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I hope y’all can give me some advice. I bought a bike, had it shipped, looks great except one thing — the fork was slightly damaged in shipping. It’s carbon but the aluminum part that attaches to the quick release is narrower on the right side. See pictures comparisons of the 2 below.

The leading edge of the Drive-side fork dropout is squashed back, the axle won't fit through the gap.

Bianchi Via Nirone 7 sora.

Bent dropout: bent

The other dropout which is fine: fine

The seller insisted on it being steel. The bike shop said carbon but the bottom is aluminum. Any advice would be helpful - is this severely unsafe? With how and where it’s damaged - is the fork totaled?

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    The first photo is the bent. The second is not bent.
    – jDA025
    May 16, 2020 at 17:43
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    You can tell aluminum from steel by using a magnet. This way you'll determine who's right on the material of the fork slots.
    – Grigory Rechistov
    May 16, 2020 at 18:09
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    I've embedded your pictures into the question. Welcome to the website, by the way! It would help answering your question if you were more specific about what sort of advice you need.
    – Grigory Rechistov
    May 16, 2020 at 18:13
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    Ultimately this is between the shipping company and the seller and their insurers to figure out who pays for the damage. Keep pushing the seller, ask for escalation to someone above first level helpdesk, and stay polite. Just don't take No for an answer. "I bought a thing, it arrived stuffed, please fix it." Do keep an accurate record of who you communicated with, dates, times, their name, and what was said/promised.
    – Criggie ♦
    May 17, 2020 at 0:10
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    Also, please refrain from riding this, or attempting to fix it yourself.
    – Criggie ♦
    May 17, 2020 at 0:11

1 Answer 1

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Fork is toast, dropout cannot be trusted or reasonably repaired. Carbon forks with steel dropouts basically don't exist. Probably best for everyone is get comped for a fork plus install labor. Shouldn't be a difficult fork to get a suitable replacement for.

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    The bike wasn't correctly shipped. A fork needs protection with a specific spacer that would also protect it from side-ways impacts.
    – Carel
    May 17, 2020 at 7:16
  • Aye. Where would you recommend looking for a fork?
    – jDA025
    May 17, 2020 at 13:40
  • If it's at a shop, they'll have suppliers that sell replacement carbon forks with different geometry, brake, and steerer type options. I highly recommend going that route.
    – Nathan Knutson
    May 17, 2020 at 14:53
  • @Carel This can happen with a fork block installed. I've seen it. But it's likely that the box got smashed in the corner where the dropouts were during shipping.
    – Nathan Knutson
    May 17, 2020 at 22:32

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