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news
kinesis forkAround 1,750 potentially lethal Kinesis forks unaccounted for, inquest told
The failure of a Kinesis fork caused the crash that led to the death of an Essex cyclist in August last year, an inquest has heard — and around 1,750 potentially faulty forks are still unaccounted for despite a product recall.
Jonathan Weatherley died after braking suddenly on his Kinesis Racelight TK2 on August 23 last year, while possibly trying to avoid debris or animals in the road.
On October 9 2015, a product recall for four models of Racelight T carbon fork was issued, after a bonding issue between the fork crown and fork steerer was discovered on forks sold between 2003 and 2009. However, just 246 of the forks have since been returned.
Upgrade Bikes issues Racelight T carbon fork recall
At an inquest into the man’s death, Senior Coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray is reported by the Halstead Gazette as saying: “Jonathan was clearly a much loved son and brother, he was an architect and a keen cyclist.
“Jonathan Weatherley probably applied braking through his front brakes for some unknown reason, causing the bonding between the carbon fibre blades and aluminium crown to fail, as a result of the fact that the bonding material had not adequately bonded these components together.
“Jonathan died as a result of his injuries sustained in this accident.”
Alistair Mackenzie, of Leigh Day solicitors, asked the coroner to make a report to trading standards to prevent further deaths.
He said: “Around 90 per cent of the products have not been taken from circulation and only 246 of about 2,000 have been returned.”
PC Katherine Burke, of the Serious Collision Investigation Unit with Essex Police, told the Gazette the man was found in the carriageway entangled in the bike. A passer by had found him and called paramedics at 3.40pm, and PC Burke arrived 75 minutes later. According to his Garmin he had stopped cycling some 90 minutes before he was found.
PC Burke said: “The bicycle’s front wheel was detached and located close by up against a bank.”
Steven North, representing Upgrade Bikes Ltd, told the Gazette all efforts were made to circulate the recall notice once the fault had been discovered.
He said: “It was sent to shops, put on the company website and circulated on social media. Action has been taken and will continue to be taken.
“There is one report of a problem with the bonding material on the crown. The company will update the recall notice and Trading Standards.”
The case illustrates the difficulty of reaching everyone who has bought a particular component, rather than a bike. Dealers usually have records of bike purchases, but for components the paper trail is understandably less thorough.
Since the forks in question go back all the way to 2003, it's also possible that many of the 1,750 missing forks have long since been binned.
Nevertheless if you're using a fork with any of the stickers above, you should immediately stop using it and contact Upgrade Bikes.
Upgrade Bikes told road.cc: “Upgrade Bikes Limited continue to cooperate with Trading Standards. Whilst this process is ongoing it would be inappropriate to provide any further comment.”
Additional reporting by John Stevenson
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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23 comments
Check your own carbon bikes before a ride or after a wash.
R.I.P. poor fella.
I necer heard of the recall personally but it has put me off from buying a Kinesis item.
I've got a Kinesis T2 with the new carbon fork, which hopefully won't be afflicted by a similar problem but this issue with the older models doesn't fill me with confidence.
Steve, can I suggest that you contact Alastair Mackenzie at Leigh Day (mentioned above) and make them aware of your accident. If this was a known problem and their attitude was as you state, there could be much to answer for
Reading this story sends shivers down my spine. In 2010 my Kinesis Cross Light fork failed due to the same failure mode and is of the same construction as the product that is recalled. The recall does not encompass this fork.
I sustained a broken jaw, lost five of my teeth and a few scars - not pleasant but reading this story make me reflect how different the end result could have been.
My initial contact with Kinesis resulted in a reply of 'I hope you get better' and the offer of a new fork, with no regard for the impact that the failure had upon my life or the consequences of further failures. I pursued them legally and it was recognised that there was a defect in my fork and also in a second Brand New fork that was used by a metology company in analysis of the failure mode. Upgrade Bikes were aware of the flaws in this fork construction many years ago.
This is the 1st time I have spoke pubilically about the details of my accident. The detail of the fact that someone has lost their life over a known issue a company has sat on angers me. I must stress, if you have the fork that is recalled or a Cross Light Pro, do not ride it as the consequences are not worth the risk.
I would echo what arfa has suggested - please consider contacting Leigh Day. Whilst it's true that problems with component breakage can occur, and that sometimes little can be done to predict them, it does seem that there are particular issues in this case.
I contacted Leigh Day earlier.
in the case of my fork and the second brand new Exemplar fork tested by an independent forensic metology company - both were found to have manufacturing defects with regard to the crown construction and pockets where the bonding solution had not circulated around the whole joint during manufacture.
This lack of bonding lead to a 'stress raiser' that propagated fatigue though normal use over a couple of years. The root cause of the failure in my case was poor manufacturing process and quality control.
All Kinesis forks of this vintage are manufactured using the same process and construction. They may have different labels, but essentially the same item with different brake mounts. My concern is there is no recall on the Crosslight fork, which is equally as likely to fail (and indeed one example has) and a brand new fork identified with the failure mode. It is like saying a Base model Ford Focus is being recalled because of a chassis issue that could cause death, but the top of the range Ford Focus is not under recall, when both have the same construction issue, pose the same risk and are made on the same production line.
I have issue that Upgrade Bikes did not do the due dillagence and recall all forks of this construction many years ago. Perhaps not all would have been captured then, but at least it would have been the responsible corporate approach to minimising risk to the general public.
image.jpeg
Like metal never fails...
This is really sad news.
Steel forks fail, but in a way that is normally obvious from a cursory external inspection. It also tends to bend - a lot -before breaking rather than fail completely and without warning. Both forks will pass standard tests with flying colours.
Some more here from Grant Petersen if you're interested in a different perspective.
Anyone who trusts their lives to a pair of glued together plastic forks is mad in my opinion. I know plastic forks are fashionable and all that baloney, but sometimes common sense is more important than saving a few grams.
This utterly cretinous comment, along with similar nonsense such as 'proper' engineers would never sign off on a component made with composite/metal bonded components in critical locations, flies in the face of the billions of hours of safe operating of such components. Screw-ups do happen, and in a bonded material it's generally unsuprising it occurs at the bond and may have severe consequences - I strongly doubt it is significant statistically and manufacturing skill and knowledge in composite structures in general, including interfacing to other materials, has increased massively in the last few decades driven to no small extent by the aeronautical industry.
Also, to me anyway, the use of the word 'plastic' as some sort of denigrating name for composites says as much about your childish nature as it does about your knowledge of material science.
I have one in the attic of a house I don't live in at the moment. So make that 1749 unaccounted for.
Kinesis have done a decent job of letting people know, I think.
I read of the recall in 3+ different places last year - had mine replaced no bother at that time.
To be fair, I don't have any road equipment still in active service from 2009 or before, and I should imagine I am fairly indicative of how people use and replace equipment.
So rather than there veins 1700 rogue forks out there, I'd imagine most are in a land fill somewhere.
Did you bin all your pre-2009 kit then? Or sell it on, so it'll still be in use?
The majority of bikes I see being ridden around London look very pre-2009.
And all 10 of my bikes are pre-2009 too. I guess a 10 year lay off does that. Last week I rode a TT on a 22 year old lo pro and a RR on a 12 year old Scott CR1. And both on 20 year old Clements!
And there's me being suckered in by big brands saying that they carry out exhaustive QC on their expensive gear, unlike those awful Chinese copies.....
I'm not surpised only 10% of forks have been recovered. The original story makes no mention of the consequence that debonding may result in, despite being known about at that time.
If the voluntary contact from duff fork owners hasn't worked, what are Kinesis doing to track down the remaining killer forks?
Extensive QC or indeed extensive testing wouldn't pick up these issues as they tend to be time related - i.e. no manufacturer tests their stuff for the length of time that some people will actually own it (not number of miles so much ... actual time - everything deteriates over time - metal corrodes, carbon resin looses it's bond).
On the other hand, in the case of the Giant forks, it was fine when within the warrenty period, so I guess Giant were right to just shrug. I guess a company will only warranty something for the time that they believe it will be OK to use. Outside of this and on your head be it (potentially literally in this case).
I'm afraid, contrary to your opinion extensive testing has been done on CF and bonding it to a metal. TL;DR you need your head testing if you ride such a critical component as a fork with any such arrangement.
The manufacturers have relied on the fact that when your glorified piece of plastic decides to fall to bits, they happily pass it off as "crash damage" or the rider "not maintaining" said POS.
Mark my words: it's just a matter of time before somebody films some component or frame falling to bits in use and then the manufacturer is toast.
You are severely delusional if you think any proper (chartered) engineer would sign off a critical component designed in such a fashion.
I'm afraid I (nor the courts) buy the idea that if a component is out of warranty then it's fair game if it kills you. Have another think.
If what you say is true, then I could sue a company decades after manufacture for a given insury that resulted from a particular failure of their product. I'm sorry but that makes no sense. Everything has a lifespan - like it or not every deteriates through use and age.
As for tests on CF and bonding, I'm sure lots of research has been done, but it won't have been done on each and every specifc product. Given that we consumers of this stuff want the lightest products at the lowest prices, manufacturers and designers will clearly do their upmost to provide us with those products, as quickly as possible, which will mean that although they might follow certain technical specifications for joining bits together, they will be puching the limits to try and stay one step ahead of competition, and they won't be running long term tests (i.e. over several years). They will do the much more achievable repeat testing - e.g. loading a fork x number of times to simulate typlical usage over y number of miles. This will simulate fatigue through use, but clearly won't take into account fatigue due to age.
Also, if a manufacturer clearly states that maintenance should be done, and it isn't, then you shouldn't be surprised when the manufacturer shrugs shoulders and says tough.
Do you ride a motorbike? If you do you'll know that as part of the initial training it's made very clear that you should check the motorbike before and after every ride so as to pick up on any potential issues before they become a safety problem. We should all do the same with our push bikes. Yes a set of forks or frame or wheel shouldn't fail, but I'm going to assume that they might and so I'll always keep checking them.
That's not taking responsibility away from the manufactures, or suggesting any blame should be placed on victims of any failures, it's simply being realistic and sensible.
The failure of the forks was quoted as being inadequate bonding, not degradation of the bonding agent leading to failure.
If the later was the issue on forks of this age then industy advice would be to offer caution using old composite components, but not to carry out a recall notice.
Yes, that's absolutely right, and one of the police officers who attended the accident made a comment (from a highly inexpert point of view) that there was no evidence of adhesive; the join just looked clean. I'm not at all sure whether it's possible for adhesive to degrade to this extent, and the inadequate bonding comment does make it sound as though it was simply never there.
I think this could be a much bigger issue and much wider than just kenisis. A year or so back I had a customer bring in a giant and when we test rode the bike to check an unrelated issue we suddenly noticed a surprisingly large amount of rearward flex in the fork when applying the front brake. Turned out the carbon/alu bond was failing and the steerer and crown were slowly pulling apart. Giant didn't do anything as it was outside the five year warranty period.
A good way to increase awareness of this might be to get the online bike component shops to feature this recall at the top of the front page. Or any recall, for that matter.
As nice as the idea is, this will reduce sales, of all sorts, for the websites. It's unlikely that either party could afford it.