Tropical Storm Cindy hit my neighborhood pretty hard last week. The big, beautiful tree in our backyard fell onto our house. It is a miracle that no one was killed - I honestly thought that our whole house was going to be smashed into toothpicks!
Our bedroom and back porch took the bulk of the damage (yes, I have pics --)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/PhotoView.jsp?&collid=830400931106&photoid=635410931106
The question is this – some ceiling parts from the porch did hit the Trek 5200 (carbon fiber) I have mounted on the Computrainer. The CT got wet - getting some funky readings from it - will have to give it another shot tomorrow. The real question I have is on the Trek - I can’t see any cracks, but I’m not real confident about taking it on the road. Are there any services out there that can x-ray a frame for cracks. I don’t want to claim it until I know that it is truly damaged, but I’m scared to ride the thing on the pavement until I know it is OK. Any thoughts?
anyone? Bueller?
when in doubt, throw it out.
Worst case scenario:
If you are not confident in the bike, consider it destroyed by the storm. You can claim it on you homeowners insurance. Pay the deductible and get a new bike. If they are kind enough to let you keep that one, use it on the trainer only.
Remember though, adding carbon fiber aerobars and Zipp 404 wheels on a bike used on a trainer is not cool. 
I would like to “consider it destroyed”, but I’m not sure I get to make that call.
The CF aerobars are old – replaced on my TT bike with an oval one-piece. And those are NOT Zipp 404’s – just the bontragers that came with the Trek.
Sorry man,
The dig was actually aimed at a friend of mine. I can’t pull up the picture. It goes to an error page.
J
There are places that can magnaflux it (cheapest), sonogram it (reasonable), and/or x-ray it (also actually pretty reasonable). It is done all the time on race car parts. When I used to work on cars, we mailed stuff out all the time. I can get some company names from my old boss if you’re interested. But google “aluminum crack testing” and you should get a bunch of hits…
I don’t know if crack testing will find anything on a carbon frame. While it may find somthing, the structure maybe compromised and not show up as well. I guess what I am saying, it may find something, but testing won’t assure you it is safe. I would probably trust crack testing on steel, but not on a composite.
Shoot it, like a horse. X-rays are for finalizing diagnoses on humans, animals, blah blah.
Call your insurance company; you should be covered.
- m
I didn’t see the picture of the frame as the link was down… He just said “my Trek,” and I know Trek makes aluminum bikes, so I thought if he wanted crack testing, it was a metal bike. If it’s a composite bike, you are correct, crack testing won’t give you any real peace of mind.
I would take it to a local bike shop for cross cecking - also a good rule of thumb for carbon is that is you can’t see actual fibers sticking out and there are no sections that are compressed fiber (e.g., when the clamp on a carbon seat post is too tight you will see that the carbon actually get’s pressed in or raised on other parts), your bike survived the storm without any problems
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