I ate it and was pretty lucky (some good scrapes, a little road rash, no head contact or anything bad). The bike looks fine other than the obvious gear shifter being rotated in. The shop is saying I must replace the entire cockpit because it's carbon. Any advice would be very appreciated. Bike is Ultimate CF SL 7 AXS.
by DostUpvoteth
23 Comments
Maybe take the tape off for a better look, but does not seem that serious to me
Shit that happened to me and I just pushed it back into place 😅
Roll up the rubber, loosen then big screw where your hands would be, put the grip back into place, tighten the screw again.
Did the shop even take the bar tape off to make that diagnosis? The lever is SUPPOSED to rotate in a crash, precisely to prevent damage to the carbon. Take the tape off and just look at the carbon yourself
2 mins fix. lift up the brifter hood cover, loose up the screw, reposition it and tighten it back to spec torque. to assess the cockpit carbon structure properly, u need to strip everything on the left side. maybe the shop guy was too lazy to do it, although he wasn’t 100% wrong about the risk of carbon breakup. just move on to a different shop
Peel back the grips on the shifter, is there a nut there? I once dislodged my shifter on a fall and was able to just loosen the bolt and put it back in place. Hope the same for you!
Did the shop also offer to sell you the new cockpit?
I’d remove the bar tape and take a look at the handlebars. If the carbon shows visible damage or deformation, then I’d replace the whole thing 100%. Carbon with a flaw is really no fun. The impact also looks pretty severe (since the STI is so misaligned). I also don’t get how everyone can be so laid-back about it. Carbon is a real sneaky traitor.
Aluminum bar I would straighten the brifter and be done with it. Carbon, I think I’d want to peel the tape and take a closer look.
Look at the actual damage. Remove the bar tape, check the handlebar for damage. If its gouged or you see any signs of splintering or cracking, you need to replace it.
Check your brake hose too, make sure it wasn’t pinched against the port in the bars when the lever rotated. If you see any damage to the hose you’ll need to replace it.
Pull up the rubber on the shifter body, check it for cracks. Occasionally shifters crack when you crash them, if that’s happened here you’ll have to replace that too.
Without seeing the bar tape off and the back of the bar where the lever clamp is, I am not sure what’s wrong with it. that said, that area is prone to failure on Canyon carbon bars. They had a recall a couple years ago due to it. Some pros had their bars fail there. So I would pull the tape, lower the lever down and see how much damage is done to the backside of the bar.
First off – the ingestion hazard sticker is crazy on a whole ass bike.
Second I had a very similar spill. I DID crack the housing on my shifter BUT the bars were fine. Bonus here is it looks like you’ve got the 18 cockpit which means at worst, all that broke is the drops and you can just replace those and not the whole thing
How could a shop give you any idea what to do with the bar tape still on? At my job I actually have to look at the injury before making a determination.
Change the bike
That was their opinion based on looking at the bike as it is in your pics? Without taking the tape off, and inspecting bars for damage?
Looking at your pics, it would seem obvious that it was the left shifter that took the brunt of the contact with the ground, which is why it has rotated. Your pics don’t even show any damage to bar tape. Chances are pretty good that the cockpit, and the adjustable bar ends/drops are fine. But you won’t know that until the tape is removed.
Have you got a carbon repair ship near you? Take the tape off and let an expert assess it.
Take the tape off, if the bars look good under especialy near the hoods and bar end and dont rotate when tightened to spec, just retape and send it. Took a tumble and did the same thing to my hoverbar Grail cockpit, no damage to the bars or tube, just retaped and have been gtg ever since.
The truth is, nobody knows if those bars are damaged or not. The problem is that if they are compromised and they do break, the consequences are dire. The shop can’t tell you everything is fine because, short of taking x-rays/ultrasound of the bars, they simply can’t be sure that they’re ok and would be blamed/sued if they do break and you’re hurt.
They could’ve taken the tape off to look closer, but even if there’s nothing obvious, they still don’t know for sure that there’s no hidden damage. There is just no way that a regular shop (or these people on reddit) can tell you that crashed carbon bars are safe to ride.
You can take the tape off and make your own educated guess, but the risk falls squarely on you if you do choose to ride them.
Literally bean back tighten and lean heavily on it. How does it feel? If it doesn’t move, then you are good.
The shop has a professional liability to keep you safe, and cockpit failure can be a really serious injury. Take the bar tape off and clean/inspect it to see if maybe there is a crack or something. If you were friends with that mech, outside the shop, 95% of the time would just say to keep riding it.
Did they actually look at it, or did they just say replace? I would, at the minimum, remove the bar tape and check from hidden damage, as well as do the tap test.
the manufacturer usually says if it crashes it needs to be replaced, dosenr matter if you see anything. at our shop we test it flexing in different directions and look for visible damage.
Unlikely. Hoods should only be tight enough so that if you have a crash, they rotate on the bar instead of break. Looks like thats what’s happened here. De-tape to check.