I’m on my way to Lisbon from The Netherlands. Yesterday while being really fatigue, heavy headwinds for 90km, not paying attention I cycled into a pole in the middle of the cycling path. I was feeling so stupid, came all the way to Spain through difficult and rough parts then this happened. I was really not cycling fast, maybe 14 km/h but apparently with all the mass of my luggage my fork bended. I can see on the left part of the fork the paint is cracked but of course can’t see what’s going on underneath.
It’s a steel bicycle (tout terrain), with disc brakes, the wheel seems fine and the headset as well (as far as I can see)
I’m roughly 230 km from Madrid and It’s on my route. Should I try and get a new fork there? Or is it fine to keep going like this? What would you do in a situation like this?
By the way the fender was already like that.
by thoughtfulbeaver
7 Comments
It’s hard to tell from the photo, maybe bring it in a bike shop and ask the opinion of someone who can inspect it in person.
That said, steel is tough and steel frames can usually be cold worked without issue. So if the handling is not noticeably affected, you could probably keep riding it indefinitely without risk of sudden catastrophic failure.
It looked rideable, and the conventional wisdom is that if it fails it will do so slowly since its steel. That being said, the rake angle of the fork has probably changed which would make the steering a bit different.
I personally would get it replaced in Madrid, assuming I could afford to do so. I’d suggest calling a bike shop before you get there to make sure they have a suitable fork or have time to order one in before you arrive.
Forks are cheap as hell, go to a bike shop and get a new one!
Hey same thing happened to me on a spain/portugal tour, but I got hit by a car. If it’s steel there’s a chance they can true the forks like they did mine. I trained my bike for a day to Seville to get my forks trued and a new wheel
Leave it as is and spare the fork by avoiding hard breaking with the front brake (outside emergencies). Bent like this, the fork is now about 1/2 the strength of a new one.
DO NOT attempt to true it – it will look OK, but be weaker and it can then collapse at hard breaking. Unless the bend is too much and interferes with ability to ride, of course.
Fix:
Order a new fork to/from some place on your route. The advantage of a steel fork is it bends – like here. An aluminum or carbon ones would have been broken by now. You *still* need to replace it as the original tensile strength is foreever lost.
“Bent”
Fork is steel, so it is less dramatic than carbon or alu with that damage. I would get a new one asap though.