After yesterday's anticarbon post I thought I was all spent on that for the year, but then I got this email story and photos:
Grant,
Hello. My name is Jake Kruse. I'd like to let you know I read your new Blahg, and as your latest update included some thoughts on carbon vs. steel, I'd like to share some pictures of a recent accident I found myself in.
I came in too fast on a rock feature that I thought had a roll out, but in fact had a drop off. I landed hard on my front wheel and flipping right over the bars. I dusted my self off and detected no injuries, so I walked back to my bike to see the damaged fork, but the front wheel was fine and I was able to ride back to the trailhead. I think if it would have been a carbon or aluminum fork things would have played out differently.
Jake Kruse
Jake and bike. It seems to be a Q-Ball brand, looks like a nice steel bike.
Back of the fork. Paint's more brittle than steel, so..that's why the big flake came off.
Front of the fork. From these last two pictures, you could probably conclude that paint is more ductile than malleable, and here's what I hope is not too irritating a vocabulary moment:
Ductile means stretchable (think of a duck's long neck)
Malleable means compressable (think of what a mallet does)
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We've shown some of our bent forks before, but in case you've missed, here are four of many, each bending to the forces the world thrust upon it. No two alike!
It's only slightly bent at the steer tube / crown junction...but it's bent enough to not ride. In another time and place this might be straightened and the guy sent on his merry Tally-Ho!, but we have to be ultra-prudent, so..he got a new fork. Not free, but he got one.
A will-o-the-wisp of a dent, and if were a side view you'd see the bend, too.
Major front impact did this. It was a Sam.
This couldn't happen riding--the q/release would hold it all together. This happened on the roof rack. Quick-release not tightened, crosswind, etc.
These and Jake's fork are the best examples of the best reasons to ride steel forks. No matter what you do with the frame---the fork is the thing that matters. Carbon frame, fine & whatever, but the fork is no place to messaround. Over and out for a while on that.
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An ad on the BART platform. There must be a better way to say it. Maybe if I don't understand it, I'm not the audience.
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I live to the left of the handlebar about half an inch. It's 20 minutes to here from home, 90 percent of it on trails like this.
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When we had Bike Book & Hatchet, I had a lot of slack time and could make things like this to eat and stir with. These have been rubbed with mineral oil and beeswax, and are soaking in the rays in my back yard.
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I bought six books about 3 weeks ago. Somebody stole them off our porch—that's a thing these days. When they saw the box had only books, they ditched the books in the neighbor's side yard, kind of hidden. Rains came, waterlogged them all, and I've dried them now, but they'll never close the same or smell the same. I used a hair drier, an area heater, time...they'll survive.
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Joe Appaloosa bikes are expected...in a month. Tandem frame samples next week.
G
