Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Hit today. Seatstay now bent.

Two way street. The car was pulled over on the side of the road and I am approaching. I am about to pass him drivers side and **Whoa!!** don't do it don't do it!! He flips a effing b!tch and bumps the rear of my bike with left corner of his bumper. I maintain control and stay in the saddle, adrenalin is surging. I whip around and he is busting a right at the intersection I just came from and is gone. I decided at this point not to attempt to chase him down. I don't know for sure if he even knows he made contact with me. He may have just seen a blur whiz by and continued on his oblivious way.

Anyways, I was on my KHS flite 100. I get off to inspect. My rear wheel now has just a tad of wobble (surprisingly little) but this.........
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/471680745_fc88145edc.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/178/471680653_003813c554.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/471680485_fda82db2d6.jpg
What can be done?
Can I ride it like this without problems?
Can I bend it back?
What can I do, Im so sad, It's my only bike, had it less than 2 months.

****, that sucks man. You should absolutely file a police report. Today. The damage doesn't really look that bad, I'd be willing to bet you can have it repaired. You might even be able to do it yourself. There are some frame builders in the area, I'm guessing that won't cost all that much.

Or you could just buy my Raleigh. :D Seriously though, if you need a frame I've got a couple in your size you could borrow/buy/have.

it's cool keep riding it

Dude I want that Raleigh.

And what are the Police going to do anyways??
http://starling.rinet.ru/music/sleeves/zap_police.jpg
F*CK Tha Police!!

If I'm not mistaken the KHS flite 100 is steel. This means you can absolutely bend it back into shape. The seatstay on my road bike got bent much worse than your bike in a crash during a road race. I took it to a shop and they bent it back into place. I don't have any after photos, but here is a photo of the bend:

http://www.aplusbi.com/images/crash/crash00.jpg

Yes the Flite is steel. Whew! thanks Yoshi.
I feel much better about it now.
But I'm still shaking my fists at that mf as he is driving off!!
http://forums.netphoria.org/photoalbum/albums/userpics/15839/al-hakim-shaking-fist.jpg

they will find the guy who hit you

put him in jail

make him pay for your bike and any injuries

they will then run a public service campaign educating drivers about sharing the road

Glad you're OK. And congrats on not having to buy a new frame...

they will find the guy who hit you

put him in jail

make him pay for your bike and any injuries

they will then run a public service campaign educating drivers about sharing the road
Oh, idealism.

That'll bend right out. You can ride it with confidence.

Disclaimer: Don't sue me if it snaps in half/vaporizes/catches fire

bend it back/check the alignment/align the dropouts

bend it back/check the alignment/align the dropouts

[have a shop [or builder as mentioned]] bend it back/check the alignment/align the dropouts...
better to pay someone to do it right, and can take it back to if it's not perfect.

[have a shop [or builder as mentioned]] bend it back/check the alignment/align the dropouts...
better to pay someone to do it right, and can take it back to if it's not perfect.


I'm willing to bet most shops would not guarantee/warranty that kind of work, but I don't know. At the very least they should have all the alignment tools.

You probably could DIY that sucker. The bicycle collective has a *** but I don't know what, if any, other alignment tools they have.

Edit: OTOH, it is not easy to bend seat stays. The seatstays on my Tall Bike were somewhat hard to straighten and I wasn't even worried about alignment. You saw how wimpy they were and it took a big bar with lots of leverage to bend them.

A builder is waste of money since the frame with fork is $225 brand new. See if you can get a shop to do it for cheap if not try yourself. Whatever you do just be careful and keep an eye on it but a seatstay is a relatively unlikely place for catastrophic failure.

my seatstay got bent a little while ago... so i f ucking bent it back one morning when i woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.

My beater has a ss that looks like that am I just keep riding it. I have probably put two years of everyday riding into it and it hasn't gotten any worse. If I were you I would just leave it and keep riding.

Get a car to hit you on the other side. Keep it simple, stupid!

Thread closed.

So if I was to attempt to bend this back myself, what would be best method? Should I remove the rear wheel first? Should I leave it on as to not further alter the alignment? What would be the best way other than taking it to a lbs where they may or may not know any more than I do.

Is the wheel in the centerline of the frame now or not?

I'm not sure I'd bother bending the seatstay back and risking further damage if the wheel is centered.

While this is more about re-spacing a frame for a different hub there is a lot of useful information on cold setting and checking alignment here:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/frame-spacing.html

So if I was to attempt to bend this back myself, what would be best method? Should I remove the rear wheel first? Should I leave it on as to not further alter the alignment? What would be the best way other than taking it to a lbs where they may or may not know any more than I do.
2x4 and a sledge hammer.

Is the wheel in the centerline of the frame now or not?

I'm not sure I'd bother bending the seatstay back and risking further damage if the wheel is centered.
well the alignment has to be off somewhat unless the frame was out of alignment to begin with and/or the metal has stretched(?) and is still in perfect alignment..

step 1, strip bike... wheels, cranks and forks aren't really going to help you in this process, chainrings are sharp & could hurt you, wheels may be untrue & not good to align to, and anything else could get damaged by a 2x4, missle or whatever. that's my .02.

tip 1, is to close a large sized crescent wrench on the flat part if the track end. slide a pipe over the wrench as a lever and you can tweak the ends back into place.
listen to the frame. if it starts sounding like you're overstressing a particular joint, stop.
tip 2, is to use a seamstress tape to measure the frame distances. hold it at the end of the track end and measure to the headtube, both sides. This is easy with the seamstress tape since it's cloth and can wrap around the frame's angles. measure the frame from various points and adjust it till its' smurphy.
tip 3, you can make tube blocks with scraps of lumber to protect the tubing. take 2 pcs of wood, screw them together. drill a hole through the wood where they meet (the hole sized to the diameter of the seatstay for instance), unscrew. now you can use those blocks around the frame member to protect it from the sledgehammer mentioned above.
Also, if you can find a really big flat surface (like momma's granite countertop), lay the frame on it's side and measure various points of the frame off the surface, and compare right to left. don't use the sledgehammer here though...

now someone's gonna tell me i'm full of $hit, but i've used these techniques in the past with varying degrees of success.

Check with Edwin cycles. If he can't help you out at a price you can live with, maybe he could point you in the right direction. If the bike tracks ok and doesn't do strange things at speed or when you hit bumps or whatever you could probably just ride it.
http://www.edwincycles.com/