Forkend bent
 

We'll gloss over how it happened, but a mishap with fork-mount bike carrier while traveling along at 70mph yesterday resulted in a moderately bent fork-end.

The bike is steel(Columbus SL, 1980 build), steel fork, Campy forkends. I bought this bike new and have been riding it for decades(never in winter). See the pics below. I've looked at the fork from about every angle. I see no evidence the fork blade itself is bent or misaligned. I'd like to fix it..naturally. Is it as simple as a pair of large slip joints and bend it back or is it better to support the fork blade with a jig of some sort and then bend? Heat it and then bend?

What's the best option? I REALLY don't want to take any chances on damaging the fork. I'll take it to a shop/builder somewhere if I need to.

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I'd bend it back cold with an adjustable wrench with the jaws taped to protect the chrome. It's mild steel, so it should straighten out fairly easily.

Well it's too late to not "damage" the fork, that's already been done.


But as Gb says it's an easy repair. I've done a number of these drop out straightenings before and not yet had one crack or break. I prefer to use a drop out aligning tool to secure the bent drop out while straightening then an adjustable wrench, because I have them. But the wrench will work well enough too. In a few cases I found out that the blade had also bent outward and after the drop out was back pointing the right way the spacing between the two drop outs required some playing with. That's when having someone who knows what their doing is nice, to maintain the fork's total alignment. Andy.

That would be my advice also. Bring both dropouts into alignment with Park Tool FFG-2 or similar.

Well..that's true.. "..do further damage" is probably better terminology.

Thanks to you and GB..I was rather sick about it as I drove home. This bike & I have put a lot of miles on over the years & it's never failed me yet. I'm just glad it isn't worse.

We repaired a fork that looked worse than that one over the weekend in our shop using Park dropout alignment tools. Turned out beautifully, as others have said, it should be repairable.

You might be able to have a little better control of the process if you clamp the end into a vise padded with an old leather belt or the like. Final alignment using a suitable tool would also be desirable.

For home repair without the proper tool, perhaps rigging up an axle & clamping with a QR skewer will give leverage for bending. Then check that the loose end of the axle fits in the other fork tip, which should mean the fork tips are parallel.

A large adjustable wrench will have a difficult time grabbing & bending both tips of the fork equally.

Most likely damage would be that the chrome would crack, you'd never notice it. Bend it back in a vice, fine tune it with an adjustable wrench. Should take about 15 minutes. I've seen and repaired much worse.
Steel is Real

I know you said you didn't want to talk about it, but I have to ask what can have happened at 70mph that only did that much damage. Can't be impact with a stationary object, I don't think - did it try to escape?

Don't ask me how I know, but I straightened one of mine almost 10 years ago. Steel is forgiving, even of abject stupidity.
I am still riding the bike and it has over 122,000 miles on it.

Maybe:
Fork holder came loose, bike tipped over. One fork tip popped out, the other was stuck and go bent.
Another bike "caught it", & stopped the loose bike from launching completely ??

Nosey little rascal aren't ya? Mine came half way of the roof rack and bent the left drop-out. Confession ain't always good for the sole!:innocent:

Welll.. it is a fast bike, but I don't think it tried to escape. It has a good home and it's a cruel world out there.

I switched my hitch mounted bike carrier to the front hitch on my truck so I could pull a camper. I know there's other solutions to this dilemma, but a front hitch works best for me. While I have mounted newer bikes on the carrier, on the front of the truck (..with "newer" meaning those bikes with lawyer-lips of the fork ends..) and traveled on the expressway (70-75mph) without issues, this was the first time I mounted my (vintage) road bike (..read..no lawyer lips) on the carrier. I drove for a few hours with no issues & suddenly the bike slowly tipped toward the hood of the truck. The rear tire was tightly strapped into the carrier tray so the bike didn't flop around or escape..it just laid toward the hood and stayed there until I stopped. I had the carrier fork mount tight on the fork ends..but apparently not tight enough to put up with the wind. Lesson learned.

I just dropped the bike off at a higher-end shop I frequent. The owner looked at it and shook his head, but thinks it'll come back OK. He has the tools-setup to check the alignment and for any other damage. It'll be ready tomorrow.

And does nothing to ensure that the dropout faces are parallel. A set of "H" tools (or equivalent from Park, Cyclus, etc.) will let you set the faces so they are parallel. Price may be too much for a one-off job, but your LBS certainly has the tools and can do the work. Or perhaps you have a bike co-op with the tools?

In any case, forged dropouts like that are made from mild steel so they are malleable to allow for this type of adjustment, so the dropout itself ought to be fine. But the chrome plating may crack, which is a cosmetic issue.