Hey Ben. I'm really sorry to hear about the accident! I went through this back in January after another cyclist rammed into me head-on. I was riding my Appaloosa. I crashed really hard. The initial impact with the other cyclist damaged my brake lever and bars. The subsequent crash into the ground and skidding along the road damaged my rear derailer and derailer hangar. It likewise damaged my shifter and other brake lever. My saddle was scuffed up as well. The front basket ended up taking the brunt of the impact, but the front rack (a big ol' Nitto) was a bit bent as well. The housing on my Edulux light was scraped up but still worked. In the end, I think the basket / rack took the brunt of the impact on the fall and likely protected the bike from worse damage.
I posted about it here asking a similar questions. I took everyone's advice and brought my bike into a local shop with mechanics I trust to get the whole thing inspected. I do all of my own wrenching, but I felt it was important for my future safety to get the whole thing thoroughly inspected. They looked at everything in great detail including frame alignment. No fork or frame misalignment, but I had dents and chips in the frame from the impact with the ground. The wheels were good. They wrote up an estimate for me for insurance and for the court (about $1300 with a new paint job at D&D Cycles). I ended up just eating the dents and paint chips without getting them fixed, but replaced the handlebars, brake levers, shift levers, rear derailer. I was able to bend the basket back into shape and get the rack re-aligned myself. I also did a minor correction to the rear derailer hanger. I put some pretty orange Testor's model paint on the chipped areas. These bikes are pretty tough. Steel, after all. But I'm really glad I had it inspected by a good mechanic and had them write up a total repair estimate. I've just recently been able to start riding again after healing from my injuries and I feel pretty confident with the safety of the bike. I cracked my helmet in the accident too. I've replaced it with a Giro Caden in matte gray. Good luck! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/69852f9f-a2dd-4903-9537-215edf9e05d3n%40googlegroups.com.