Five weeks post crash...

Five weeks after ending my racing season I finally had the opportunity today to strip my broken Tarmac down and catalog the damage. I would like to start out by saying that the damage to my Sworks bike would be similar with any performance oriented composite frame. In my professional opinion a steel or aluminum bike would have also failed given a 17mph crash into an immovable object.



Of course when you look at the pictures that Allison posted on her blog you can see the obvious damage to the frame. The downtube broke in two places, above and below the bottle cage bosses. The head tube broke between the toptube and downtube. The result essentially left a large section of the frame free floating. A few fibers held this section in place for the photo.



We had hypothesized that the fork had to have failed somewhere as well. After trying to remove the front brake, it was obvious where that failure was located. The steerer tube had broken at the junction to the fork crown and pushed down in the way making it impossible to remove the nut that goes on the stud that holds the front brake on.





The bars were not without damage either, the cracks might be hard to see, but they extend over the top of the bar behind the obvious point of impact.



One surprising piece of damage was the stem cap. The adjustable stem must have loaded the stem cap heavily, breaking it in several places.



As I cataloged all the damage I was surprised at my lack of emotion. I think that it is mostly due to the lack of progress on my injuries. The latest update from the Ortho is to wait another two weeks with the leg immobilizer in place. I had hoped to be starting PT before the 7 week mark. Fortunately I can report a decrease in pain associated with my neck injuries. Baby steps.

Hope everyone else is out enjoying the great spring weather. I will hold down the fort here in Purgatory.

Happy Saturday.