anyone snapped a carbon steerer tube ? - update

deal

was out today and slowed while approaching a junction, accelerated to beat traffic from the right and heard a loud cracking/crunching noise quickly stopped and upon disassembling my bike discovered a deep crack in the steerer

I could understand the fork braking if i had an accident but the worst punishment the fork has experienced would be the odd cattlegrid, I guess im lucky it happened when it did rather than while heading downhill at 40-50mph :shock:

gundersen

have crushed a reynolds ouzo pro - my fault

can see from the picture that you have vice marks on the fork - maybe from when it was cut to length.

that would destroy it.

deal

was never put in a vice, was cut on a chop saw while held in place by hand, the mark you are talking about is where there is a slight narrowing of the diameter of the steerer tube and appears to be the result of machining the tube, only shows up there due to the light but is actually visible all around the tube

also noticed there does seem to be a virtical line present in the weave both where the crack occured and the opposite side (you can see a line on the picture above - it continues to the top of the tube) the fact the crack follows this line to me suggests a defect, anyway sent images to manufacturer and await reply

gundersen

i don't think you will get much from them

all the breaks i have seen in carbon fiber have been man made in one way or another - including my own fork (which is why i just threw it in the rubbish bin)

the seem you mention is normal.

maybe the tube got compressed too much when the head set ring was pressed on?

Burghley

Hi

Halfway through my French holiday at Easter my headset came loose, and proved impossible to adjust correctly.

Four rides later I returned home, where my LBS discovered a cracked steerer tube!

I don't recommend you try this at home...in fact you could say that I rode my luck a bit!

Rgds

Pete

pliptrot

It's telling that the only comment pertaining to the manufacturer suggests they won't be responsive to what is apparently a manufacturing defect. I guess the bicycle industry is not the only one in which the buying public are asked to part with ever larger sums of money for equipment which is evidently increasingly less durable.

Many, many threads on this forum are about expensive gear which has failed/worn out way before any reasonable expectation. What a sorry state of affairs.

Deal, I hope you get appropriate redress. And if not, name and shame the manufacturer.

deal

if i don't get a suitable response you can be sure that pictures will find there way onto a number of popular forums, currently involved with an email conversation in which the main aim seems to have been to get me to say something which could be interpreted in a way they like.

ie.

manufacturer: did you fit the fork yourself and how
me: yes, i did it like this blah blah
manufacturer: which headset did you use
me: fsa orbit ce with fsa expander instead of star nut, i also mentioned with crown race was a tighter fit than i have previously experienced
manufacturer: normally if the crown race is tight fitting is should be sandpapered down a bit first, forcing it could result is a crack

I probably should have been wise to there game but i was just being honest, also I hardly forced it, I held the forks in one hand and taped the headset onto the fork by using a pvc tube and small mallet in the other hand, i am currently composing my response

anyone have an opinion on the suggestion that i should have attacked my fork with sandpaper ? surely this would have resulted in fraying... also i would suggest that there poor manufacturing tolerances are to blame