A friend of Doug's was on a road ride with someone who sucked a squirrel into his front fork resulting in the fork arm shearing off and causing him to crash catastrophically.
Here's the story posed in a question (I believe) to a carbon fork manufacturer:
"Two weekends ago a riding buddy's brother was eight miles in to a century when he sucked a squirrel in to his front wheel while traveling at a good 25-30 mph. He fractured his #10 thoracic vertebrae, but there was no spinal cord damage, so he will recover, albeit with some new and permanent internal hardware.
From what we can surmise, the squirrel got in the wheel and sheared the fork in half. The big chainring is bent, so it appears he came down on on the ring and then on to his right side, hard enough to damage the shifter, but not bend the bars.
We were all just surprised that a squirrel could shear a fork in half like that. Have you ever seen something like that happen before? I would have expected the wheel to just lock up, but I guess at 25-30 mph the force must be a lot more than I would have guessed, and as I understand it, carbon fiber does not do well under compression/impact. And the squirrel does appear to have hit the fork dead center — at the point of highest leverage.Any thoughts?"
Here's the response:
"I have seen this before — not in person but in photos people have sent me of dead squirrels and sheared-off carbon forks. The rider would be just as injured even if the fork had not failed — just the front wheel stopping so abruptly would have put him on his face. Watch out for those squirrels!"
I feel horrible for the cyclist and the squirrel. I have a carbon fork on my road bike and a carbon mountain bike frame. Jo has carbon forks on both her road and mountain bikes. I'm well aware of the physics behind how carbon works in different applications and agree that this would have resulted in a bad crash regardless of the material, but it is interesting to see how it failed. Next time I'm doing 50 mph down left hand canyon I'll be scanning the road for anything that could pose a hazard!
Here are some pics:
7 comments:
I disagree with the comment that the rider would've been 'just as injured' if the fork had NOT failed.
For one thing, it's just speculation.
And, if we're speculating, then who's to say that Chippy the Chipmunk wouldn't have been spit out, broken in half and passed through, whatever, had the fork NOT failed, i.e. been steel or something more impact-resistant than carbon?
Yeah, maybe he would've still gone down. There's a chance he wouldn't have. But if your fork fails, you KNOW you're going down, hard.
The issue is also clearance. I dropped a waterbottle years ago that got caught in the front wheel. It ruined the wheel but went through the fork (Steel touring bike) I don't know what the relative density of a nearly full water bottle and a squirrel is but I'd bet they are not that far off. I was ale to stop rather than crash beacause there was enough clearance to let the bottle squeeze through.
i an=m a total retro grouch and don't ride carbon frames but I think the issue here is as much clearance as material. Does anybody really believe that they gain ANY measurable advantage from riding a fork no clearance?
I'm sorry, the design of the fork and the way they are marketed is simply criminal. The only people who need that type of equipment are sponsored racers in a RACE.
http://hk2sh.blogspot.com/
I have been reading your posts regularly. I need to say that you are doing a fantastic job. Please keep up the great work.....parkzone
Your post is truly good and informative I actually enjoy reading them every day. I’ve learned a lot from your post Thank you so much for sharing this nice post. Keep it up…
Really great post i have got here keep it up.
All the contents you mentioned in post is too good and can be very useful. thanks for sharing the information keep updating, looking forward for more posts. Thanks
Hey! I read your article. Thank you, for sharing your experience It was quite helpful for me.
carbon fiber bike parts
Post a Comment