Originally Posted by ~stella
i don't think it was crashed, because the radius is longer front and back than side to side. normally if a frame was crashed it would be frontal impact right?
i suppose that isn't the issue though. haha.
headtubes ovalize by streching not compressing. A frontal impact would lead to a larger radius longitudinaly then laterally as you described. Really it could ovalize either way in a crash but front/back is probably most common. I once ovalized one by hitting a pothole so its entirely possible that the frame was never actually "crashed".