![]() Base Bars, with red line showing failure location (Image credit: Bastion / CyclingNews) This could, according to the website, suggest that the failure may have been caused by over tightening the bolt. Of course, this hasn’t stopped other commentators from speculating as to the cause of failure, and we don’t mind quoting them.ĬyclingNews has suggested that the break in the handlebar occurred at/close to the bolt mounting hole, as seen in the image below. To ensure the fairness of this process, we will make no comment on the detail of the investigation until it is complete.” “While the immediate focus is on the success of the Australian Cycling Team across the remainder of the Olympic program, there will be a thorough investigation and review of the factors involved in the incident. We are in constant contact with the Australian Olympic cycling team and coaches, and give our assurances that we are using all means available to investigate why this occurred.”Ĭycling Australia, the national administrative body responsible for the sport of cycling in the country has also put out their own statement regarding the mishap and subsequent ongoing investigations. “Our first concern was for Alex Porter and the entire team. “Our team is working with the Australian Olympic Team to understand the cause behind the failure of one of our handlebar units during the four-person, Australian pursuit challenge at the Tokyo Olympics overnight.” The webpage for the product has been replaced with a statement from Bastion, which reads: The failed component seems to be a similar design to Bastion’s commercially available “Base Bar”, which has been withdrawn from sale on the company website since the mishap at the Olympics. You can see the printed titanium crank in the image below. Bastion has designed the AM titanium handlebars to drop directly into the Argon 18 Electron Pro bike model.īastion has also designed AM for the stems and cranksets of the Olympic Electron Pro, although it is not confirmed that these AM components were also in use on the bikes on the day of the accident. It should be noted that the bikes themselves are not designed by Bastion, rather they have been designed by Canadian company Argon 18. The Madison handlebars in action during a previous race (Image credit: Dianne Manson) They are using Renishaw printers for the fabrication of their titanium components. They produce custom cycles and components and claim to be the only cycling company in the world with in-house Titanium 3D printing capabilities. The so-called “Madison handlebars” (pictured below) were produced by Australian cycle company Bastion, who were formed in 2015 by ex-automotive industry engineers. This means Australia will be competing for Bronze in the final of this event. With just 30 minutes to recover from the face-plant, the Australian team took that second attempt, and came in 5th place with 1st going to the Danish team. Under the “recognized mishap” rule, the team is allowed a restart if there is an unavoidable mishap which stops the race, hence the Australian team quickly signalled that they wanted a second attempt. Thankfully nobody was severely injured, save for some grazes and scrapes to the rider, which is remarkable in itself when you consider he hit the deck face-first at 65 km per hour. AM part failure (Image credit: Getty Images) Note the failed handlebars in the top left corner of the image. You can see what that looked like in the image below. And that is exactly what happened when the 3D printed handlebars of Australian cyclist Alex Porter snapped off during the men’s pursuit qualifiers on Monday 2nd August. Given the increase in AM hardware in this years’ competition, it was perhaps inevitable that we see the first AM part fail during an Olympic event. This years’ Olympics in Tokyo have seen a boom in 3D printed sporting goods employed over a range of competitions.Ĭyclists in particular have been making use of AM technologies bringing a variety of AM products to the track ranging from 3D printed cranks to lugs to handlebars.
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