Look Cleats Breaking ?

"Richard Thompson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyone had look cleats break while standing going up hill . Yep I did
last sunday at 30 mph. Was a NASTY fall . Got a NOT FREE trip in
ambulance to hospital. Head and neck checked hospital was done with me.
Gee I was unconcious 45 min`s and they just take X rays and show me the
door. Has anyone had a
similar fall ? Richard

No. Though I've seen a lot of Look cleats fail from wear and the owner not
replacing them when necessary.

I have to tell you, if you can go up hill standing at 30 mph you're in shape
for the pros.

"Richard Thompson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyone had look cleats break while standing going up hill . Yep I did
last sunday at 30 mph. Was a NASTY fall . Got a NOT FREE trip in
ambulance to hospital. Head and neck checked hospital was done with me.
Gee I was unconcious 45 min`s and they just take X rays and show me the
door. Has anyone had a
similar fall ? Richard

@ @

I assume that you broke the cleat climbing and then had your foot disengage
on the descent. The only Look cleats that I've seen crack or break are
those that are worn and past due for replacement. Was it a genuine Look
cleat or an Exus knock off made with softer plastic?

Quoted message said:

Anyone had look cleats break while standing going up hill . Yep I did
last sunday at 30 mph. Was a NASTY fall . Got a NOT FREE trip in
ambulance to hospital. Head and neck checked hospital was done with me.
Gee I was unconcious 45 min`s and they just take X rays and show me the
door. Has anyone had a
similar fall ? Richard

Not similar, but I did break a look cleat in half one time. Put some
new ones on, and didn't tighten the screws tight enough, so when I got to an
intersection, I couldn't get the cleat out the pedal, because the cleat
wasn't solid to the shoe. They loosened up on me. One of those
embarrassing moments as you flail away and go down with all these people
stopped at the intersection watching this idiot. But as I went down, I gave
my foot one big twist, and broke the cleat in half. So it can be done even
with new ones. The lesson I learned is after you put some new ones on.
Tighten them again, or make sure they're tight, after your first ride with
them.

After I got knocked out on a ride, I rode to the hospital, after I came
to, one handed, with a crushed helmet and a broken hand. I can't afford an
ambulance. It was only 8 miles, now if it would have been 30, I don't know
if I could have made it, I wasn't really thinking to well at that point.
But I was on familiar territory so that was lucky.

On Sun, 8 May 2005 18:33:13 -0400, [email hidden] (Richard

Thompson) said:

Has anyone had a
similar fall ?

Probably. There are tens of thousands of those cleats in use over the
years, so for sure some would get worn and break. Everything breaks
eventually.

JT

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B. Lafferty said:

I assume that you broke the cleat climbing and then had your foot

disengage

Quoted message said:

on the descent. The only Look cleats that I've seen crack or break

are

Quoted message said:

those that are worn and past due for replacement. Was it a genuine

Look

Quoted message said:

cleat or an Exus knock off made with softer plastic?

jackie childs,

his disfigured face is your next case.

Tom Kunich said:

"Richard Thompson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyone had look cleats break while standing going up hill . Yep I
did last sunday at 30 mph. Was a NASTY fall . Got a NOT FREE trip in
ambulance to hospital. Head and neck checked hospital was done with
me. Gee I was unconcious 45 min`s and they just take X rays and show
me the door. Has anyone
had a similar fall ? Richard

No. Though I've seen a lot of Look cleats fail from wear and the
owner not replacing them when necessary.

I have to tell you, if you can go up hill standing at 30 mph you're
in shape for the pros.

Odds on by 'hill' he means fifty yards at maybe 5%. Which any joker can
sprint up at 30 mph.

