Orbea Orca Headtube Repair

Often times frames come in for carbon fiber repair, and the customer has no idea how it could have broken. This Orbea Orca is just one of those cases. The customer did not even see it until it was in the shop for a winter overhaul. Our guess was a frontal impact situation, but they said it has never been crashed or ridden hard.

We gave the area an ultrasound spot check scan and determined that the frame was compromised. The yellow wax crayon marks show the extent of how far the cracking has propagated into the laminate. So, a nasty looking crack but a relatively small damage zone.

As always our next step is the damage removal process. We gently taper sand into the laminate of cracked frames for repair layup prep. This process eliminates possible stress concentrations at the edges of a new layup when performed correctly, and gives a near uniform stress distribution across the repair. We do this on every single repair for stronger, safer fixes. Because, #betterservicethroughscience.

This customer elected for a full paint match, so we had our painter bust out the airbrush to replicate the subtle blue over the pearl. Just another day for us here at Ruckus!

If you have a road bike that needs repair, use the form below to get started with the repair process today!