Pretty remarkable. Would sure like to know the rider's weight and conditions for the break...hammering out of the saddle?...for example. We have all heard of forks breaking right at the headset interface...a stress riser. Location of Spesh relatively long internal expander could be a contributor based upon height of stem on steerer. In this case, the owner ran a fair amount of spacers...possibly worse case.
Check out the Spesh expander below:

Looks like the same number of spacers that it comes from the factory with so you would hope that's not a cause. The stem and bar are aftermarket but it's hard to imagine that being a contributing factor since it broke well below the stem.

BTW, there was a picture of the rider posted in the hospital and he looked to be no more than 150-160lbs.

I was a little surprised that the bottom of the expander was not visible in the photo, even given the large number of spacers. But in use you have a second stress riser at the headset bearing. Best case would maybe be a long expander that puts the base below the headset bearing -- unless that would cause some other issue at the headset.

The Specialized bike simply rejected the Bontrager stem :) Thank God the rider wasnt wearing a Bell helmet or his head would have popped off :)

Me too. I didn't see it either. Begs the question if it was there. I am sure that Specialized has a legal leg to stand on if an owner doesn't elect to use the factory expander which is meant to reinforce the steerer at the bottom edge of stem clamp which is another known stress riser. I believe it is in fact why Specialized does not suggest running spacers on top of the stem because this changes the orientation of the expander relative to bottom edge of the stem clamp. I also agree that a very long expander would be best case...albeit add fractional weight...placing bottom edge of expander beneath the top of head tube.

My first thoughts as well @Campag. The expander is no where to be seen.

The question then becomes about why and more importantly who.

Now I'm a bit confused regarding the recall. Was it a build failure of a manufacturing issue? The photo looks like the former but the recall suggests the later.

As far as I know we do not even know if the fork that is pictured has anything to do with the recall or do we?

I assumed it was. Is this not the case?

I don't know but I find it hard to believe Specialized would initiate a recall over a fork breakage with so many questions as the one pictured unless there is more to the story........

You make a good point. Specialized wouldn't implement a recall based upon outliar failures from owners that remove their steerer expanders.
I believe a point to be made however...is something called an interaction of contributing factors. If you have a weak design in combination with expander removed...perhaps in combination with strong rider...you have a perfect storm for failure.

What typically happens is...from a guy that developed safety critical products:
- Failures occur in the field which generally result in people getting hurt.
- Failed parts are immediately procured.
- Parts are evaluated on a microscopic level
- Parts are compared to current manufacturing practices. Part failure can be a function of manufacturing defect or design defect. If design is problematic, tooling changes are enacted. Testing is devised to replicate failure mode.
- Also, generally for safety critical product, products are sampled and tested from the production line. In this case they maybe even X-rayed at a high sample rate....sometimes even 100% as process control is improved upon.
- Failed parts are attempted to correlate to a known mfg. time interval
- Recall strategy is formulated
- Recall implemented.

Here's the specific recall:

http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2013/...o-Fall-Hazard/

Two incidents were reported, one involving a fall with facial lacerations requiring stitches. I think it's entirely unclear if the facebook pic is one of the two incidents.

I just bought the 2013 Tarmac Expert SL4 - or at least paid for most of it in advance. Delivery is in April but the lbs didn't say anything about "fork" problems. They did tell me my bike was in last week, which would have been weeks earlier than they said. However, after going over the receipts it turned out the bike was the Tarmac Expert M2. Not that I know a hell of a lot, but the Fact 8r frame and thge Fact 10r frame have to be different, as well as the group set, etc.

All 2013 Tarmac SL4 bikes are in the recall, and that includes all "Expert" models.

The shop ought to know to check the fork, but you should remind them anyway.

Thanks - I had originally ordered the Allez Race Rally and was going to have SRAM Force group set installed along with the COBL GOBL seat post. The bike shop said they couldn't get me that bike in a 61 but could make me a really good deal on the Tarmac SL4 Expert. 3k for the bike, down from their sale price of 3600.00. Then the wrong bike, now the wait - which I can do. Very reputable shop, I like all the people - just don't have the experience to know if I'm doing the right thing.

I picked this guy up last June. I'll be sad to know that it'll be spending some sad nights at the LBS, forkless and alone.

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h6...f/DSC_0232.jpg

They've had pretty quick turn around with forks. Same day processing even.

our shop shipped in 5 Forks last friday, Had them back installed Wednesday

Darb...wonder if you could confirm something. My understanding is...Specialized 'fix' for this recall is...they are placing an 'insert' down and inside the steerer tube to reinforce suspect forks. Can you confirm this? I presume this can be determined by looking inside the repaired fork without expander installed. The question is...is this insert epoxied in place by Specialized?

