[greglepore]

Something in the spokes is always bad, whether the fork breaks or not. The way that bike flipped, it appears the rider was ejected by the wheel locking, and the fork broke subsequent, either due to the bar impacting it (likely, given the shear) or the ground. Steel fork would have caused same crash. Rider was lucky, I've had a number of cases (never actually sued anyone, just folks that came in) with broken forks where there were major helicopter ride type facial injuries from riders hitting the ground. I try not to think about it too much.

I was chewing the fat with an ex rider from our group on the weekend who is ex because of a front wheel related crash of which he knows not the cause that broke his wrist, radius and shoulder. Permanent deficit in wrist. Another current rider, a strong boy, 40, who's never been down hard could be seen to wince and shy away each time we discussed our various hospital visits.