I was sort of perusing the internet and came upon this headline story over at Velonews.com about “When you should replace skewers?” The headline grabbed my interest because I’d never heard of anyone replacing a quick release skewer for any reason other than scrapping it flat from falling on it.

So, I click on the link to the story and Lennard Zinn is answering a question from a reader about when to replace skewer. Lennard proceeds to answer the question with 6 different replies from skewer manufactures.

I personally know a few of the guys that answered and they all said that they had never heard of a situation where a quick release skewer failed and there really wasn’t/isn’t a test to check for fatigue.

I don’t get it, an article about a subject that does worry some people new to the sport, portraying that there might be an actual issue there, but there isn’t.

They might as well wrote an article about if Cancellara was using mice to power his bicycle or would it be good to use maple syrup to lubricate your chain.

I think Lennard should of just answered the question, since he already knew the answer, or maybe after he contacted the manufactures and got their responses, just said, “Hey, I contacted about everyone I know in the industry and you don’t have to worry about your quick releases failing, they don’t.”

I think there were plenty of cool technical innovation to bikes at the Paris-Roubaix last Sunday. Maybe Fabian’s bike could have been the headline story, not a failing quick release scare headline.

It sort of irked me that they used a attention grabbing headline, of a non-issue, to attract readership. It didn’t deserve to be the led story of the website Velonews.com.

I took this photo up at Trek in Waterloo. They originally used mice, but now are testing out rats to power the new Madones.

Lance shows you how to use a quick release in this video.

Yesterday Bill and I were going out for a shortish ride through South Austin. We’d ridden across the MOPAC pedestrian bridge and then were heading out south on the frontage road beside MOPAC, when ahead we saw a huge dust cloud. As we approached it, it became apparent that is wasn’t just dirt. I should of made a quick decision and just turned around. But, I glanced over my shoulder and there wasn’t a car coming from behind, so we just kept riding.

At the bottom of this hill there was a big pile of cement, not concrete, but just dry cement. I have no idea how it got there. It would have been dozens of bags of Quickcrete. We rode by the pile and got a hundred meters up the hill by the time the first car drove by. Looking over my shoulder, there was a huge plume of airborne toxic dust.

Dry, unused cement/concrete is really not something good to breathe. The way cement works is when you add water, a chemical reaction occurs, by hydration, and a lot of different things occur. Lots of different chemical reactions occur and heat is produced as a by-product. When you breathe dry dust into your lungs, this hydration process starts because you’ve added the water. I’ve had the pleasure of having the experience a few times and it plays havoc on my lungs and throat. It was not different this time.

The first time I had any experience with this was when I was racing MTB bikes for Specialized back in the mid-90’s. We were racing the World Cup in Hoffalize Belgium. I was doing the qualifying race the day before the World Cup and they were rebuilding the cobble main street in the morning. The construction workers were spreading a dry cement mixture on the cobbles and then they were just spraying a little water and using a squeegee to spread the mixture and get it between the cobbles.

Anyway, there was a lot of dry cement dust that hadn’t contacted water, thus was ripe to react with our lungs. 150 of us started out and it was a complete whiteout of cement dust. Nearly instantly I couldn’t breathe. My throat was toast. I don’t think that any of us that road that first qualifying race had a result the next day at the World Cup. All of us were ill from breathing the cement.

I’ve had the same experience laying tile. When I get lazy and don’t wear a mix when I mix the thinset, mamy times I get the throat burn. Usually doing this, I end up with strep throat, having to antibiotics.

Back to yesterday. I’m not sure how much cement dust Bill and I actually took in. We were pretty far past the pile before the first can came by and the wind was blowing from the west, so it was blowing away from us as the cars passed. But the road was dusty for a long time, maybe half a mile.

My throat felt pretty bad all ride and then this morning isn’t good either. I should of done a sinus wash right when I got back, but didn’t think about it.

I hope this isn’t the start of something bad. I know I’m very much on the edge and have trying to be very careful and stay well. I guess time will tell.

The World Cup start in Hoffalize a few years ago.

Dry cement powder.

Click to enlarge.