Frame damaged or not - CAAD9

harrywolper

I rode into the back of a car the other day - fairly slow but not that slow. No damage to me but the front wheel spokes took a hit and needed a good true up. I managed to cycle home and have since done a number of 30+ mile rides with everything seeming OK.

Just to be sure I took the bike to cycle shop and asked if they could have a look - the fork looked a bit "off". Anyway the bike shop came back with the frame was 7% out and the maximum level was 5% so they thought the frame was potentially unsafe. They have a rig for testing this sort of thing. Also fork was slightly bent. Not sure what the %age relates to.

What do people think - dump frame, ride till I crash into another car or something else. I did take it to another shop (without said rig) and after looking at frame & fork said it looked OK and if there were no cracks it was probably OK to ride.

It's a CAAD9 so keen to keep it if possible. Regards, Harry

Monty Dog

The fact that the crash has distorted the frame would means that it has been over-stressed, probably at the head and downtube junction. This could lead to premature failure at some point in the future, trouble is it could be sudden and catastrophic or progressive and easy to spot. If you're happy to continue to ride on the understanding that the frame could fail suddenly at any point without warning, then go ahead! As the frame is heat-treated alloy then it is impossible to repair effectively.

freehub

I'd not risk riding that.

andi1363

If its bent then its had it. It may not fail anytime soon but fail it will. And it could fail next time you use it!

SCR Pedro

I'd keep it as a turbo training bike. You don't need the frame coming apart on a fast descent, especially when you consider that you might not walk away from it.

Pedro

andyrr

Before scrapping/assigning to Turbo duties, I'd see if you can have this tested in some way.
1) Is some form of NDT (Non destictive Testing) possible ? X-ray or dye testing? (I'm not at all familiar with these so don't know how relevant they are to metals as opposed to composites)
2) The frame is supposedly only 2% outside the maximum limit, not a hge amount ? Can the first LBS that did that test say where the deformity is ?
As the front fork too the the main hit and was shown to be bent plus is carbon I'd look a getting that replaced - carbon doesn't take particularly well to bending stresses.

Possibly the cost of replacing the fork could mean that a full replacement frameset may become more economic action ?
Do Cannondale offer any sort of crash replacement ? Worth trying that avenue. You aren't pretending that it is a fault with the product but the alternative, you can say to the, is that you will have to switch to an alternative brand.