Ouch!

I fell off my bike yesterday. The wheel rim split, jammed in to the break and threw me over the handlebars. Luckily all I suffered was a couple of scrapes but I’m going to have to wait till the weekend to sort the bike out.
I’m not the best at cycle maintenance, but I can’t see how I could of prevented this from happening? You can feel when your breaks are wareing down, you can see when your tyres are going bald, but I wouldn’t know where to start checking my rims. The back wheel was replaced last year but the front one was as old as the bike – about 7 years. Maybe you should get new wheels every five years or something.
Anyway, I think I need a spare bike for times like this. I’m tempted by the Edinburgh Bicycle coop’s Revolution Courier ( http://www.edinburgh-bicycle.co.uk/catalogue/detail.cfm?ID=20817) – widely regarded to be the best value for the mid £200-£300 area. Then I could do up the racer and use it more for fun and less for commuting. Lidl’s have got cheap cycling gear in at the moment so I got some mits, shorts, jersey and jacket – not the height of fashion, but on my budget at the moment beggars cant be choosers so it’ll do nicely.