Today I spoke with the CSC mechanic who was in Qatar, and he gave me some feedback on what happened.
The roads in Qatar were the worst he has ever seen, there were more holes than road. They broke two wheels, and he used this fact as proof that the Zipp wheels are the BEST wheels he has ever seen. He said all the other teams he spoke with broke way more.
As for the fork, Julian Dean hit a pothole as big as his head 25k into the race. He says that after that the bike felt like it had a flat front tire, so he checked but the tire was OK. It wasn't until quite some time after the initial bang that he figured out that there was movement in the steerer, and at that point (which unfortunately was a hectic moment in the race) he switched bikes with Michael Sandstoed because Julian had a pretty good shot at the final sprint.
So from this initial information I am actually quite relieved at the failure mode. Of course the first objective of design is to prevent failure of a part, but it is as important to make sure they are fail-safe. There are situations that are way outside the normal use of a product and therefore a fail-safe mode is crucial. This usually means that a part should not fail catastrophically, but that it should stay together even after failure. According to the reports from Julian and the mechanic, this is exactly what happened.
Nonetheless the fork, shim and stem have been shipped back to us for further analysis.
Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle
The roads in Qatar were the worst he has ever seen, there were more holes than road. They broke two wheels, and he used this fact as proof that the Zipp wheels are the BEST wheels he has ever seen. He said all the other teams he spoke with broke way more.
As for the fork, Julian Dean hit a pothole as big as his head 25k into the race. He says that after that the bike felt like it had a flat front tire, so he checked but the tire was OK. It wasn't until quite some time after the initial bang that he figured out that there was movement in the steerer, and at that point (which unfortunately was a hectic moment in the race) he switched bikes with Michael Sandstoed because Julian had a pretty good shot at the final sprint.
So from this initial information I am actually quite relieved at the failure mode. Of course the first objective of design is to prevent failure of a part, but it is as important to make sure they are fail-safe. There are situations that are way outside the normal use of a product and therefore a fail-safe mode is crucial. This usually means that a part should not fail catastrophically, but that it should stay together even after failure. According to the reports from Julian and the mechanic, this is exactly what happened.
Nonetheless the fork, shim and stem have been shipped back to us for further analysis.
Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle