Maybe Kurt can do some magic w/HTS-1?

Got in an accident last July, just getting around now to dealing with some of the aftermath.

Before:



After:



Top tube (bottom side of this tube has slight waviness that can be felt but is not readily visible):



Top tube (again, bottom side of this tube has slight waviness that can be felt but is not readily visible):



Head tube seems straight. Sent the pics to Tommasini shortly after accident, they said it was a total loss, but I would expect them to say that. Air Fork as installed on this bike are still available from the company.

If you could show us some good square on side shots of the head tube and how it intersects the top and down tube, sort of like this one...


Armed with that it will be easier to tell if you have a chance or not.

Ooof. That really sucks. Sorry for your loss.

Okay, I'm not going to pretend to any expertise in the properties of high quality bicycle tubing &c. But I'm pretty sure anyone with such expertise will shake his/her head and say, sorry for your loss.

I will tell you, however, that if you have that frame straightened, you will never give it your complete trust. You will never think it rides as well as it used to. You will never have it back. In other words, sorry for your loss.

I wouldn't have any reservations about riding the frame after it gets massaged back into shape.

Unfortunately, I'm in a different hemisphere than the bicycle at the moment, although I'll be back in the U.S. in June. I can say that it isn't anywhere near as bad as the pic posted - visibly, I couldn't see any sort of bend as in above and was rather hopeful until I started inspecting closely and found paint buckling and felt some (slight) waviness on bottom of tubes. On the bottom of the tubes, the waviness is so slight as to be not visible, only perceived by touch, IIRC.

The tubeset is Columbus MS, I'm not sure if this is heat treated or not.

Good to see you back on C&V, Jay.

Scott

That sucks. Get it straightened, and ride it. If you don't like it, sell it.

The only issue I see, will be paint.

That should buff right out.

That is kind of my thinking. Back in the good old days, I had a Columbus SLX Tommaso. I wrecked it at least twice. I say good old days because I was then young & uninformed enough that, post-accident, I just hopped back on the bike and since everything felt ok, kept on riding the bike. Eventually, years later, I parted the bike out for sale and discovered that in one of these wrecks I had bent the frame enough that there was some visible bubbling/waviness on the bottom sides of the top/down tubes.

But I never noticed a thing and got many thousands of miles out of this thing after my last wreck on it. So now, I'll be quite happy if I'm able to spit out my bite of the apple from the tree of bike knowledge and ride this thing again in blissful ignorance if I can get it reasonably trued up. While the frame life may be theoretically foreshortened, I'm not worried about catastrophic failure w/no warning, that is the nice thing about steel frames.

Oh, and hey Scott, yeah, I'm getting back to things. Following the accident, I was seriously out of action for some months, broken bones, etc. But I rode some last fall and winter. I've been in Japan for a few months lately, I still don't have a bike here, but I'll be back in the states in about a month and am looking forward to a nice summer of riding.

Were the bike mine, I would definitely have a go at straightening it out. And then I would test the heck out of it. And then, I would just ride it. The Peugeot PX10 I offered a picture of had bent tubes which I straightened out. The ride quality was just fine after-wards and a vast improvement over the way it handled before I went to work on it.

Can be cold-set. Doesn't look that bad at all; HTS-1 would take care of it in a jiffy. Forks might be a bit more of a PITA, but it's doable.

I wouldn't put that much faith into that SLX tubing holding up for a couple thousand miles more though; might open up sooner or later - more likely later than sooner.

-Kurt

No, not SLX, that was in reference to another bike. This one is Columbus MS. Wow, hope for the forks, that is really something... I actually have a carbon fork I had purchased pre-accident that I wanted to experiment with, but it would be nice to have the original chrome fork, definitely looks cool and it does ride nice.

Not just the forks - hope for the frame too. After all, it is bent.

However, I'm not sure if Columbus MS is heat treated or not. If it is, throw the frame away. If not heat treated, it'll be OK.

-Kurt

That's been my experience also, but I hadn't really considered the tubing as Kurt pointed out. My bent bikes were built of beefier stuff.

If they are just scratches you can buff it out with some fine glasing compound by hand. If they are fractures in the paint you have to get it sanded out and resprayed. Hope you did'nt get badly hurt.

Fork's bent.

Other than 9 broken ribs, a broken collarbone, concussion, a chipped vertebrae, various and sundry bruises/dents, I was quite ok. And, as the saying goes, you should have seen the other guy.

That's irrelevant at this point; the frame is damaged under the paint. Not to say that straightening it will damage the paint any more or less though:





-Kurt

Before starting this thread, I reviewed the work that Kurt, Randyjawa, et al, had done and documented on the forum. I'm pretty impressed w/the results that they've gotten on frames that were clearly much more bent than mine is. So I'm pretty hopeful. Plus, the Interwebs seem to be indicating that Columbus MS is not heat treated.

I had a Mondonico with similar frame damage and the head tube angle was within spec. I measured with 2 different digital angle guides. Buy a new fork and I think you'll be Ok.

Took 16 posts....I'm impressed!

I'm really glad we've had this talk

I could use a little more detailed instruction(s) about how to take this measurement, any info on the web anywhere?

are you sure the wavyness you feel is in the steel and not just all that paint and clearcoat? I agre with the buff it and ride it crowd. if it is a bit bent and good frame guy straightens it out you should have little worries. if you could actually see a bend or kink in the tubing I would be more concerned.

for a fork I recoment the Soma straight blade chrome.

Yeah, I was kind of surprised myself.

We always say that one reason we like steel is that it's repairable...Jay, your's appears to be. Just be glad it wasn't one of these: