Man who was paralysed sues Planet X for £10 million

[classic33]

Metal forks fail with warning. Carbon fiber forks instantly shatter. With carbon forks you end up flat on the earth. Chose wisely.

Metal can fail without warning.

Can you explain what your two posts on carbon forks have to do with the actual thread

 

[Drago]

Metal forks fail with warning. Carbon fiber forks instantly shatter. With carbon forks you end up flat on the earth. Chose wisely.

Metal forks tend to fail progressively and will for the most part will give visual clues of impending failure.

Of course those visual clues are only of use to people like me who inspect their bike prior to each ride (I was trained to do so.)

I expect that you're like everyone else and will wheel the bike out, chuck a leg over it, then off you go, completely oblivious to any warning your metal forks may be giving you. Because of this lack of discipline you're just as likely as a carbon fork rider to end up flatmon your fizzog.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Metal can fail without warning.
Can you explain what your two posts on carbon forks have to do with the actual thread

Well the 'actual thread' is directly about a carbon fork which failed. Seems on topic to me.

"In the course of descending the grass slope at a speed of about 25 kmph, which is terrain and a speed the claimant will say ought to have been well within the capabilities of the bike, the carbon fibre front forks (sic) suddenly and without warning sheared in two at the base of the steerer tube, causing the front wheel of the bike to collapse rearwards."
@Drago "visual [and/or audible] clues of impending failure"

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

When I first saw this item I thought, "Poor chap, that could be anyone of us", I also noted a slighly odd phrase something like ought to be able, at the time I thought just a bit of legalese.

When it was updated I went looking for more details and found all was not as I had first thought, to be totally clear I am not victim blaming here but seeing a different and in many ways a more worrying issue.

https://cyclingindustry.news/4-5m-planet-x-compensation-case-highlights-bike-standards/

For quite a few years now I have been seeing a phrase such as This bike is intended for use with the wheels in contact with the ground at all times in the small print when looking at CF road bikes.

Apparently there is an industry wide classification that I had never heard of before but is well documented here, https://www.dtswiss.com/en/support/astm-classification. Note cats 1 and 2 which go from in contact at all times to The tires may briefly lose contact with the ground when riding over drops up to 15 cm high and then cat 3, 4 and 5

To me 15cm is a pretty small drop, espcially considering Pot Holes and instinctively cat 1 and 2 would be the same to me. The fact that they are not is a surprise to me,

As I undestand it

• The rider bought a titanium frame/cf fork bike, that looks to me like a road/light gravel bike (wheels in contact with the ground at all times)
• Planet X advertised it as suitable for vigorous off road use (wheels NOT in contact with the ground at all times and significant drops)
• The forks failed when the bike was being ridden in more of an road way.
• The defense was that bike was never intened to be riddden the way it was and the rider should have ignored the images and descriptions on web site as they were just marketing claims!

I have three bikes with CF forks, a Jamis with a broken frame that is still in one piece and rideable but failure is inevitable (https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/broken-carbon-and-i-feel-happy.292872/), a Ribble Ale and a Carrera Vanquish. What is notable about all three is that they appear to have been supplied to the bike brand as frame and fork combination.

It is very unclear if what happened in this case was

• Planet X only ever intended to make a road only bike and marketing got carried away.
  • That's pretty easy to see happening, the original copy might have been appropriate but changed over time.
• That Planet X assembled a road only fork onto some or all of the Tempests intended to have an off road fork.
  • Again easy to see happening, we've run out of fork a, but we've got some fork b
• There was an issue with the fork.
  • Again possible
• There are some references to the example forks supplied during this case as being stronger than the one actually fitted.

As far as I am aware Plant X at the time didn't have the expertise to design a frame and fork from scratch and like most of the industry were assembling parts from around the world.

Not surprisingly there are differences in components designed for road only use and mountain bikes and we all rely on the retailers assembling the bikes out of appropriate parts.

Bye

Ian

 

[PaulSB]

@IanSmithCSE a very interesting read. Thank you.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Interesting and thoughtful post - I encourage all interested to read the Cycling Industry News article you linked.

a phrase such as This bike is intended for use with the wheels in contact with the ground at all times in the small print when looking at CF road bikes.

Apparently there is an industry wide classification that I had never heard of before but is well documented here, https://www.dtswiss.com/en/support/astm-classification. Note cats 1 and 2 which go from in contact at all times to The tires may briefly lose contact with the ground when riding over drops up to 15 cm high and then cat 3, 4 and 5

To me 15cm is a pretty small drop, especially considering Pot Holes and instinctively cat 1 and 2 would be the same to me. The fact that they are not is a surprise to me,

If a bike (failed subject of thread) is described as "all-terrain gravel bike" then "descending the grass slope at about 25 kmph" is clearly within bike's spec (as insurer eventually agreed).
ASTM F2043-13(2018) Standard Classification for Bicycle Usage which the DT Swiss descriptions precis seems fit for world wide purpose and the categories worth using in specs for bikes being sold.

Cat 1 seems to be 'normal' road bike; Cat 2 seems to fit with a gravel bike and Cat 3 designed to deal with lunatics "on rough or unpaved surfaces . . tires may lose contact with the ground [with] occasional drops / jumps of 60 cm"and 4 and 5 for those with a death wish: Red Bull.

You describe a 15cm drop as "pretty small" but on a bike without suspension that's significant. No ordinary kerb that a road bike would be ridden over is >140mm and while man-eating potholes may be >140mm deep the damage/failure is on the far lip, not the drop.
I'm sure most here would ride off a pavement onto the road with a 100mm drop with due care but up that to 150mm and most would delay and look for a drop kerb. YMMV

For an everyday image, the building standard for a staircase rise/(drop) height is 150-170mm.
In the last (maybe) 10,000km of road riding I cannot recall riding a drop of >140mm even unwillingly. Sure on an MTB you'll get that and more eg designed trails and 'up on the common' but that's not really the primary context here.

 

[Hover Fly]

Metal forks tend to fail progressively and will for the most part will give visual clues of impending failure.

Of course those visual clues are only of use to people like me who inspect their bike prior to each ride (I was trained to do so.)

I expect that you're like everyone else and will wheel the bike out, chuck a leg over it, then off you go, completely oblivious to any warning your metal forks may be giving you. Because of this lack of discipline you're just as likely as a carbon fork rider to end up flatmon your fizzog.

Meticulous cleaning is your friend, I’ve never had anything near to a broken frame or fork, but have noticed cracks in stems and cranks in time, simply by getting close and personal with a cloth and solvent of choice.

 

[cougie uk]

Meticulous cleaning is your friend, I’ve never had anything near to a broken frame or fork, but have noticed cracks in stems and cranks in time, simply by getting close and personal with a cloth and solvent of choice.

I need to start wearing my glasses when I'm cleaning bikes now. Pah.

 

[C R]

I need to start wearing my glasses when I'm cleaning bikes now. Pah.

I feel your pain.

 

[Jameshow]

Sounds like a QC issue.....

During the court proceedings, testing by the parties’ respective experts found that the carbon fibre forks on Dr Gordon’s bicycle were materially thinner and weaker than two exemplar forks provided by the manufacturer, Huizhou FlyBike Sports Equipment Co Ltd.

Perhaps someone didn't count the laminate layers correctly into the mould??

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Sounds like a QC issue.....

During the court proceedings, testing by the parties’ respective experts found that the carbon fibre forks on Dr Gordon’s bicycle were materially thinner and weaker than two exemplar forks provided by the manufacturer, Huizhou FlyBike Sports Equipment Co Ltd.

Perhaps someone didn't count the laminate layers correctly into the mould??

I run an engineering business and the QC issue would have been the deciding factor in the settlement (having been through numerous warranty issues in the past). Interesting points raised above regarding intended usage, and had the fork been the same spec as the exemplar forks then it would have been a far more complicated case to decide, but essentially as they were not, the fork not being to spec would be decisive.

 

[froze]

It was a new bike.

It was a new bike is a bit ambiguous, what does new mean, he just bought the bike from Planet X and rode immediately after the purchase on his very first ride on the day of purchase, or new like it was a couple of weeks old? If he had it for a couple of weeks who's to say how rough he treated the bike prior to the ride that resulted in the crash.

While experts in carbon fiber agree that any material can fail; wrecks happen from faulty aluminum, steel, and even rock-hard titanium. The difference with carbon fiber is that it can be difficult to detect signs of damage that might signal imminent failure. Cracks and dents in other materials are typically easy to see, but fissures in carbon fiber often hide beneath the paint. What’s worse is that when carbon fiber fails, it fails spectacularly. While other materials might simply buckle or bend, carbon fiber can shatter into pieces, sending riders flying into the road or trail. And this kind of catastrophic destruction can happen to any part of a bike made with the material. Frame or Fork failures from other materials rarely cause accidents due to the forewarning that something is about to go bad.

I saw a guy coming toward me once on a trail and suddenly he just veered into a bunch of bushes, so I stopped to help him, thankfully he was only scratched up from the bushes, but his CF handlebar broke right in two which caused the bike to veer out of control. But another person I know wasn't as lucky, his $12,000 CF super bike front wheel broke and collapsed causing the entire CF fork and frame to grenade into fragments, he was in a coma for 2 weeks. He was riding in a line with others, there was nothing on the road that caused that event, thankfully there was a doctor in the group and he saved his life. There is an ongoing lawsuit for that one, but for awhile they couldn't determine what caused the crash, and somehow they determined it was the front wheel.

There is an older bike mechanic who says he would never buy a CF bike, he's seen far more failures with all sorts of carbon parts than he had ever seen with aluminum, steel, or titanium, but with titanium those bikes will come with CF forks, and he's seen those fail. My TI bike came with a CF fork as well, but I swapped the original fork out for a fork they claimed was designed for tandem use, so it's a bit more beefier than a standard road bike CF fork which means it also weighs more than a standard CF fork, so far after 12 years there's been no issue with it.

The older first generation of CF bikes were built more stout, they also weighed about the same as a lightweight steel bike, between 19 to 21 pounds, but those older ones seem to have held up just fine, it's not until they started to cut grams by a lot that problems crept up.

Steven Sweat, a bicycle-accident attorney in Los Angeles, says he has worked on numerous carbon-fiber cases, more and more in recent years as the components age. “There are problems with manufacturing, but we’re also just testing the limits of how long carbon can last,” he said.

If you overtighten something on a CF bike or part, it can crush that part and in time cause a major malfunction.

Roman F. Beck, a bicycle-accident forensic expert in San Diego, worries that the growing inventory of older secondhand bikes will become a ticking time bomb, especially now that the material has become pervasive in bike manufacturing. He cites even top-of-the-line mountain bike makers known for premium quality. “As good as [many] frames are, what happens when someone rides five or ten or 20 years from now?” Beck says. “Mountain bikes take a lot of punishment, but nobody knows how long these frames will last in that environment.”

The dangers of CF bikes has become so acute, that there’s already a cottage industry of people who specialize in lawsuits resulting from bike accidents due to carbon fiber failing, including a growing cadre of attorneys and forensic experts who specialize in carbon fiber. That's how serious this has become, this is unheard of in regards to any other type of material.

 

[mickle]

I recently installed a second hand Planet X carbon fibre fork to my road bike. The brake back nut and crown race were so corroded I needed a drill to remove the nut and a bike shop to grind off the race. True story. Lol.

 

[Jameshow]

It was a new bike is a bit ambiguous, what does new mean, he just bought the bike from Planet X and rode immediately after the purchase on his very first ride on the day of purchase, or new like it was a couple of weeks old? If he had it for a couple of weeks who's to say how rough he treated the bike prior to the ride that resulted in the crash.

While experts in carbon fiber agree that any material can fail; wrecks happen from faulty aluminum, steel, and even rock-hard titanium. The difference with carbon fiber is that it can be difficult to detect signs of damage that might signal imminent failure. Cracks and dents in other materials are typically easy to see, but fissures in carbon fiber often hide beneath the paint. What’s worse is that when carbon fiber fails, it fails spectacularly. While other materials might simply buckle or bend, carbon fiber can shatter into pieces, sending riders flying into the road or trail. And this kind of catastrophic destruction can happen to any part of a bike made with the material. Frame or Fork failures from other materials rarely cause accidents due to the forewarning that something is about to go bad.

I saw a guy coming toward me once on a trail and suddenly he just veered into a bunch of bushes, so I stopped to help him, thankfully he was only scratched up from the bushes, but his CF handlebar broke right in two which caused the bike to veer out of control. But another person I know wasn't as lucky, his $12,000 CF super bike front wheel broke and collapsed causing the entire CF fork and frame to grenade into fragments, he was in a coma for 2 weeks. He was riding in a line with others, there was nothing on the road that caused that event, thankfully there was a doctor in the group and he saved his life. There is an ongoing lawsuit for that one, but for awhile they couldn't determine what caused the crash, and somehow they determined it was the front wheel.

There is an older bike mechanic who says he would never buy a CF bike, he's seen far more failures with all sorts of carbon parts than he had ever seen with aluminum, steel, or titanium, but with titanium those bikes will come with CF forks, and he's seen those fail. My TI bike came with a CF fork as well, but I swapped the original fork out for a fork they claimed was designed for tandem use, so it's a bit more beefier than a standard road bike CF fork which means it also weighs more than a standard CF fork, so far after 12 years there's been no issue with it.

The older first generation of CF bikes were built more stout, they also weighed about the same as a lightweight steel bike, between 19 to 21 pounds, but those older ones seem to have held up just fine, it's not until they started to cut grams by a lot that problems crept up.

Steven Sweat, a bicycle-accident attorney in Los Angeles, says he has worked on numerous carbon-fiber cases, more and more in recent years as the components age. “There are problems with manufacturing, but we’re also just testing the limits of how long carbon can last,” he said.

If you overtighten something on a CF bike or part, it can crush that part and in time cause a major malfunction.

Roman F. Beck, a bicycle-accident forensic expert in San Diego, worries that the growing inventory of older secondhand bikes will become a ticking time bomb, especially now that the material has become pervasive in bike manufacturing. He cites even top-of-the-line mountain bike makers known for premium quality. “As good as [many] frames are, what happens when someone rides five or ten or 20 years from now?” Beck says. “Mountain bikes take a lot of punishment, but nobody knows how long these frames will last in that environment.”

The dangers of CF bikes has become so acute, that there’s already a cottage industry of people who specialize in lawsuits resulting from bike accidents due to carbon fiber failing, including a growing cadre of attorneys and forensic experts who specialize in carbon fiber. That's how serious this has become, this is unheard of in regards to any other type of material.

I have a Cannondale six carbon it's built like a brick outhouse!!