Richard Stanton's old Trek 2000 had served him well around the streets of Canberra, but as his 50th birthday drew nearer, he began sifting through glossy bicycle catalogues to pick out a new road bike.
His current model had been a gift for his 40th birthday and while he cared for it fastidiously, his cycling mates liked to rib him about his ageing bike.
More News Videos
- Video duration
- 01:17
Bike helmet research debunks 'junk science'
- Video duration
- 01:02
Productivity Bootcamp helps youth secure apprenticeships
- Video duration
- 00:48
'Drunk driver' staggers out of car
- Video duration
- 00:43
Adrian Piccoli: 'Bang! Bang! Bang!'
- Video duration
- 00:28
Shooter's Party secures seat of Orange
- Video duration
- 03:06
The boundary that united two faiths
- Video duration
- 01:20
Man charged with the murder of missing schoolgirl
- Video duration
- 00:28
Truck fire on M1 causes major delays
Bike helmet research debunks 'junk science'
The largest review yet of bike helmet use found that helmets significantly reduce the chances of a serious head injury.
But a hidden flaw in his $4000 bike, undetectable by mechanics, would mean the Canberra father would never make it to his 50th birthday.
Mr Stanton was killed after the alloy steering tube in his bicycle "unexpectedly and catastrophically failed" in January 2015, a coronial inquest into his death this month concluded.
The 49-year-old suffered head, facial and neck injuries when the failure in the steering tube caused him to fall from his bicycle.
Mr Stanton had been riding with a friend after having coffee and riding about 35km/h uphill on Kent Street in Deakin. He died three days later in Canberra Hospital.
Coroner Lisbeth Campbell found Mr Stanton's riding, maintenance of the bike or previous minor prang had no bearing on the crash and instead pinned the failure of the carbon fork on a fatigue fracture in the aluminium steering tube.
The coroner determined the crack could not have been picked up by Mr Stanton or the technicians that had serviced his bike less than two months earlier and deemed it an "inclusion flaw" from the manufacturing process.
Now the coroner has recommended Standards Australia investigate a mandatory safe life for bicycles components such as the front steering fork, depending on the material and manufacturing process.
Upper safe life limits are routine in the aerospace industry, which uses many of the same materials found in high-end bicycles, Coroner Campbell said.
A spokeswoman from Standards Australia said the body would consider the coroner's findings.
However, Peter Bourke, general manager of Bicycle Industries Australia, said it would be near-impossible to replicate that same standard with a bicycle.
"In the aerospace industry every use of every part is documented. There is no control over how the bicycle is treated, how the bicycle is used, how the bicycle is stored, how the bicycle is transported," Mr Bourke said.
"There are so many variables it is actually very hard to identify a safe life of a part of a bike."
Even testing for metal fatigue can be more expensive than buying a new bicycle, he said.
The manufacturer of Mr Stanton's bicycle, Trek, will update its owner manuals to warn consumers about the risk of parts past their useful life failing catastrophically and without warning, in line with the coroner's recommendations.
In its owner manuals, the company already warned consumers its bicycles were not "indestructible" and each part had a limited useful life but said it was "not possible" to have a timetable for the replacement of parts.
"Whilst we may differ on the coroner's conclusions as the ultimate cause of the accident in this case, Trek is committed to rider safety and education and we're therefore more than happy to work with the coroner to put forward consumer and regulatory outreach on the importance of regular bicycle and safety maintenance," Jason Pye, general manager of Trek Australia and New Zealand said.
Richard Stanton's wife of almost 20 years, Sonia Stanton, said her husband serviced his bicycle "like a car".
"He was very down to earth and not flashy. Some people enjoy getting the newest gadget or the newest car, whereas he wasn't like that. I think he felt a degree of satisfaction that they might have the latest and greatest but he could still overtake them going up a hill."
Mrs Stanton said she feared for the owners of the second-hand fleet of road bikes, passed onto them by well-meaning uncles or brothers.
She said even her careful, considered husband – who replaced his helmet every four years as a matter of course and refused to ride at certain times of the day because the traffic "behaved differently" – would not have been aware of the hazard his old bike posed and probably would have handed it down to his own nephew had it not claimed his life.
"[The new bike] was just a treat for his 50th. I don't think he would have destroyed the old one thinking it was broken," Mrs Stanton said.
"A bike doesn't have a speedometer, so the age of a bike can mean so many different things. If someone parks a bike in a garage and rides it twice a year for the first five years, then clearly at the end of the first five years it hasn't got anything nearly like the metal fatigue of a bike someone rides 6000 kilometres a year. So it is difficult but I still am hopeful that difficulty can be gotten around in some way."
Peter Bourke of Bicycle Industries Australia said it was difficult to guarantee the integrity of an ageing bike without subjecting it to x-rays and other expensive tests.
"It is certainly one of the risks associated with buying a second-hand bike, especially of certain materials. It is a risk people should evaluate when they buy a second-hand bike, what is the history of that bike, and if you can't identify clear that it has been treated well or that it hasn't been in any accidents, you're probably safer to go for a new bike," Mr Bourke said.
But John Armstrong, executive officer of Pedal Power ACT, said the fatigue factor was more relevant to racing bikes that have been heavily used.
"I think what this report does indicate that if you are to do large kilometres on very lightweight bikes, then there is a fatigue factor that is engendered into that. For most people that potter around town that key factor isn't nearly as present [as compared to] those bicycles that would be doing 10,000 to 20,000 kilometres per year and are regularly exposed to repeated stresses. It's probably no different to buying a racing car off the track, you know that it's had a hard life," Mr Armstrong said.