I was on a ride in California a couple weeks ago when this event happened ...

Two fellow cyclists were coming down a hill at a pretty good clip. The one in front heard the unmistakable sounds of a crash behind him, stopped, and raced back up to his friend, who had just done a faceplant over the front of his bicycle into the road.

He helped him over to the side of the road and assessed the damage ... face scraped up and bashed in, eyeball hanging out, disoriented and confused, but no other bones seemed to be broken.

He told his friend to sit by the side of the road while he went to get help, so he raced like the wind to the rest stop up the road, and demanded they call an ambulance and then also take a truck up to get the guy ... which they did. Because of his quick action, his friend was taken to the hospital promptly and received the attention he needed. Last I heard he was on the mend.


What happened to cause the crash? His carbon forks broke.


He was riding a Reynold's Ouzo Pro all-carbon fork. So far no one is sure what precipitated the failure, but both legs were broken partially though from the back with a bit of carbon acting like a hinge at the front edge of each leg.

Another rider spoke to the crash victim and asked if he'd ever suffered damage to the legs or ever clamped anything to them. He replied no on both counts. The crash victim isn't large or heavy - no more than 160 lbs.


I saw the forks and they looked exactly like my carbon seatpost did when it shattered.