Crashed my bike - what should I do with regards to getting it checked/back on the road?

[Dan Lotus]

Morning all,

not been on here for a good few weeks - mid July I managed to stack my beautiful (to me) Scott Foil head on into a traffic bollard at between 25-30mph. It was either that or traffic to my left or head on traffic.
Entirely my fault, poor decision making, though fortunately I managed to not involve any other people or vehicles, which was a relief.

I ended up with a broken rib, fractured shoulder, and 2 dislocated fingers (All generally healing well nearly 4 weeks on) and weirdly the bike appears to be mostly intact.
It's virtually identical to below, but with Enve 6.7s on.

I'll be honest, I didn't inspect it in close detail, but what I did note was a scraped saddle (no biggy) the left hand shifter looks a bit sad, but still seems to work, small scrape on the rear derailleur, and a bit of missing paint on the top tube.
The wheels appear true and still round somehow.

We were going on holiday not long after, so I basically chucked a sheet over it, and have only recently returned.

I have insurance with pedalcover but haven't looked into the finer points as to what they would cover/be interested in.
I appreciate it is full carbon everything with carbon wheels, and I suppose ideally I would get the top tube sorted, but I'm not sure if I need to get the frame checked inside out, and or how much that would cost (Would the bike need to be stripped of parts?) and then if it would really be worth doing.

Or, is it ok to give it a visual look over, and go and ride it.

Never had a biggy like this before, so no prior experience, but imagine some of you must have had similar unpleasant experiences.

Thanks in advance.

 

[rogerzilla]

It's probably fine, but, as far as possible with a modern curvy frame, check everything is straight, the headset turns freely with no new play in it, and none of the components are visually bent. Look at every square inch of carbon under good light to check the weave isn't bursting through the clearcoat. Check the wheelbase, if you can google the original spec.

What hit the bollard - just you or the front wheel? The latter type of impact would bend a steel fork, and often the frame too.

 

[Dan Lotus]

Thanks Roger, it was the front wheel that hit the bollard, but I believe it was one of those collapsing bollards, so I think it kind of dissipated the impact somewhat, and that effectively fired me up into the air, as the bike stopped more quickly, and I continued on my way, into oncoming traffic as it happens, but luckily for me they were all on the ball and stopped in good time, though as I landed I was bracing for impact.
Needless to say I apologised unreservedly to the drivers who had to stop.

I'll see if I can find any 2018 tech specs with wheelbase on, good shout.

 

[si_c]

I'd probably want to get the frame assessed by a professional. If you've hit something head on at 25+ mph then all that energy has been dissipated through the front end of the bike.

My first step would be take the forks out of the frame and check the steerer tube for any fractures internally/externally, especially around the fork crown. After that I'd be looking to assess the inside of the downtube to see if it's started delaminating internally at any point as this would indicate that the frame has cracked.

Chances are it's probably fine, but with carbon frames it's not always obvious and you don't want it folding in half if you're going down a hill at speed.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I was thinking the other day that I hadn't seen a post from you recently, ouch! GWS and hopefully bike needs very little work to get it back on the road.

 

[Dan Lotus]

I was thinking the other day that I hadn't seen a post from you recently, ouch! GWS and hopefully bike needs very little work to get it back on the road.

Thankyou :-)

fractures etc I think will be fine, the fingers are proving a bit more problematic, but I'm waiting for a 'hand clinic' appointment, probably next month.

I'm planning a few gentle turbo sessions from later this week just to get the legs turning over, see how the shoulder and hand feel - worst case I might use the tri bars to try and make things more comfortable.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Thankyou :-)

fractures etc I think will be fine, the fingers are proving a bit more problematic, but I'm waiting for a 'hand clinic' appointment, probably next month.

I'm planning a few gentle turbo sessions from later this week just to get the legs turning over, see how the shoulder and hands feel - worst case I might use the tri bars to try and make things more comfortable.

If that's the Wessex Rehab hand unit at Salisbury Odstock Road Hospital, they were brilliant with me ~12.5 years ago, when my right hand completely seized up after fracturing two metacarpals after my bike crash. Five weeks Mon-Fri 0900-1600ish, I had a working hand again, where I could bend joints and hold stuff.

 

[Dan Lotus]

Ah no, this will be Reading, who to be absolutely truthful were utterly superb in A&E when I went in, as was the visit yesterday, though both took a while, but I appreciate they are not staffed that well.

We went to A&E at about 21:00, and weren't home again until 03:30 - some of that time was waiting for the morphine to do it's thing.

That's encouraging you came so well out of your own more serious sounding accident - I was fortunate not to break more things I think it is fair to say. Though the dislocations were really painful (More painful than when I broke my collarbone) it would seem it is preferable to braking wrists etc.

 

[fossyant]

Just give it a thorough going over. Crashed alloy and carbon bikes before. You might want to take the forks out for a thorough check, especially the steerer and crown. Many bike shops will say scrap even if no damage.

 

[wafter]

Sorry to hear about this

I'd absolutely want to get it checked over by someone who really knows what they're doing - CFRP can be substantially weakened by internal delamination while showing zero outward indication of any issue.

If it's insured is this something you can push onto the insurance company, assuming they can be trusted to provide an objective opinion...?

 

[HLaB]

Sorry to read this. Carbon is tougher than you'd expect though. When my last bike was new, I arrived to a party in London (90+ miles) early on one of its first outings. So I rode round the block. Saw a massive queue (maybe 1km long) but a supermarket on the left circa 500m in the distance. I said to my self someone will cut through the traffic into the supermarket and slowed to a crawl. It was a good job I did as someone did cut through at speed. But only impacted on my front wheel, ripping it out of the carbon fork on a titanium bike; folding the wheel in half and throwing it 25m into the supermarket entrance. Although, my visual inspection was ok and I cycled home the next day, once back I got the bike checked out by a lbs that I trusted (one I knew wouldn't unnecessarily sell things), for that peace of mind, and ended up doing 40,000 miles on the bike.

 

[Dan Lotus]

Thanks for all the replies, quite a variety of approaches suggested I see.
I've only been back in the UK a few days (My poor partner got lumbered with ~2000 miles of driving down and back through Europe.....), and am back to work today, and still haven't mustered up the motivation to uncover it and look at in more detail.

I have pedal cover house insurance, predominantly chosen to cover higher value bikes, but I didn't even think of accident damage (I'm normally pretty careful) but should probably read up on the T's and C's to see if they provide any kind of service to inspect a crashed bike - I guess it is in their interest to make sure it is roadworthy potentially - especially if they do cover things such as accidental damage.

Another option open to me is a localish (10 miles away perhaps) bike shop which I used to build up another Scott frame with new parts, I might drop them a message and see what their thoughts are, and if they have the skills/expertise, or have ever tackled anything like it before.
They are an official Scott dealer, and have a good local reputation.

I'm not in any huge hurry, I doubt I'll be riding it until next spring now, as I have an Addict, a Gravel addict and my trusty CR1 I can go out on, so no massive hurry on that side, just need to workout the best course of action, and what does need repairing.

A quick scan of 9100 LH shifters shows them costing a LOT of coins - if indeed it does need one - it certainly has damage, the part at the top of the lever is nowhere near straight, but I'm not sure if shifting and or braking are also affected, clearly something I need to establish.
Possibly even more difficult to get hold of being rim brake as well.

Much as it would pain me to have mismatched shifters, I may need to consider an R8000 one