Peter

Richard Thompson said:

Anyone had look cleats break while standing going up hill . Yep I did
last sunday at 30 mph. Was a NASTY fall . Got a NOT FREE trip in
ambulance to hospital. Head and neck checked hospital was done with me.
Gee I was unconcious 45 min`s and they just take X rays and show me the
door. Has anyone had a
similar fall ? Richard

@ @

~~~

You sure you were unconscious 45 minutes and they discharged you?
Geez, managed care has gotten worse than I thought.

Steve

--
Cut the nonsense to reply

Steven Bornfeld said:

You sure you were unconscious 45 minutes and they discharged you?
Geez, managed care has gotten worse than I thought.

Steve

They gave him a card with a number to call if he passed out again.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Anyone had look cleats break while standing going up hill . Yep I did
last sunday at 30 mph. Was a NASTY fall . Got a NOT FREE trip in
ambulance to hospital. Head and neck checked hospital was done with me.
Gee I was unconcious 45 min`s and they just take X rays and show me the
door. Has anyone had a
similar fall ?

30MPH uphill??? Wow! That's impressive. Was this a new cleat or old cleat?
Where did the cleat break? Any pictures of the borken cleat? If the front
tip broke off, chances are you didn't replace the cleat when you should have.
The front tip of the cleat wears on the foot you put down at stop lights.
If you walk in your cleats, they wear even faster. You need to keep an eye
on your cleats and change them when they start to get thin.
--------------
Alex

Well Thanks for the responces. As I expected ]some were cute, some
simply jealous. I said uphill , but had just stood up starting te hill,
the cleat broke in the middle, Scews still attached. Was using spare
shoes as cleats on pearl U`s were worn . And yes I can go up some hills
and hold 30 for a while, as I get older the while is shorter. Not copies
but look cleats . Thats why I was using spare shoes,, shops in Augusta
Ga stock Knock off cleats . I won`t buy them. It was a
freindy easy 100 mile unsupported ride with 3 of us, I had just passed
another rider who was still gong close to 30 mph . I`m taking his word
,after I hit the good looking head on asphalt memory took a break. Once
the hospital discovered I had no insurance ,they finnished a scan on my
head and neck X rays. Then showed me the door.

I suppose I could go back to using my trusty Cinneli pedals . They
were called suicide pedals for a reason. I won them in a 3 day stage
race back in the `70s. As I am 60 in august I may have ridden more miles
than any two of you posting here. I never said I would be doing 30 at
the top of the hill. THERE are HILLS in Georgia,, ask Lance. Yes I have
ridden up Brasstown Bald on a single bike and a tandem. ( Short
Wheelbase ,BOB JACKSON ) . I have taken pickup truck loads of sewup
tires to the dump I`ve worn out. I would still like
a few serious commennts about breaking Look cleats. I was racing way
before the class system started. Then 18- 40 was one class. OOPS 300-600
somtimes started a race. Tough luck if you bought a bike today and
lined up to race the national team tommorow. Children I
only wanted comments about broken cleats ,,thanks

@ @

~~~

Alex I usually do track stands at traffic lights.. Good point though.
Thanks : Richard

