I have a bent fork and dented downtube on my Bianchi Volpe, which has a steel frame and fork. It is sort of a cross between a touring and cyclocross bike. I took it to a LBS for them to have a look. The fork looks like it is toast. There aren't a lot of comparable replacement forks with 1-inch steerers, but we could probably come up with something that works. However, the opinion of the LBS is that the frame itself is unsafe.

This accident happened when my front wheel locked unexpectedly when I was going around 20 mph downhill. Not sure exactly why - possibly an extreme event of cantilever brake shudder. I did not run into anything. I went over the bars, broke my helmet on the pavement, and also hit me knee pretty badly. I should heal ok.

In any case, I have to decide what to do with this bike.

The dent in the downtube may have happened when one of the fender stays got driven back into the tube. At first that's what I thought, but then again, there isn't really a dimple in the middle of the dent. There is more of a crease that goes straight across. You can see in the first picture that the stay isn't really aiming right at the dent.


In the second picture, there is a round chip out of the paint that looks like it could be from the fender stay. It's offset from the dent.


In the third picture, there is a line that could be a crack within the bare patch near the ruler. I didn't even see it when I took these pictures at the bike shop. I only noticed it when I started looking at the pictures at home, so I can't go back right now and verify that it is a crack.



This is from the other side:


I have a few more pictures from other angles that I can post if it might help.

I thought at first that the dent wasn't a big deal, but now I'm coming around to the LBS's opinion that I should find a new frame and transfer whatever parts I can. Any thoughts for or against this idea?