The ever present Ranger Danger transformed into Ranger damage on my commute into work on Thursday morning. A bloke in an ESV did a hard left hand turn in front of me (I’m in Australia) and had to stop for a pedestrian crossing the road. Unfortunately that left him entirely blocking the separated bike lane I was travelling in and I went straight into his rear tailgate. He, of course, drove off as soon as the pedestrian cleared the crossing.
My commuter is a ‘94 Giant Innova steel flat bar and is largely undamaged, but it appears the front fork has been bent backwards. Is it safe for me to try to straighten them again with a long extension bar or should I pay the $80 for a new one?
If it is a small bend on steel fork blades with no sign of kinking, historically it has been considered fine to bend them back into alignment. Any kinks or other tube deformation, replace, no question. If the steerer tube is bent, it is very difficult to get it straight enough to avoid headset issues.
I would probably just replace the fork as well. And do carefully inspect the frame. I did something similar. Bent the steel fork back, still tracked straight, but the handling got very twitchy. Put a new fork on and about six months later, the headtube/downtube lug sheered through, partially rusted. Looked like it had cracked in the crash and then took it’s time to finally give way.
It’s impossible to give a definitive answer without physically inspecting the fork. If it’s only slightly bent at and/or below the crown I’d happily try to straighten it, but if there are any kinks, creases, or cracks not so much. I agree with Dave Minter that bent steerers are bad news, and are totally unacceptable with needle bearing headsets.
Truing forks isn’t rocket science but one must know what one is doing, and have whatever tools might be needed; framebuilders should have these, (and maybe better, older shops) but newer ones are much less likely to have either the tools or expertise; one cannot true carbon.
Best bet is to have a local (if available) framebuilder take a look at the fork. If it’s not too badly off it could be shifted back. That job takes a bit of experience and the right jig. There is a point where it’s just not worth it. For me, personally, it’s the idea of landing on my face and losing teeth.
Thanks everyone for your advice and experience. You are all correct - the risk is just not worth it, and the chances of me doing a good job with the tools I have are diminishingly small.
Of course you could just be blissfully unaware, ride your bike for a few years and then sell it as “repaired with chrome molly” and “no issues since repaired 4 years ago”
That’s both hilarious and frightening! I can’t imagine what it would be like to ride. The vendor did miss the opportunity to upsell the custom shortened wheelbase for quicker handling.
Saw this a lot back in the day. I mostly straightened them only on shitter bikes we’d use for shop purposes. They were never the same and were, it seemed, weaker and prone to cracking. Also, as mentioned, check carefully for any dimples at the top-head-down tube junction. Personally, if you rely on the bike at all, just get new ones.
Geez, you lot are all paranoid! CrMo isn’t paricularly weak or fragile, and if there were major bends or other problems (insufficient brazing material, etc) these would normally become obvious during the truing process. If it was my fork I’d not hesitate to straighten it unless there was very significant damage; the chances of breakage are very low, assuming it wasn’t made from cardboard by idiots to start with…
If it was a deformed carbon fork, different story…
Given the sort of injuries that can come with a fork failure, careful consideration about whether to realign or replace a steel fork seems to be a pretty smart thing to do.
^ I didn’t say it wasn’t; what I said before is that the evaluation needs to be done in person - not by correspondence, especially with no images or measurements available; that’s pointless speculation.
Steel forks are often easily repaired, but doing so requires:
Evaluation
Some skill
Appropriate tools
Note that #3 above doesn’t necessarily mean lots of new, expensive stuff, and #2 & #3 are interchangeable to an extent. It’s definitely not true that nothing can be repaired safely, however profitable that idea might be for lawyers or parts sellers.
Well, to be fair, saying something isn’t particularly weak or fragile is pretty much irrelevant since proper inspection and analysis is necessary. Likewise, being concerned about a safety critical part is not paranoid. it’s smart. It’s also worth noting that just looking at something doesn’t necessarily reveal everything. If someone opts to replace a fork out of caution–no matter the material or even what an inspection might reveal–then that’s the right choice for that person. You have to trust that part that’s keeping your face off the pavement or gravel or trail. If that trust isn’t there, then keeping that part is not the smart move.
Well this one ended up being a bit of a roller coaster. Once I had the fork off I found that not only had the leg profile been malformed (pushed into an S shape) but the steerer angle had been changed - a few too many angles to correct for my skills.
Unfortunately I then discovered that none of the reasonably priceds steel forks on the market would fit as the steerer tube on them is too long and the thread starts too high up for my head tube. Second hand forks of the right vintage are crazy money - $200+ plus shipping.
I then had a closer look at the top/head/downtube on the frame and realised there was a significant dimple in the top tube and both it and the downtube are visibly kinked 30 mm from the head tube. So that frame is cactus.
This was very depressing as I’m unreasonably emotionally invested in that bike . It was the first adult bike I bought and got me to my first after-school job, got me to Uni and then work, was the platform for carrying all three of my children on rides as infants and is still my daily commuter and pub bike. I resigned myself to a soulless urban bike form my LBS.
And then the identical bike pops up on Gumtree in VG+ condition (in vinyl terms) at an extremely reasonable price. I’ve just got back from a very nice chat with the vendor - probably the antithesis of Iain’s Marketplace experience - and a replacement identical frame and fork in better than replacement condition, a period correct set of wheels for my wife’s ‘98 Bianchi Boardwalk and a 3x7 Alivio drivetrain for the Ceres bike shed. Winning all around.
