ridethecliche

I crashed earlier today. I was showing a friend how to rock the bike while in the drops because he just got a roadie and I didn't see a lower layer of the road. There was a .25-.5 inch difference in height between the newer rectangle of road within the old road, and the only thing that could have happened was that I pulled up my bars and hit my front wheel exactly on that spot of the road causing my front wheel to bounce back/turn and me to loose control and fall sideways.

My wheel just felt like it went out from under me and next thing I know, I was skidding on the ground on my side. Again, I got pretty lucky. I had to change the tube of my front tire because it popped out and the valve just died, I messed up the bar tape, put a hole in the sti hood cover, scratched the shifter a teeny bit, got a hole in my shorts and leg warmers, and got a tiny bit of road rash and a bruised muscle.

I just looked over my bike 10 hours after the fact and I noticed that my left seatstay has a decent sized ding in it. I didn't notice anything funny with the bike on the way back home and I'm really hoping that someone here can vouch for that. I'm going to take the bike to the lbs tomorrow and have them take a look at it and hopefully clear it.

Here's a picture. I'm hoping someone has an idea how serious this is. I'm a sophy in college, and if this is the worst case scenario, then that was pretty much my entire summer earning...

The ding is on the I in "In"

Further Away


Closer Up

WxGuesser

is your wheel rubbing the brake pads? it honestly looks bent to me...

ridethecliche

Nope, that's just the angle because of the stand. The only frame damage I can find is on that dent, and I'm wondering if that's something to be worried about or not. I don't think it cracked and from what I've read, the seatstays don't take that much weight either so they're not in too much danger of cracking under normal use unless the welds are messed up.

I just want to see what the consensus is about the dent. It doesn't 'look' too bad, but while I don't think I could afford another bike right now, I also can't afford a crash because of a failure.

Thanks.

Geoff326

bring it to a shop and have it checked out?

clausen

+1
That photo is not the greatest but that does look bad.

waterrockets 

Not a good place for a dent that size. Frustrating I know, but get it checked out.

ridethecliche

Taking it in at 4.
I'll let you know what they say.

Frugle

hit the little "flower" button on your camera, point the square at the area you want the camera to take the focus of, and then take the picture again and repost back.

sleazy

my LBS has a sample Cannondale ( or- "Ca non da lay") frame which is cut in half so you can see the varying thicknesses of the tubing used.

let me tell you-- it is FRIGHTENINGLY thin. I think Cnndale gave those examples to dealers to exhibit their prowess in working with aluminum... but to me it had the opposite effect. it showed what a great job they did at minimizing weight for a given application- but how vulnerable it is to forces outside of that intended application.

i'm talking like 4X the thickness of a beer can.

you'd be best to have a shop look at it.

ridethecliche

I've seen that too, I just thought it was really cool. These dings happen to steel frames too, so it's not an earth shattering surprise that it happened. It just sucks because I have maybe like 700 miles on it and I ended up not paying attention for a split second while showing someone something and just ended up crashing.

ridethecliche

I took some of the pictures on the macro setting and they were really close up because the flash didn't show the ding if I took it non macro.

I'm going to upload and attach a few more. The triangle and spacing looks right, but and the ding doesn't feel like it went through the other side.

I_bRAD

I have a friend with a CAAD5 frame with a much bigger ding than that in the same spot and he's never had any troubles with it. He rides it hard too. I rode the bike myself for a few months and didn't have any trouble. I'd take it to a shop that doesn't want to sell you a new frame and see what they think.

wfrogge

Take that roll of duct tape and wrap the tube about 4 times with it. Problem solved!

zimbo

What do you mean by "rock the bike while in the drops"?

--Steve

ridethecliche

Pivot the bike to the opposite side of the foot that you're hammering down so that you can apply a larger force and thus sprint faster. If you watch any sprint video you'll see what I mean.

ridethecliche

So I went to the LBS today and asked them what they thought (this shop doesn't sell 'dales btw). The head mechanic and the co-owner both said, "Well that sucks..." and then told me to keep an eye on it and look it over before every ride to make sure that there were no cracks.

I got back and called the shop where I bought it from and one of the guys who works there told me that he knew a lot of people putting heavy mileage on cannondales that had dents in them without any adverse effect. The seatstays still have that 'springy-ness' and I can push them together and they'll do their work as the hourglass spring. I'm taking it back to this shop next tuesday or wednesday and I'll have them take a look over it. The person in the shop mentioned something about cannondale's warranty, but I doubt that applies to crashes other than a replacement frame at a lower cost.

Hopefully it won't come to that anytime soon...
I'm just going to keep riding it and hoping for the best I suppose. Even on the phone the shop where I bought it didn't seem to be too concerned unless it was a huge dent or a crack. I'll let you guys know what they said next week.

Let me know what you think.

ridethecliche

It's actually two smaller dings right next to each other but they weren't really apparent at first until I took a much closer look at the bike.

Your comment is very reassuring though. Thanks!

Frunkin

I have a CAAD8 with a bigger ding in the downtube, no problems

ridethecliche

The downtube is much more load bearing than the seat stays right? But the seat stays are so thin and teeny!

Slash, what you say is reassuring. I don't want mah baby to die!

ChunkyB

Honestly, that looks ugly. It probably looks worse than it is, but it seems like a bad place to have a ding, right in the curvy part of the seat stay. Good luck. Hopefully the aesthetics will be the only thing affected.

ridethecliche

Those are my hopes also.

ridethecliche

Bump?

It's not 'bent' it's just a ding in the stay.

transplant

i would pull the paint off of that area to see if it really is cracked and keep an eye on it

ridethecliche

Update from Cannondale customer service. I emailed them twice and got replies back within a few working hours! Here is the response.

Thank you for taking the time to write us. Unfortunately we cannot tell
from the pictures. As long as the dent is no bigger than a thumbnail
and there is not visible cracking in the paint, then you should have no
worries. If in doubt, you can have your local Cannondale Retailer
inspect your frame to make sure that it is still sound. The Dealer
Locator link on our website www.cannondale.com can help you to find a Cannondale Retailer near you.