Not my bike, rider taken to urgent care for possible broken collar bone, but I don’t know the guy so not sure what ended up happening with his injuries. I just know him from seeing him on my normal route.
Was riding on smooth pavement (on my Domane), guy a few hundred feet back on this pretty blue Madone. No traffic around and heading to a major intersection, I was early to the green. I look back and he is putting down power to make the light. All of the sudden I hear a crack and a crash, look back and the guy is rolling on the ground before the light. I swing back around since he is clearly injured.
Get him and his bike to the side of the road, and ask him if he’s okay and what happened. Apparently his forks just exploded on both sides and he went over the handlebars. It’s a smooth road without potholes in that section, nothing on the road that could have made his forks explode.
I don’t know the bike history but it was a pretty crazy failure. The guy who owns this bike isn’t heavy either, so not sure what caused the bike to explode.
by theradish1
6 Comments
Wow that is shocking. Maybe I like my Checkpoint after all with its 500+ gram chonker fork.
Looks like another crack is formed there by the dropout in the 2nd pic. I would wonder if this was already crashed or mishandled at least once prior to this.
So, there is some strange cracking near the thru axle suggesting that this bike may have already been compromised in a prior incident. There is also some odd marking on the side of the rim, indicative of some rubbing that shouldn’t be happening which could lead to a failure like this if a large enough object were to get caught in between the rim and fork.
That having been said, this guy is lucky to be alive and if there was no prior damage he should talk to a lawyer and then have that lawyer talk to Trek.
What’s wrong with it?
I have seen this before. Guy in a group ride had a crash on his bike previously. It cracked the steerer tube slightly in one spot, maybe 5mm long. He did nit want to buy a new fork and said it would be fine. He stood up on it to accelerate and snap, down he went. Injured himself pretty badly.
Forks that are not compromised do not just explode like that. Maybe if they are cheap knock off garbage but not on a reputable bike shop brand bike. I have seen the machines trek use to test these things and if that torture does not break them after 300,000 cycles, a JRA sure wont.
First time I see a madone fail, I been scared on how I ride the bike and sometimes I hit 35-45mph downhill rides with some nasty cracks and bumps on the street and I be thinking it’s ganna be over but so far it’s ok. Even with mounting my bike on a seasucker rack that is mainly on with the thru axle it’s been holding and I have the SL7. Is trek going to get you another one if damage is found through the frame?