Cannondale recall

https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski

On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 12:52:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski

I just posted about this on Doug's front rack thread. Those forks are not particularly light. I have the next product year, and my forks are heavy and have an aluminum steerer.

I linked to an article indicating that Cannondale and others did testing that did not show a defect, so I'm curious as to how the failures occurred. The forks were made in Taiwan, which is known for its CF prowess -- and I've never seen a mid-fork leg failure minus a squirrel or a stick or an impact..

-- Jay Beattie.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 1:42:31 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 12:52:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski

I just posted about this on Doug's front rack thread. Those forks are not particularly light. I have the next product year, and my forks are heavy and have an aluminum steerer.

I linked to an article indicating that Cannondale and others did testing that did not show a defect, so I'm curious as to how the failures occurred. The forks were made in Taiwan, which is known for its CF prowess -- and I've never seen a mid-fork leg failure minus a squirrel or a stick or an impact.

-- Jay Beattie.

-- Jay Beattie.

I had a mid-fork failure but it was because the opposite leg was improperly attached and fell off overloading the other side. As hard as I hit that Colnago carbon fiber form that would have badly bent a steel fork and probably broken an aluminum one. It cracked the lay-up around the left-hand drop-out. So I have quite a bit of faith in carbon fiber forks.

Also watching the Tour de France we've now seen three frames break for no obvious reasons. And we've watch a continuous string of electronic shifting failures though most of them appear that you can force them over a gear and they start working properly again.

On 7/25/2019 2:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski


Well, that's true but the history of recalled forks includes
steel and aluminum models as well.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 6:32:51 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/25/2019 2:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski


Well, that's true but the history of recalled forks includes
steel and aluminum models as well.

Agreed. My Reynolds 531 tandem fork failed. But that builder error - by builder
Jim Bradford.

- Frank Krygowski

On 26/7/19 1:48 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 6:32:51 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/25/2019 2:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski


Well, that's true but the history of recalled forks includes
steel and aluminum models as well.

Agreed. My Reynolds 531 tandem fork failed. But that builder error - by builder
Jim Bradford.

"Cycling Sports Group estimates it sold 9,700 of these bikes in the U.S.
market, with another 1,900 in Canada."

"11 incidents worldwide of the bicycle’s fork breaking,"


I wonder how many forks Jim made, and how many failed? Do you think it
was more or less than 0.1% of his forks failed?

Would he have made 1000 forks and yours was the only one that failed?

I don't know, but I guess it would be possible that Jim made several
tandem forks the same way before he learned of the manufacturing error?

Likewise Cannondale...


I have no problem using CF forks on my road bike, and we have some
pretty bad patches of road around here.

--
JS

On 7/25/2019 10:48 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 6:32:51 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/25/2019 2:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski


Well, that's true but the history of recalled forks includes
steel and aluminum models as well.

Agreed. My Reynolds 531 tandem fork failed. But that builder error - by builder
Jim Bradford.

- Frank Krygowski


You've mentioned that before and of course we see occasional
anomalies/errors too. In everything.

But a fork recall happens when
design/engineering/material/process has systematically
failed for a particular run of product. Different thing
entirely.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Friday, July 26, 2019 at 2:58:06 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 26/7/19 1:48 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 6:32:51 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/25/2019 2:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski


Well, that's true but the history of recalled forks includes
steel and aluminum models as well.

Agreed. My Reynolds 531 tandem fork failed. But that builder error - by builder
Jim Bradford.

"Cycling Sports Group estimates it sold 9,700 of these bikes in the U.S.
market, with another 1,900 in Canada."

"11 incidents worldwide of the bicycle’s fork breaking,"


I wonder how many forks Jim made, and how many failed? Do you think it
was more or less than 0.1% of his forks failed?

Would he have made 1000 forks and yours was the only one that failed?

As Andrew said, I've mentioned this before. And yes, nothing can be 100% safe.
But I mention this guy's name because this fork was an egregious and
irresponsible error. To recap:

It is/was a custom tandem, oversized Reynolds 531 throughout. Jim Bradford was
to build the frame, but also install the components, all of which were
specified via letters and phone calls. Its construction took months longer than
promised, which is probably not unusual and is, I think, forgivable.

But when I made the long drive to pick it up, I said "But it was supposed to be
green!" and "You left out that bottle cage?" and "Those aren't the gears I
asked for" and so on. Finally, Jim Bradford said "Look, I'm getting married
next week and we're going to Europe for our honeymoon. Do you want the bike or
not?" So I took this obvious rush project home (and later found other items
that were not as ordered).

