I thought the Bike forums gang would get a kick out of this!

These are pics of what is left of my 2009 CAAD 9 -5 after a weekend crash.
The front fork was sheered off while I was in the back of a paceline going about 22mph. Not sure what caused this as we were unable to find any road debri. Suffered a little road rash and some sore fingers but nothing broken besides my left shoe buckle and a pair of bibs. Really lucky!

What's that red dot on your face Drizzt?

Does CDale have a replacement program?

Nasty! Glad you're ok.

Looks like what happens when you run into the garage with the bike on an overhead rack, including the bent top and down-tube. Must have been a spectacular getoff.

How's Cannondale handling this?

Cdale owes you a new bike!

Yikes, that is some nasty looking stuff! Glad you're okay.

Should have left the scimitars at home, Drizzt. Pretty obvious what happened here. /obscure Salvatore reference

You were just cruising along in the back at 22 when BLAMO??? Oh man..... Imagine if you were in leading! Oof. Glad you are okay. Must've happened on a different ride or much earlier or something and then it finally just gave when it did.


Cannondale owe's you some serious love & apologies.

Glad I read your post. That's exactly what I was thinking. The bent top and down-tube and sheered fork. I'm not sayin'...I'm just sayin.

J

Day-yaam! You were lucky to have not been seriously injured. Good luck with the replacement.

That'll be kinda tough explaining to Cdale how the accident happened. Coz if anyone were to look at the bike, it looks like you ran into something at full force causing the frame to bend in two places. How did the frame bend after the fork broke off? You would need a strong force exerted at the point furthest away from the fork to cause the frame to bend like that. At 22 mph, theres got to be alot of road rash on the bike, is there? Im just sayin, thats how Cdale will look at it if your trying to get warranty replacement.

Wow.

The bike has tons of road rash all over it. The seat is destroyed and the right side of the handlebars are completely tore apart. When you look at the front wheel you can tell that it was not a garage door or rear of a car. The front wheel is still true.

Still waiting to hear what Cdale is going to do. Bike shop thought a total replacement was in order. Have to wait and see.

Bike is one thing but not the most important. I'm jsut glad that I was able to walk away.

Im glad your okay too, Cdale can get sued for fork failures like yours. I think they owe you an upgrade!

Am I the only one who is dubious of this apparent fork failure? I'm not trying to call you out or anything OP but it just seems like there must be something else going on here? How did your crash generate enough force to bend the frame after the fork failed...?

Total replacement from Cdale is definitely in order. Perhaps even further compensation even....

Think about it going 22mph then abruptly planting itself into the pavement like a yard dart. On top of that the weight of the rider @ 22mph pushing the front of the frame into pavement even harder. OP your lucky your okay. That's pretty horrific.

^^^
The way you describe it sounds like what would need to happen to bend the frame. That's not exactly how the OP made it sound though. Very lucky to not have hit your face/head very hard.

+1. I don't think anyone is going to believe your forks spontaneously sheared off without a major significant impact. Maybe I could see if the skewer was loose and the wheel fell off over a bump but even then forks normally have safety ribs to prevent this.

OP, did you endo when you crashed?

I've heard of spontaneous carbon fork failures like this couple times before. And it isn't just for any particular brand either, its happened with many major brands.

I can't even pretend to understand the mechanics of bike damage. The last non-bike rack crash like that one I can recall hearing about seemed to be caused by someting getting kicked up into the spokes, and locking up the wheel. I can't recall how or why the fork was sheared like that, but I could see how (in this case) the frame could get bent like that if those little stubby legs of what's left of the fork where to get planted into the ground at speed. You'd think they'd get ground down or shattered if that happened, though.

I'm just glad we can be having this conversation, instead of planning an ICU visit or a wake for the OP.

We need more detail...Did any other people go down in the paceline?

Did the fork fail or did you hit a rider in the paceline? Details please. It seems likely that there was stress cracks in the fibers which could not be noticed from visual inspection...

It's wonderful that you came out of the crash without any serious damage.

Indeed, glad to hear you're ok because that could have gone terribly wrong.

The crash happened so quickly that I don't remember a whole lot. I remember taking my pull at the front and slipping to the back. Concentrating on the guy in front of me. Next thing I know I see sky and am on the ground. I know the guy in front of me did not swerve to miss anything either. The people in cars behind us that saw it happen said the forks hit the ground, me, being clipped in caused the bike and everything else to go over the handle bars. landed on my left shoulder blade and left hip. sliding for a few feet and finally stopping.

I would guess that this is not a spontaneous fork failure. The forks failing at the same height on both sides seems pretty random. Possible something from a passing car got thrown at us or kicked out at us and caught in the wheel. We searched for anything that could have caused this and found nothing. Assuming that in order to sheer forks like this it had to be fairly substantial. Nothing was found.

I am guessig that the frame bent as the stubs of the left over fork slammed into the ground with my weight and momentum on it.