Bicycle Mechanics - Carbon Fork Cracked 2 places

:( I have a year old SOMEC Fusion Y (carbon mono rear) with a Columbus Carve Muscle Carbon Fork. The other day while training in the hills, I noticed that while standing up, a new very loud creaking sound started. I continued to stand but didn't move the bike from sided-to-side to try and isolate. No sound. When I moved the bike from side to side, there it was again. This told me that the noise was coming from either the headset or fork. I stopped and got off the bike to do all of the things to check the headset - all was fine. I looked at the fork and noticed 2 cracks, :mad: one on each fork blade near the top. On the right side the crack started on the outside - about 1/4" from the back of the blade going all the way around back to halfway on the inside to the front. The left blade's crack started the same place but only went 1/4" around and up the inside. Needless to say, I rode very easy and slow back home.

Since this bike/fork have never been crashed or even dropped, is this about he average life of a carbon fork or a manuf defect? I would have expected the Columbus fork to be a good one. Are there others that are better? I am 175 lb and use the bike to race and train hard with. Fast group rides 23 average for a 2+ hour ride are normal and I know the fork absorbs a lot of road vibration. The bike has about 6,000 miles on it as I use my (10 pound heavier) 1985 SLX DeRosa for most of my training. (Note: The SLX fork on the DeRosa is 18 years old and still holding up fine!)

I have a call into the SOMEC distributor thru the LBS so hopefully I will get this resolved, but it just kind of surprised me that a high-quality carbon fork only lasted 1 year.

I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU DO NOT RIDE ON IT!

When carbon starts to crack there is a good chance that it will fail compleatly in the area of the fracture. Take it to your LBS and have them look at it.
Carbon parts are great i run them all the time but soon as they get the slightest of cracks or a good scratch they are dangerous.

Carbon, especially on a road bike, should last you more then a year if it has never been damaged (ie dropped, in a crash or to much stress).
Call the company and see what they say. Youmight get a new part for free. Do not throw your part away though since most companies want to see what went wrong with the part.

If you don't abuse or crash it, a carbon fork should last forever or at least much longer than your frame.
It sounds like a manufacturing defect.

Yup fork's toast. Yes it should last longer than a year. Out of curiousity how do you store your bike?

for safety reason, don't ride that bike, or better still have it replace right away, that fork is toast....

Thanks for all of your input. I am not riding it as it is sitting over at the LBS. Been riding the DeRosa - glad I have 2 roadbikes! Here's the latest...the LBS also thinks it is a manuf (Columbus) defect. But, he said it has to be handled through the frame manuf (SOMEC) since that was the bike it came on. Frame / Fork are warrented for 2 years, so that should not be a problem. The only problem is that the original US importer has quit the business and SOMEC now has 2 new importers, one east coast, one west coast. Been emailing back and forth to the new importer to help speed up the process and he is talking to the LBS. So much work for a $250 fork! Seems like all of the effort going into it is to figure out how not to pay for it.

Maybe I should just contact Columbus directly?