On Wednesday we had a sunny beautiful day locally so I took a ride, like you do. I took my 1987 Nishiki Cresta GT a bike I got from a Forum Member (@The Thin Man) I put a lot of time and effort and $$ into building this bike up and I was really liking the end result. I gave myself the xmas gift of a Nitto front Rack, I will say for context that when I mounted the rack I used a nut with a built in nylon washer on the bolt that attached the rack to the fork crown, the kind that makes it hard to get the nut on and off the bolt without a wrench. I say this because I crashed on my ride and my theory is that the bolt came loose, the rack then slipped forward (it was mile 3 of the ride) acting as an emergency brake on the front wheel; endo city, me on bike path. It sucks that I did this to myself and doubly sucks because I thought I was being extra careful in mounting the rack. Again this is my theory i don't know what actually happened but that's kind of a moot point now.

I am ok aside from bruises and a sore wrist and knee, it could have been alot worse, but the fork is toast and my question to the forum is has anyone else had a crash resulting in a trashed fork? what are my options? what should I look out for? I know I could probably look for a canti 27" fork at the co-op but I am leery that there is more damage than just the fork. I can certainly salvage alot of what is on the bike onto a new project and if I am honest half the fun for me is finding the project, and restoring an old neglected bike to usefulness and tweaking it to be comfortable for me. I am prepared, I think, to walk away from the Cresta and I don't have a ton of extra $$ to have the frame fixed if its damaged (head tube etc) but am interested in others experiences with this type of damage. I have other bikes but I like the Japanese touring bike of the late 80s and I was digging the Tange 2 steel frame, then again maybe the universe is saying "this is why you can't have nice things"

Pictures or it didn't happen.



September refurb complete



after, trashed fork, death by Clydesdale



post crash