Crash damage - replace fork or not?

CarlosDSanchez

In August I had the misfortune of hitting an old boy on an invalid carriage, he was crossing the road, saw the car ahead of me and the one behind me, but not me

He was okay, I separated my shoulder, broke a metacarpal and dislocated 2 fingers. The impact was hard enough to snap a spoke on the front wheel and pull the nipple of the adjacent spoke out of the rim. The wheels were shimano RS80's and obviously the front one is no good any more. The rest of the bike seems okay other than a scratched shifter. So the question is, do I replace the fork? There is no apparent damage, I can't bend or flex it and there doesn't seem to be any damage to the headset bearings either.

arthur_scrimshaw

My daughter hit a pothole in June last year, crashed and totaled her front wheel (spookily also an RS80 - I guess the market will soon be flooded with rear rs80's for sale now) The bike looked ok apart from the pringled front wheel, the frame looked fine - I checked carefully around the headtube and no tell tale signs and the fork looked ok, unmarked. I decided to drop the fork out and found the steerer tube had three horizontal cracks each about 10mm long just above the crown race.
Her bike was all CF (including the steerer tube) - every crash is different and outcome may depend if it's CF, Alloy or whatever. I'd drop the fork out and inspect it closely around the stress points, do the same to the frame or get your LBS to do it if your not sure.

graeme_s-2

I rear ended a car that swerved in front of me and jammed on the brakes 7 years ago. I hit the back of his car, my wheel made a V shape in his rear bumper and I went over the handlebars. Bike was checked over by the LBS and their verdict was both the (carbon) forks and wheel were fine. Looking back it seems a bit cavalier to have kept the fork, but I'm still riding the bike regularly and the fork has always been fine, so they can survive a bit of punishment.

Good advice to drop it and check it. Other issue is will you be happy with it, or will you not be able to trust the fork now?

Monty Dog

If the fork is lacquered and there is no sign of cracking or discolouration then there's a high degree of probability of it being OK. I went OTB on my Colnago forks 13 years ago when I hit a sand bar that stopped the bike dead - the fork has survived the full course at Paris-Roubaix and DeRonde numerous times plus umpteen races since.

CarlosDSanchez

My boss (who also cycles) thinks it's probably okay as well. I am an R&D Engineer so I've worked out what sort of load it probably saw, but with no data as to what the fork can withstand, it's not really much use. I'm guessing the most likely point of failure is going to be where the carbon blades and crown are bonded to the aluminium steerer.