Personal damage was limited to a sprained wrist and skinned elbow... Every landing you walk away from is a good landing
The stem collapsed without warning crossing the bridge over the river on the southern approach to Bray. I'd slowed to cross the bridge as the surface is made of removable tiles and a bit flakey, so I was only doing about 10kmph. It could so easily been a while lot worse...
Both failures occurred on second user bikes, though I suspect I've put a lot more mileage on them than the original owners.Correction: this bike was second user, the other I built up from a new frame and forks (both have the same frame and fork set). Discussing the previous incident with the shop, I was told I had too many spacers under the bars, which increased the leverage acting on the stem, which sounded plausible. On this bike the setup was in spec.
I'm liking zigzags idea of fitting a steel inner sleeve.
The alternate option is to switch to all steel bikes in future. Fact is my current bikes are getting a bit tatty/end of life so maybe time to keep an eye.out for suitable frames.