Hey Brendon, and everyone else, Do you still have this bike? I am curious to know how it is riding these day. Did you ever run into any issues with the headset binding since the steer tube is still bent? Turns out I am in the same predicament, and I am trying to figure out what to do. My head tube is banana-ed just like yours, and the down tube is bowed by just about the same amount.
Here's the story: I bought a used mustard double top tube Appaloosa from a guy in Sacramento, 62cm. It has a lot of top of the line parts, some some chips, and the price was right. The guy assured me that the frame was good to go. Apparently he was even a bike mechanic for a while. He was a really nice guy. I didn't notice anything weird when I did a few laps on it in the parking lot, but I think I was just giddy about getting the bike. I took it on a real ride the next day, and realized the ride characteristics were odd - the bike seemed to lean to and favor the left side. It would hardly lean into right turns at all, and I really had to leverage the bars to get it to go that way. It seemed to wonder a bit below me as I rode and would not track properly. On sharp right hand turns in loose dirt or sand, the wheel would turn right, but the bike would try to keep going straight creating a very sketchy sensation. I am not convinced the guy withheld info about the damage, but I have a hard time believing he was ignorant to it. I always try to assume positive intent - I am still trying to do that - but man... Soon after, I notice the the rear hub is 130mm, and the frame is spaced to 135mm. It also appeared that the front wheel was a few mm off center in the fork. Wishfully, I convinced myself that the wheels needed to be spaced properly and dished. Rich Lesnik of Hands on Wheels is in the neighborhood, and he had the White Industries spacer that I needed for the rear wheel. I brought them to him and he spaced and dished the rear wheel for me for $50 bucks. Thanks Rich! He took a look at the front wheel and said it was straight. That ruled that out. After a few rides of thinking that I might be crazy, I decided to take the fork off the bike and give it a good once over. I put it on the kitchen table and sure enough, it was outta wack. It is pretty obvious now that the bike had been in a front end collision at one point. The headset bearing race on the fork is gouged, too, in a way that I can only imagine would happen in an impact. Today I stripped all of the parts off of the frame. I held a straight edge up to the head tube and down tube, and sure enough, they are both bowed. The damage to my frame looks identical to the damage on Brendons, which is bizarre. It seems like it is pretty rare to bend a head tube. What is even weirder is I don't think the steer tube on my fork is bent at all. All of the bend is at the blades, both laterally and fore and aft. I am like 94% sure of that. The headset doesn't seem to be binding at all, which I understand can happen when things there get misaligned. Anyways, I am pretty bummed. This is the most $$ I have ever spent on a bike, and most of the research I have done says that a bent head tube means game over. Your story makes me hopeful that It can be salvaged. I am obviously pretty eager for a solution. Or at least a hug. Eric Billings in Oakland is going to take a look at it tomorrow, but he isn't sure yet if the bent head tube is repairable. I have reached out to Bernie Mikkelsen and Ed Litton as well, but have not hear back yet. Any advice out there? and Miraculous solutions? Olly olly oxen free! TLDR: Frame real broke in same way as above. Need help. Thanks, Joe in SF On Thursday, September 10, 2020 at 4:53:33 AM UTC-7 Ashwath Akirekadu wrote: > Steel is real!!! > > Come to think of it, the head tube is the only part of the bike frame that > has inherent fail-safe feature - ie the steerer rube. Is a very, very, > very, very, very, very unlikely scenario the head tube breaks or something, > the steerer tube will hold things together. The bike may feel wobbly but > it won't crash. > > Congrats on your new bike! > > On Thursday, 10 September 2020 at 01:34:00 UTC-7 brendonoid wrote: > >> So I put the bike back together. >> I spent a long time considering options about straightening the frame and >> the headtube. I learned a lot about straightening steel and measuring >> alignments and all sorts of stuff. Quite a fun journey. In the end the risk >> of causing further damage to fix something that might not really need >> fixing became a bit of a debilitating pros versus cons stand off. So I did >> nothing. >> >> Then Rivendell went and listed those No Frame Prep specials and yeah >> there was a single top tube 57cm orange Appaloosa so whoops the perfect >> bike and I bought it. >> >> ANYWAY, I slapped some quality black enamel on the replacement fork and >> bing bang boom The Silver Stallion is back on the road. >> >> You can see the headset variance is still there at the top but crucially >> the fork crown race is perfectly perpendicular so my suspicion is that this >> will work fine for many years. I will check the bearing wear after 500kms >> or so to see how things are going but I suspect it will be fine. The bike >> still rides great and straight. Thanks again for everyones help and calming >> words in my hour of distress. >> >> [image: appabacktogether.jpg][image: appaheadsetangle.jpg][image: >> appaforkcrown.jpg] >> >> PS. Someone asked in a post I previously missed about the Volvo's period >> correct bicycle carrier for that is indeed what those tubes are on the >> trailer hitch are, well spotted! >> >> -- 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/bcba1051-9303-41c2-9a81-f6462cbe0de6n%40googlegroups.com.
