Cracked Steering Tube
 

Have you ever seen a bicycle snap off about half an inch into the headset above the fork? My girlfriend accidentally crashed her bike head-on into a well set wooden post and it cracked right off. Totally destroyed it. (She's fine other than a few scrapes and bruises)

I think it snapped due to being aluminum and a cheap department-store bicycle. I've never had that happen before.

Usually only happens to forks with threaded steerers and a stem that's been raised above the minimum insertion/maximum extraction mark.

i've seen that happen on a fork with a carbon steer tube. the damage wasn't even caused by a crash! he got on the bike, stood up and snapped the steer tube in two (just about 5 cm above the crown race). also, a too tight quill stem expander bolt might cause the seam of your steel steer tube to separate. That's another weird one, since the symptom will be a too tight headset when the wedge is torqued.

I guess I described it wrong... What was left was a fork that had only about a half-inch of steering tube, the rest was in the headset still, with the handlebars - it cracked near the bottom of the headset and dropped out.

Haven't seen that, but I did once have a BB axle snap. I put on the gas an the crank with the end of the axle just fell to the ground. Cheap wally mart bikes are made of pot metal not steel.

George Hincapie, 2007 Paris-Roubaix.

And that was an aluminum steerer!

I weigh more 'n Big George, some day's I get nervous... but then, I ride with more finesse! (or more caution)