Mountain biker's legal victory prompts safety warning

A cyclist who has won a gruelling legal action after he was thrown painfully from his machine today warned other mountain bikers to beware dangerous defects as they take to the hills this weekend.

Richard Hardy, 29, suffered cuts and nerve damage to his arm when the front wheel on his three-month old £389 bike buckled in Haldon Woods, near Exeter.

"I stood up on the bike, with both feet on the pedals," Mr Hardy said. "As I did, the front wheel suddenly gave way and I fell.

"I wasn't going very fast - just at a comfortable cruising speed that a jogger could have kept up with."

Mr Hardy thought the bike - a Carrera Fury mountain bike - had been thoroughly checked before he bought it from the Newton Abbot branch of Halfords.

The store had also serviced the bike but when Mr Hardy's lawyers sought damages for his injury, Halfords at first denied liability.

An engineer's report concluded that the wheel was defective - probably because spokes that should have been inspected had become loose.

"Halfords fought the case tenaciously for almost two years," Mr Hardy's solicitor, Nick Seymour, said. "At last, they have settled and agreed that there was a fault with the spokes."

Mr Hardy, of Ellacombe, Torquay, is riding again - and hopes to be pedalling through the countryside this weekend. But he fears other cyclists may wrongly assume their machines are safe.

"You should make sure a service has been properly carried out. Use a reputable dealer. I had ridden my bike only four or five times before my accident and I wasn't aware they came loose - they were probably loose after the service."

Mr Seymour, of lawyers Bond Pearce, said the weakened wheel should have been apparent when Halfords inspected the bike after its running-in period.

"Mr Hardy was badly shaken and hurt by the fall. His elbow and knee were injured. Unfortunately, Halfords compounded his pain by spending almost two years contesting his claim."

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