During a strip down of my bianchi intenso, I found the start of a gouge in my steerer tube. I bought it 6 months ago and this is the first time I have checked the headset/steerer.
At what point does something like this make the fork dangerous, and now it has been identified can I do anything to minimize the risk?
by YourAverageRedditer
3 Comments
Is that a massive crack on the steerer due to an overtightened stem too?
Anyway, 6 mths is too soon. There must have been some installation error. Ask the shop to take responsibility unless you did some wrenching yourself and fucked it up.
It’s deep enough to be concerning. You will not be able to properly adjust the headset now – the split ring/race is just going to pop back into that groove right away, and keep grinding away at it. So it’s just going to get worse from here on out.
It’s probably not going to catastrophically fail on your next ride, but you should start looking into a replacement or repair ASAP.
Aluminum split ring? Maybe use nylon/glass fiber composite one like these coming with cheap threadless headsets. At least the plastic doesn’t produce as hard a particulate of its own when it frets as aluminum does. Maybe put thick graphite grease, or high content PTFE grease, or anti-seize compound under the original or replacement ring to try and slow down the wear.