Fork scratching from tire debris?

HI,

I was cleaning my new road bike yesterday, and I noticed that the CF
fork is scratched up a bit where the very top of the tire passes
through. There isn't much clearance there, the only thing I can think
of is the tire picking up small pebbles from the road and rubbing them
off against the fork. Is this normal? Cause for concern? Since it's
CF, rust shouldn't be an issue, so is it OK to just leave the
scratches rather than clear coating over them? The bike should be in
for it's freebie go-through in a week or three, depending on this
weather, so I'll talk to my guy @ the shop then about it. I'm just
curious to hear some other input ahead of time.

Also, I'm mildly concerned that if this fork were ever to fail, Trek
(it's a LeMond) may whine about the fork being abused/scratched in
regards to warranty. This strikes me as very unlikely since if the
fork ever does fail I really doubt it'll be there, and the shop that'd
be the liason between Trek & I has always been very good to me, so I
assume they'd take care of it.

I know when I rode a high-performance motorcycle with slicks, one of
the reasons for almost non-existent clearance between tire and fender
was to shed the bigger stuff the slicks picked up from the road, so
I'm guessing this is fairly normal. You could actually hear the
pebbles being scraped off the tire against the fender on that
motorcycle after riding over poor or dirty pavement. Would I see the
same scratches on most bikes with CF forks and very little tire/fork
clearance?

On Aug 11, 9:06*am, " wrote:
HI,

I was cleaning my new road bike yesterday, and I noticed that the CF
fork is scratched up a bit where the very top of the tire passes
through. *There isn't much clearance there, the only thing I can think
of is the tire picking up small pebbles from the road and rubbing them
off against the fork. *Is this normal? *Cause for concern? *Since it's
CF, rust shouldn't be an issue, so is it OK to just leave the
scratches rather than clear coating over them? *The bike should be in
for it's freebie go-through in a week or three, depending on this
weather, so I'll talk to my guy @ the shop then about it. *I'm just
curious to hear some other input ahead of time.

Also, I'm mildly concerned that if this fork were ever to fail, Trek
(it's a LeMond) may whine about the fork being abused/scratched in
regards to warranty. *This strikes me as very unlikely since if the
fork ever does fail I really doubt it'll be there, and the shop that'd
be the liason between Trek & I has always been very good to me, so I
assume they'd take care of it.

I know when I rode a high-performance motorcycle with slicks, one of
the reasons for almost non-existent clearance between tire and fender
was to shed the bigger stuff the slicks picked up from the road, so
I'm guessing this is fairly normal. *You could actually hear the
pebbles being scraped off the tire against the fender on that
motorcycle after riding over poor or dirty pavement. *Would I see the
same scratches on most bikes with CF forks and very little tire/fork
clearance?

Normal. Mine is the same.

In article
,
" wrote:

HI,

I was cleaning my new road bike yesterday, and I noticed that the CF
fork is scratched up a bit where the very top of the tire passes
through. There isn't much clearance there, the only thing I can
think of is the tire picking up small pebbles from the road and
rubbing them off against the fork. Is this normal? Cause for
concern? Since it's CF, rust shouldn't be an issue, so is it OK to
just leave the scratches rather than clear coating over them? The
bike should be in for it's freebie go-through in a week or three,
depending on this weather, so I'll talk to my guy @ the shop then
about it. I'm just curious to hear some other input ahead of time.

Also, I'm mildly concerned that if this fork were ever to fail, Trek
(it's a LeMond) may whine about the fork being abused/scratched in
regards to warranty. This strikes me as very unlikely since if the
fork ever does fail I really doubt it'll be there, and the shop
that'd be the liason between Trek & I has always been very good to
me, so I assume they'd take care of it.

I know when I rode a high-performance motorcycle with slicks, one of
the reasons for almost non-existent clearance between tire and fender
was to shed the bigger stuff the slicks picked up from the road, so
I'm guessing this is fairly normal. You could actually hear the
pebbles being scraped off the tire against the fender on that
motorcycle after riding over poor or dirty pavement. Would I see the
same scratches on most bikes with CF forks and very little tire/fork
clearance?

I see these scratches on my steel forks on my road bikes, even with
rather more clearance than the average CF fork. My guess has been that
they are caused by stuff sticking to the tire and getting knocked off as
it travels through the fork. In regards to CF forks, I would hope that
the makers have taken this into account since it's normal to get these
scratches and chips.

My impression is that if CF wasn't able to tolerate small nicks like
this we'd be seeing rampant failures all over the place and we are
generally not. There have been some reports of failures with poorly
explained causes, but most of the failures discussed here have come from
pretty solid whacks like getting a squirrel stuck in the wheel.