I was on a ride in California a couple weeks ago when this event happened ...

Two fellow cyclists were coming down a hill at a pretty good clip. The one in front heard the unmistakable sounds of a crash behind him, stopped, and raced back up to his friend, who had just done a faceplant over the front of his bicycle into the road.

He helped him over to the side of the road and assessed the damage ... face scraped up and bashed in, eyeball hanging out, disoriented and confused, but no other bones seemed to be broken.

He told his friend to sit by the side of the road while he went to get help, so he raced like the wind to the rest stop up the road, and demanded they call an ambulance and then also take a truck up to get the guy ... which they did. Because of his quick action, his friend was taken to the hospital promptly and received the attention he needed. Last I heard he was on the mend.


What happened to cause the crash? His carbon forks broke.


He was riding a Reynold's Ouzo Pro all-carbon fork. So far no one is sure what precipitated the failure, but both legs were broken partially though from the back with a bit of carbon acting like a hinge at the front edge of each leg.

Another rider spoke to the crash victim and asked if he'd ever suffered damage to the legs or ever clamped anything to them. He replied no on both counts. The crash victim isn't large or heavy - no more than 160 lbs.


I saw the forks and they looked exactly like my carbon seatpost did when it shattered.

I think the material has little to do with the incident. They could have been an aluminum or steel fork and still broken. Something must have happened to them at sometime to damage them.

Glad your friend is ok.

Bad news about your friends crash, it's awful when that happens.

However, stuff breaks. It's all just a matter of when. Things high on the list of things you'd rather not break are as you point out - forks and seatposts.

No point in speculating who's to blame or arguing that stuff like this shouldn't happen, the bottom line is is that racing components push the boundaries of what's possible and carbon especially has a pretty nasty mode of failure. 1+1=2, and sometimes stuff like this is going to happen.

It's half the reason I use a Thomson layback seatpost and True Temper AlphaQ X2 tandem forks.

after 13 years and zero carbon fork failures, i can offer these words of wisdom: shoulda bought better forks.

I don't want to start some flame war back and forth, but I've never heard of someone breaking a steel fork on a road bike. This kind of catastrophic failure freaks me out. I think its harsh to blame the guy and say that he must have damaged the forks at one point. I doubt he would ride on the forks if he thought they were suspect in any way.

Yeah, reading this freaks me out when I think about my Roubaix with it's elastomer inserts in the forks. There really isn't that much carbon either side of the hole cut for the elastomer to fit in. And considering the rediculously bumpy decents we have around here...

So which carbon fork would you suggest? Reynolds is probably the most respected carbon fork maker in the biz.

As for the failure, my next bike will be steel including the fork. This isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of failure and i don't think saving a pound or so is worth the risk anymore.

The most indestructo carbon forks would have to either be my AlphaQ X2's or the Wound-Ups.

You're right though, a pound makes absolutely no difference. You want a steel frame and forks? I say go for it, but not because they're less failure prone, but because they're customisable, ride really nice and look even better.

If we all ran scared when something broke, none of us would be riding.

i think the folks at kestrel would dispute that.

Living in the past aren't you?

Every company has their lemons, even if it's 1 in 500,000.

I've been using a Kestrel EMS fork for around 12 years. No problems, even on the garbage they call roads around here. Some of them are like the lunar surface.

well if YOU say so, guru, then i guess i am. have you ever broken a kestrel fork?

Ahh, another Kestrel user. No wonder neither one of us has broken a fork.

That the same people that made this fork?

25 years between two users on this thread. how many failures again?

don't see where it says what caused the failure. what did he hit, a brick wall? a carbon fork isn't simply going to snap in the center of both legs just by riding your bike.

Besides being a bit thick,the stastical bankruptcy of a sample of 2 has apparently escaped you.

Exactly... why let the exceptions make the rule?

This is the story behind that fork.

I have in my possesion a Kestral EMS fork with steel steerer from around
1994. It's in three pieces. 2 pieces each about 9-10" long with a dropout
on each end and the steerer with the remainder of the blades attached
(5-6").

The result of this failure was a broken collar bone and concussion with
several minutes of unconciousness. Cause of failure is unknown. My friend,
the unlucky rider, weighs about 125 lbs and was just cruising down a street.
No pot holes, no animal remnants, no sticks, no nothing that would be a
"smoking gun". There also was no history of abuse or crashes. There was no
history of "creaking" or anything else unusual prior to failure. I don't
know how many miles were on the fork before failure. I'd guestimate 2 years
at 3-4k miles per year.

ok, genius, point me to where the thread went from broken carbon forks to light carbon forks? not everyone is so dillusional about light weight that they're willing to sacrifice safety for it. maybe you are, but that isn't what's being discussed here.

yeah, RIGHT...
"my car was only two years old, when suddenly the ENTIRE FRONT END JUST FELL OFF and i never even hit anything! how did this happen? i never did a thing to cause it."

BULL&#$%

8k on a fork///PLEASE

My Kinesis Carbon 2 has about that many miles, and I think it's one of the cheapest you can get, period. THe thing is also tank-like...I have more confidence in it, than I have in my wheels, stem or handlebars, and those are aluminum.

If there's a scrape in the outer clear layer that compromises the carbon underneath, or there's a small void in the carbon epoxy matrix, or the things are old with a lot of miles in them, they can snap. Even riding with a loose headset could potentially cause trouble.

Or yeah, you could drive into your carport with the bike on the roof and go for a ride the next day thinking 'She'll be right'.

Settle down gentlemen

Well, believe it or not, often times this is how carbon bike parts will fail. Without warning and catastrophic. I hope you or I never have to find this out the hard way.

I have no problem with the Kestrel fork. In fact I have one on my bike. Your insinuation that the fork failure in the original post could have been prevented simply by chosing a better brand of fork is optimistic at best. Carbon fiber bike parts can and will break. No manufacturer's parts are immune to this.

i'll go with that for the most part. but that guy's story about his 125lb friend's carbon fork spontaneously collapsing on itself and rendering him broken and unconscious is suspicous at best. at BEST.

unless there was some serious existing damage or a big frontal impact, the fork would not simply give out and collapse. the idiot probably ran into a curb and THEN went "cruising down the street" with a beer in his hand.