Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Truman, you are correct that we should check our equipment on a regular basis. Sun, wind, rain...they take a toll on everything. Not to mention the added wear of riding all the time and using the equipment like we do....

Plastic will age and become brittle in the sunshine. UV rays are hard on any plastic...

 

Lori

 

 

 

 

Truman Prevatt <tprevatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Aluminum is a brittle metal. It will get metal fatigue easily. It's no
different than bending a paper clip over and over - pretty soon it goes
pop. The more weight in the stirrup the more stress and the faster it
will fatigue.

Plastic will also fatigue and break but plastic will last longer -
unless there was a problem with the plastic.

There are a lot of sports where you check your equipment every single
time before you use it, e.g. scuba diving and sky diving come to mind.
To me endurance is one of those. I cannot envision anything worse than
galloping alone and have a stirrup pop. I had a stirrup leather slip off
the bar (shame on me I forgot to check it before I got on) at a trot one
time and that was painful enough.

It's not a bad idea to replace you helmet every so ofter with a new one
and it's not a bad idea to replace your stirrups every so often either.
It's a very good idea to check you stirrups, leathers, billet straps,
girth buckles, rein snaps, etc. each and every time before you ride.

Truman

Karen Lynd wrote:
>
> I still use mine, but I have been thinking about switching to the
> plastic pair - now Maryben says that they break too?
> Karen Lynd
>
>


--

?It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how
smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong? Richard
Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics