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Carbon road bike x-ray

A friend of mine was recently involved in an accident with a vehicle whilst riding her top-end carbon tri-bike. Both her & the bike took some heavy hits, and whilst she is recovering slowly, the bike may not be so good. Can anyone recommend a company that specialises in x-raying carbon road bikes (And rough ideas on pricing if known) as I think this would be a prudent safety measure to take before the bike is ridden again. Ta!  1

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crikey | 8 years ago
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Ride it up and down the street and jump a couple of kerbs, or bin it and buy a steel bike. which you'll then have to ride up and down the street and jump a couple of kerbs each time it gets crashed.

It's a bike, it doesn't need X-raying, it needs you to be sensible...

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synoptic | 8 years ago
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Try Googling some NDT (non destructive testing) firms. They can use a whole range of techniques - ultrasound might be a better technique for something like this.

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atgni | 8 years ago
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Leeroy_Silk | 8 years ago
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There's an article called 'Crack Dealing' in issue 31 of Cyclist Magazine. It references a company called 'www.carbon-bike-check.com'.
Having the frame tested is expensive and the company is unfortunately based in Germany. There are a couple of things mentioned that might be useful in knowing:
If there are no cracks in the paint then it's a good sign the carbon beneath isn't cracked either.
The other test is sound! Flick the frame with your finger and it should give the same tone wherever you flick. If the tone changes dramatically then it could be a sign of damage.

Hope that helps.

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Greg L replied to Leeroy_Silk | 8 years ago
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Cheers for the info!

The tri-bars and rests were smashed, so I would imagine the main area to check would be around the headset. Although there is nothing visually untoward externally, my fear would be internal hair-line cracks which would only be picked up by x-ray.

I'm sure I heard of a place in the UK on here a few months ago, but I shall pass on the info that you've given. Cheers again!

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