Out riding the other day (on a close trail) when a stump came out of nowhere and sucker-punched me in the right foot. I was going fairly slow, but it still hurt my toe since I wasn't wearing riding boots (or any kind of boots)!
Anyway, I shook off the pain and carried on...but as I was riding, all the stuff in my Civi-case was making a strange sound...really rattling around badly. When I got back to camp, the reason for this noise became obvious; my rear "fender" was drooping and the plastics were all flared out.
I looked to see what the cause of this was and it appears as though the nut on the LEFT side of the subframe was missing completely, and when I hit the stump, the RIGHT side took all the force and sheared its mount clean off!
Now, I have to strip the bike down to nothing...take it in to the shop and get it re-welded (after disconnecting a bunch of electrical parts).
I guess the moral of the story, is to check ALL your frame nuts and bolts more often than I do. Odd that I would miss these when I'm usually quite anal about my chain, oil, etc...
I'll go the extra step next time and use some BLUE Loc-tite on them so they don't go "missing".