Jumping forward to the day the forks snapped off: When I examined the broken
forks at home, I was astonished to see how thin the walls were. I looked up
the Reynolds fork blades of the era, and found Bradford did not use tandem
gauge fork blades. Instead, these were track gauge, with walls one third as
thick as Reynolds recommended. When I talked to the folks at Tandems Limited
(one of the biggest tandem dealers in America) to get a replacement fork, they
said "We always told Jim his forks were too weak." But that was based on the
_external_ dimensions, a slim 1" diameter tube. They couldn't have known about
the super-thin walls on this fork.

It seems obvious that in his rush to finally finish our tandem before leaving
on his honeymoon, Bradford grabbed a set of track fork blades and said "These
will be good enough." The break, BTW, was just below the crown, within the
heat affected zone.

Did this happen with dozens of other frames he built? I doubt it. I think we
were unlucky enough to get the bike he rushed to build before his marriage.
But that doesn't excuse his choice of fork blades, nor the dozen or so other
mistakes he made on the frame. Fortunately, the others were mere irritations,
not mission critical.

- Frank Krygowski

On Friday, July 26, 2019 at 10:24:14 AM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Friday, July 26, 2019 at 2:58:06 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 26/7/19 1:48 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 6:32:51 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/25/2019 2:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski


Well, that's true but the history of recalled forks includes
steel and aluminum models as well.

Agreed. My Reynolds 531 tandem fork failed. But that builder error - by builder
Jim Bradford.

"Cycling Sports Group estimates it sold 9,700 of these bikes in the U.S..
market, with another 1,900 in Canada."

"11 incidents worldwide of the bicycle’s fork breaking,"


I wonder how many forks Jim made, and how many failed? Do you think it
was more or less than 0.1% of his forks failed?

Would he have made 1000 forks and yours was the only one that failed?

As Andrew said, I've mentioned this before. And yes, nothing can be 100% safe.
But I mention this guy's name because this fork was an egregious and
irresponsible error. To recap:

It is/was a custom tandem, oversized Reynolds 531 throughout. Jim Bradford was
to build the frame, but also install the components, all of which were
specified via letters and phone calls. Its construction took months longer than
promised, which is probably not unusual and is, I think, forgivable.

But when I made the long drive to pick it up, I said "But it was supposed to be
green!" and "You left out that bottle cage?" and "Those aren't the gears I
asked for" and so on. Finally, Jim Bradford said "Look, I'm getting married
next week and we're going to Europe for our honeymoon. Do you want the bike or
not?" So I took this obvious rush project home (and later found other items
that were not as ordered).

Jumping forward to the day the forks snapped off: When I examined the broken
forks at home, I was astonished to see how thin the walls were. I looked up
the Reynolds fork blades of the era, and found Bradford did not use tandem
gauge fork blades. Instead, these were track gauge, with walls one third as
thick as Reynolds recommended. When I talked to the folks at Tandems Limited
(one of the biggest tandem dealers in America) to get a replacement fork, they
said "We always told Jim his forks were too weak." But that was based on the
_external_ dimensions, a slim 1" diameter tube. They couldn't have known about
the super-thin walls on this fork.

It seems obvious that in his rush to finally finish our tandem before leaving
on his honeymoon, Bradford grabbed a set of track fork blades and said "These
will be good enough." The break, BTW, was just below the crown, within the
heat affected zone.

Did this happen with dozens of other frames he built? I doubt it. I think we
were unlucky enough to get the bike he rushed to build before his marriage.
But that doesn't excuse his choice of fork blades, nor the dozen or so other
mistakes he made on the frame. Fortunately, the others were mere irritations,
not mission critical.

- Frank Krygowski

CRIKEY! If I was paying for a CUSTOM BUILT frameset I'd be miffed at all those errors and would probably have refused the bike until it was spec'ed to what I had order other than perhaps the colour.

Cheers

On Friday, July 26, 2019 at 5:17:47 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/25/2019 10:48 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 6:32:51 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
On 7/25/2019 2:52 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://gearjunkie.com/cannondale-ca...bicycle-recall

Hmm. The carbon fiber fork may kill you.

But on the other hand, it's nice and light!

- Frank Krygowski


Well, that's true but the history of recalled forks includes
steel and aluminum models as well.

Agreed. My Reynolds 531 tandem fork failed. But that builder error - by builder
Jim Bradford.

- Frank Krygowski


You've mentioned that before and of course we see occasional
anomalies/errors too. In everything.

But a fork recall happens when
design/engineering/material/process has systematically
failed for a particular run of product. Different thing
entirely.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

"systematic failure" could be a half dozen forks all failing in the same manner. But consider - fork failures are all pretty much the same - steel forks bend almost in the same position on all steel bikes. Aluminum forks all fail just above the dropout or at the connection between the fork and the head. I'm sure it has happened but I haven't seen modern carbon fiber forks fail except in collisions.