@ @

~~~

I feel compelled to note, as an Emergency Physician, that if I saw someone
that had a longish loss of consciousness but had a normal neurologic exam, a
normal CT and a competent person to observe them at home in a reasonably
close location to a hospital I would generally send them home. It is
unusual for me to even know the insurance status of the patient, although I
could look. In my experience it is very unusual for EM physicians to make
any type of decision based on the patients insurance or payment status or
for that matter to even look at it. After all, it is not the physician's
money that is being spent; it is the patient's. In addition, doing more in
terms of studies or admission generally is not much more work and a whole
lot less liability risk which tends to push you that way rather than
worrying whether the patient is going to be just another one of the many
that will not pay their bill. Admission decisions are, of course, made by
the physicians and not by the admitting personnel, accounting,
administration, or anyone else that I would include under the term "the
hospital". The only time that payment status really ever comes into play,
for me at least, is when the patient wants to refuse an offered test or
method of treatment because they are concerned about the cost.

--
Mike Murray
"Richard Thompson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Well Thanks for the responces. As I expected ]some were cute, some
simply jealous. I said uphill , but had just stood up starting te hill,
the cleat broke in the middle, Scews still attached. Was using spare
shoes as cleats on pearl U`s were worn . And yes I can go up some hills
and hold 30 for a while, as I get older the while is shorter. Not copies
but look cleats . Thats why I was using spare shoes,, shops in Augusta
Ga stock Knock off cleats . I won`t buy them. It was a
freindy easy 100 mile unsupported ride with 3 of us, I had just passed
another rider who was still gong close to 30 mph . I`m taking his word
,after I hit the good looking head on asphalt memory took a break. Once
the hospital discovered I had no insurance ,they finnished a scan on my
head and neck X rays. Then showed me the door.

On Mon, 9 May 2005 21:23:34 -0400, [email hidden] (Richard

Thompson) said:

I would still like
a few serious commennts about breaking Look cleats. I was racing way
before the class system started. Then 18- 40 was one class. OOPS 300-600
somtimes started a race. Tough luck if you bought a bike today and
lined up to race the national team tommorow.

You must have been racing young. I was racing in the ABLA in the early
70s and we were using A-B-C-D classes and there were juniors. There
weren't many master riders back then (at least in Texas and the
Monterey area of California) because the older guys seemed to be only
doing training rides and running the clubs and races.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

If you come on like a lawyer looking for testimony about breaking
cleats you can expect to get the sort of answer you got.

The older Look cleats have had their molds replaced many times over the
years I would expect and have gotten progressively smaller and hence
they rattle around in the pedal more than originally.

The latest Look replacement cleats with the white Teflon underside fits
and works a great deal better than those old style cleats that are
still available here and there.

I've worn out perhaps 40 sets of Look cleats my self and put them on
perhaps 50 bikes for various people.

Not one of them ever had a cleat failure as you describe but as John
Tomlinson observed with his usual good sense - with a million riders
out there on Look pedals any kind of failure possible is bound to
happen.

Another thought - some shoes have ledges and arcs where the cleats
attach. Overtightening the cleats on these sorts of things could damage
them though I have to admit that I've used pennies to space out cleats
on small shoe sizes, with arcs so tight that the cleats couldn't engage
the pedals, without any problems at all along these lines.

Mike, when I smashed my toe in a lawnmower accident and went to the EM
one of the first questions was "Do you have insurance". I was between
jobs and didn't and even in my pain I would hear the nurse calling
plastic surgeons on the phone and in the first sentence they would say,
"no insurance". No plastic surgeons were available and so an osteopath
cut it off.

Now I was in so much pain that I wasn't about to complain, but the fact
is that I'm pretty sure that the toe could have been saved and some
walking problems avoided if the question of insurance had never come
up.

The funny thing is that when I went to my next job after recovery they
had a health insurance guy there who described almost the identical
injury to another person - he bragged that his company could reduce
that $16,000 bill so that they only paid $1,900. The interesting part
was that my injuries cost me $18,000 in medical expenses which I paid
within 6 months.

I'm sure that there are doctors such as yourself who aren't worried
about being paid all that rapidly, but there most certainly are a large
number of doctors who are.

There are some problems with this story:
-I am not sure when you had your accident but since the COBRA legislation it
is actually a violation of federal law to discuss finances prior to
initiating what is vaguely termed a "medical screening exam". Of course it
should be expected that hospitals will be collecting payment information but
there is a BIG disconnect between payment information and medical decision
making in general, unfortunately both to the benefit and the detriment of
the patient.
-It is also an EMTALA violation, which carries significant financial
penalties for both the hospital and the physicians, for an on call physician
to refuse to respond when called by the ED. There is no requirement,
however, that there be plastic surgeons or, for that matter, any other
specialty coverage at all hospitals.
-There is also a requirement for physician to physician contact. It is
unlikely that nurses would be placed in a position of searching for a