I can confirm that the fix is an insert. We already had the first 2 forks back that we had sent in, one of which had the insert added, the other not. I'll have to take a look tomorrow when I'm at work as to the details of the insert. The good news is that even with shipping from Switzerland to the Netherlands and back again, the 2 forks took less than one week.

Just before the recall announcement went out publicly, we were waiting on a bike ordered by a customer. It was delayed for an extra week due to awaiting a "security check" so it seems that even before Spec' made their press release, they were checking all forks on all new bikes before shipping them, and I believe they gave the checked bikes a small sticker on the underside of the fork. Therefore, if your new bike only just arrived at the shop then it will have been checked before being shipped to them.

Thanks for the update Chris. No doubt they are X-raying each fork. I guess what is surprising is...they are not inserting 'all' forks as a precaution. This suggests that the design itself isn't as flawed as the variation in carbon lay up in manufacturing. Likely with an X-ray they can see the difference in section thickness if it is present that is causing a weakness on a subset of forks.

I would be interested in learning if the insert is epoxied in place. Perhaps the insert is pressed in...interference keeping it in place...but epoxy would make a bit more sense.

There is liability issue....since Specialized is checking but isn't repairing all forks. God forbid if somebody suffers a fork failure (unlikely) if indeed they took their bike to the shop...fork was shipped to Specialized...and their fork broke upon return during a spirited ride.
In this case, this owner could literally 'own' Specialized in court. To me, it is a slight gamble for Specialized not to reinforce every fork sent to them based upon this recall. Only thing I can surmise, is the difference in fork strength of good versus bad forks must be 'blatant'. Cost...is the consideration of not inserting all returned forks...which could end up VERY high cost for Specialized if their judgement is wrong.

Merida used to be contract manufacture for Specialized until specialized nearly went bust in the 90s. Specialized had to sell 45% of itself to Merida to stay in business because it could not pay Merida what it owed them.

the fork on my 2013 Secteur Expert Disc has the green sticker on it, not sure if it was done at the LBS or factory.

Stickers aren't applied by your LBS.

What I should have said is, the fork on my 2013 Secteur Expert Disc has the green sticker on it, not sure if the fork swap/inspection was done at the LBS or factory.

Will say again. Stickers to verify forks are only attached by Specialized where inspection is performed. This is the crux to the recall. Specialized reduces their liability by controlling the inspection process. This removes the variation of how well an inspection would be performed by a bike shop. Not all bikes shops are capable and Specialized knows that. Further, most bikes shops don't have X-ray machines...lol. The step to send forks back to Specialized has a cost. This is calculated. This cost is << than if a bike shop were to perform a poor inspection, falsely verified a defective fork and a field failure were to occur. Big law suits can destroy companies. A chess game.

Just received two more forks back. This time both of them got the insert. One was from a bike ordered in November 2011, the other in August 2012. They may have abandoned the x-ray process and just started to put inserts into all forks, but we need more data before having any degree of certainty about it. We've been weighing forks with and without inserts, unfortunately some are different lengths, and we never weighed the same fork before and after the insert, but we estimate the extra weight of the insert to be about 10-15 grams, so no big deal. Forks that get the insert also come back with a new compression plug included since the internal diameter is greatly reduced.

That's interesting Chris. Thanks for the insight. Sounds as though this very light 'insert' is a 'sleeve'. Since you mention that it decreases the inside diameter of the steerer thereby requiring a new expansion plug.
Could you snap a couple of pics for the future? Have you removed the expansion plug to see how its changed? The stock expansion plug...I have included a pic below...is 48mm in height. Obviously placing a sleeve inside the steerer for its entire length will reinforce the steerer. Since the weight increase is so small, sounds as though the sleeve is very thin. What do you think its made out of? Maybe a glass reinforced nylon versus carbon fiber which would be more costly?
Thanks again.
PS: Another thought is...the thin plastic sleeve aka insert maybe just lightly pressed in place. It would therefore be locked into position once the expansion plug is expanded. Its thin wall would likely deform creating a tight fit to the ID of the steerer. This approach would be simple for Specialized. They would choose an insert aka sleeve length to match the steerer tube height and wouldn't require any messy epoxy to hold it in position. What do you think?

Bump!

I just recently bought a 2013 Secteur Sport Disc from a LBS in Houston. Should I have them verify my fork or contact Specialized?

If it were me I would contact Specialized directly and have your serial number ready.

That or ask Campag4life. He seems be all over the issue.