A new twist, possibly applicable to this incident, that I found in my travels:

http://www.cyclingforums.com/showthread.php?t=26873

Read the entire thread, it's pretty wild stuff. Here's the reply it's centered around (by Jobst Brandt FYI):

>>>Thomas Hood writes:

> Just curiousity but could you explain what you mean by "abrupt transition" and "feathered"?

The fork crown that Cinelli among others made popular due to its aesthetic shape, is solid steel
(not hollow) as most fork crowns previously were. Typically the steer tube and fork blades
overlapped and had a band-like structure that enveloped all three tubes as we see on a Masi for
instance. The detail of that crown had features that even without feathering the crown to a smooth
transition, made it in effect the same, similar to the filigree on Singer lugs. These in effect make
a soft transition.

The Cinelli crown has fairly thick lug extensions that go inside the fork blades and end abruptly
(because no one can see this) and out of sight out of mind. However, fork blades fail in fatigue at
this transition, breaking off after an insignificant life duration. As I said, I had tow of these
failures and insisted on an external crown that was filed to have a zero thickness transition. This
has worked for many more miles than any of my Cinelli forks survived.

> "Cinelli sloping crowns....are failure prone at the abrupt transition from fork blade to the
> internal lug of the crown that cannot be feathered to a gradual transition as an external
> lug can."

> By abrupt transition I assume you meant that internal lug looked like the LCO4 shown here:

> http://www.ceeway.com/Fork-Crowns-2.htm

> I.e. the end of the lug is perpendicular to the blades and straight.

Only LC19 has a reasonable shape, and crowns of this design were made for road bicycles. Fork blades
are thinner and lighter than any of these other designs that shorten the fork blade and reach down
to tit with a heavy steel crown. It's all fashion BS.

> However it would appear the Cinelli crown's end is not like this:

http://www.ceeway.com/Fork-Crowns.htm

> The Cinelli SCA, Everest C60, C61A, C63, Columbus MAX all seem to share this. Do these not have
> 'internally feathered' ends or have I misunderstood you?

Not at all. The SCA stops abruptly and that is where fork blades fail.

> The reason I ask is that I have just acquired an almost new Mercian fillet-brazed Reynolds 653
> frame with said crown. Stunning craftsmanship; the guy I bought it off had too much money to spend
> and had just 'upgraded' to a giant carbon fibre compact!?! I'm not complaining he sold it to me
> for £75 including a record f/mech and titanium seatpost. However after reading your 'colostomy'
> incident story I'm a bit wary of that bit...

Well, I don't know what you are planning to do with it. Most collectors items don't get a lot of
miles and are specifically held for their beautiful workmanship.

The colostomy incident was a seat post failure, not a fork problem.

Jobst Brandt jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org Palo Alto CA<<<<<