Originally Posted by
unworthy1
I dunno about that being caused by a bad press-in of the lower cup (it's possible, for sure, but that's a Campy HS): the head tube will be deformed by that as well, and it does have a replacement fork...I'd guess a front-end crash. AL will crack when steel will bend. And it is an ALAN, but re-badged as Fanini (another one I didn't know about, add it to the growing list of re-badges for ALAN)
Question: did they cut threads in either of those headtube joints? Or were those joints just glued? I'm guessing that threads could also weaken the lugs just a bit.
Another possibility is that the head tube was underbuilt (likely if this was a common occourance) or some manufacturing or materials defect. I briefly had a Specialized Allez Elite ('05 I think) and a significant number of those frames that came through my LBS cracked the same way under normal recreational use. They were all replaced as Specialized realized it was a manufacturing defect.