The new bakfietsen have arrived and one item of particular interest is the upgraded roller brakes. Shimano is offering a new model with a considerably larger heat sink, complete with cooling slots and fins. The timing of that news happened to coincide with my own crash and touched off a bit of a mini-controversy surrounding the choice of brakes for bakfiets. Those interested can read all about it at Clever Cycles flickr blog. It’s pretty interesting if you’re like me and into gory technical detail and minutia.

One thing in all the discussion of the brakes and the crash that I felt wasn’t dwelt on enough was the big wooden box. It can take quite a hit! Mine went down pretty hard somewhere around 20 mph. It slid for something like 20 feet. The photo to the right is a close-up of the damage. Realize that’s the entirety of the damage to the whole bike. A little bit of varnish and it will be beausage to commiserate over beers with friends.

Most importantly of all, the kids were largely unhurt. I have a picture of Ada Gene’s boo boo on the previous blog entry. Now if you can bear it, take a look at my knee. Beneath the road rash is some light swelling. I was limping for about 4 days. I still don’t have full range of motion, and it hurts even as I sit here and type. The harnesses held the kids safely within the high wooden sides of the box. Their only injuries were to their extremities from skidding after the bike had already went down. When the bike did go down they naturally counter rotated with the box taking the brunt of the initial impact and their inertia holding them up above the street for a moment.

So while I’m banged up and have no one to blame but myself, I can at least feel good knowing the kids were largely unhurt and in fact rather safe through it all. The 40 or 50 lbs of plywood suddenly doesn’t seem like such a burden, and for that I am one pretty grateful Dad.