Yesterday I took my old city bike for a ride. It’s my brother’s old Trek 330 from the 1980s that I converted to a single-speed with a 2-speed Sturmey Archer kick-back shift rear hub, and mustache handlebars. It’s a cool old vintage bike that’s fun to ride.

About 14 miles into the ride, just after I turned around to head home, the seat suddenly rotated back as if the bolt were loose. I stopped and got out my tools, ready to tighten it. But it wasn’t loose. One of the seat rails had sheared or snapped off! It’s made of metal! I’m not a big heavy guy so I have no idea how this happened. In over 40 years of riding and working on bikes I’ve never seen a failure like this. Then a couple of miles later the other rail broke.

Pics or it didn’t happen:

The front of the seat rail still fit into the nose of the seat, but it was loose and fell off a few times on the way home, making me stop to go back and pick it up. So for the last 10 or so miles I got a new kind of bike exercise:

• Slide forward and ride on the front nose of the seat (ouch!)
• To pedal, legs now push down and back, for a new kind of muscle workout
• Pinch the seat nose between your butt cheeks while pedaling, to keep it in place

What a weird failure. Of course, I made it home and swapped the seat for an old spare I had in one of my bike parts bins.