This morning I received a follow-up email from Kamil Maneki, the owner of Velokraft in Krakow, Poland regarding my fork failure. I think it speaks for itself. Here is the section he is talking about:
On bentrideronline.com I had commented on the fact that inner layers of the steerer tube fabric were only bonded to a very small portion of the inside of the crown which resulted in a high shear load on the steerer tube to crown junction. I did not know how that position of fabric was supposed to be attached. Now I understand that it should have been flared out to mate with the inside of the crown and not in a rolled up tube the way I found it. I have been consistently riding my VK2 since I got the replacement fork installed. After reading Kamil's explanation below I am satisfied that this was an anomaly and hopefully, the individual who had overlooked the obvious evidence of a hidden defect has found another line of work. Without further ado, here is Kamil's reply:
Citat:
Hi Jon,
I examined the fork. Your fork had a defect - the steerertube/crown reinforcements were not glued properly with the rest of the fork - in fact, they were almost not glued at all. The defect could have happened as a result of a burst bladder. It is a very characteristic failure, easy to recognise - each time the bladder burst (it has happened 3 or 4 times so far), the damaged fork is put aside and marked. This time it looks like someone took the fork and proceeded with its finishing. I have all the other forks with the same defect in one place and cut the steerertubes off so no such mistake occurs again. Also, I have changed the layup pattern and building technique for the Freeline2 fork, to eliminate the possibility of a week spot in the crown area.
Thanks for the reminder. I sent the explanation to Dana some time ago - he was going to forward it to you.
Best regards,
Kamil
Note: Dana is the US dealer for Velokraft and probably thought he was cc'd on an email I received from Kamil since that was the way all the previous correspondence was delivered.