plastic surgeon to respond to a need for consultation as this clearly would
be the responsibility of the physician. Clerical people or even nurses may
be making phone calls however and that may cause some confusion. It is
frequent that people will assume that all the females in the hospital are
nurses and all the males are doctors. This does somewhat [censored] of virtually
everyone who is mislabeled, by the way.
-An osteopath, or DO, is a doctor just like an MD. They go to osteopathic
school and have equivalent training.

I think that often people assume that all the people they meet in a hospital
encounter are acting as agents of the physician. This is most definitely
not the case. In fact many times the physician is acting at odds to the
hospital and even more often the specific hospital employees. There are
lots of different schemes that are used but most generally EM physicians do
not collect directly from the patients they see. They may be employees of a
group, contract management company or the hospital. They may be paid
hourly, split fees with a group or some other scheme. Even in the
situations where they are paid directly related to what is, somewhat
euphemistically, called production there is so much separation between the
service delivered and the amount paid that it is difficult to really make
much of a connection. In many EDs a significantly large portion of the
patient population is uninsured so seeing another uninsured patient is very
unlikely to change how you would generally do things.

The situation is different in a private office of course. There is a more
direct connection between the finances and the services delivered in that
setting so consequently it would be easier to see economics making an effect
on decision making.

I am not surprised by the statement about the reduction in amount of the
bill, although the magnitude is a bit bigger than I would expect. It is
common that insurance companies will negotiate (or more accurately demand)
deep discounts. This, combined with the fact that governmental payers
(Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) pay set fees for services regardless of amount
billed and that there are a substantial number of patients that don't ever
pay, make it so that the fee for services (the "sticker" price) is
substantially higher than the actual market value. The hapless person that
pays cash for service ends up paying this "sticker" price, in effect
covering the underpayment by no pays, insured and governmental payers. I
have calculated that for our group if we were paid cash at the time of
service, like most businesses, we could charge roughly 20% (not 20% less ...
20%) of what we currently charge and still make the same amount of money.
It is a crazy business.

I also feel compelled to point out that being between jobs does not
necessarily keep you from purchasing insurance. You do not have to get your
insurance through an employer. Major medical insurance, which has a high
deductible but would cover a substantial portion of a large bill like Tom's,
can be purchased individually often for less money than many people spend on
beer and cigarettes. Pre-existing conditions may make individual medical
insurance difficult or impossible to purchase but there are often groups
purchase insurances that people can get outside of their employment. USA
Cycling has, at least in the past, offered this sort of program. For the
most part here in the US the crisis of people lacking medical insurance is
primarily an issue of people electing NOT to purchase rather than being
unable to purchase.

--
Mike Murray

"Tom Kunich" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mike, when I smashed my toe in a lawnmower accident and went to the EM
one of the first questions was "Do you have insurance". I was between
jobs and didn't and even in my pain I would hear the nurse calling
plastic surgeons on the phone and in the first sentence they would say,
"no insurance". No plastic surgeons were available and so an osteopath
cut it off.

Now I was in so much pain that I wasn't about to complain, but the fact
is that I'm pretty sure that the toe could have been saved and some
walking problems avoided if the question of insurance had never come
up.

The funny thing is that when I went to my next job after recovery they
had a health insurance guy there who described almost the identical
injury to another person - he bragged that his company could reduce
that $16,000 bill so that they only paid $1,900. The interesting part
was that my injuries cost me $18,000 in medical expenses which I paid
within 6 months.

I'm sure that there are doctors such as yourself who aren't worried
about being paid all that rapidly, but there most certainly are a large
number of doctors who are.

Thanks Tom Kunich for a good answer. The look cleats that broke are
on Time shoes with no ridge. I have never seen cleats break this way ,
but it does cause a bad fall. I`m back to about 50 miles a day but
basicaly riding with one arm on hills because of shoulder pain. I guess
Tyler is a tougher man than me. At least faster.Guess my blood may test
funny also,with the [censored] one to me 18 years ago . One crazy doctor
wanted to do a heart transplant. I tossed him out of the room , then
went home and rode 150 miles to think the next day.

@ @

~~~

It might be interesting to get Mike Murry and my soninlaw in a
disscussion . Steve Rider my son in law is a nurologist, also a good
biker, who is fanatic about cyclecross. I
was a bit shocked after ct scan and Xrays at how quick the were through
with me. Damn I was barefooted wearing bloody bike clothes, 25 miles
from home. The loan of a phone did find a ride , but what if I had not .
A taxi ? and I live alone in the woods. OK there is a house in woods.
Son in law called the next morning to see if I woke. Guess Helmet did
its job. I always have said ,,CARRY ID. its suprising
how many bikers don`t . This time I was not riding alone. I often do 200
mile rides with a tent, then ride back the next morning. We all might
should tell some one where we are going to ride.

@ @

~~~