
and found five locations including the site of my accident that needed replacement.
They marked them with red spray paint as a priority for replacement.
When I passed by later, it was just as reported,
and I still pass through there during night practice, but the cover has since been replaced with a different one.
I can repair the Kksyrium myself,
so financially I came out a bit ahead, but I was injured
and could have been hurt much worse, so it doesn't feel like a win.
In the photos above, I replaced the ES rim with another ES rim—
the K10 rim is being used for something else.
The large number of red spokes is just a coincidence.
By the way, if you break a rim from a Metal Stag Beetle,
this kind of compensation claim doesn't apply, so be aware.
It hunts our rear wheels from just beyond the line where it can be sued.
Just dismount quietly and walk through.