I went out for my normal ride today and unfortunately came a cropper, hitting ice on a rutted country road (I think that I slid down the side of an icy off camber piece of road; my first crash in years of cycling.
I landed heavily on my ride right and winded myself (I still have a lot of pain in my ribcage on the right side) but (as expected) I’m more worried about my bike and its carbon fork. I’m probably being paranoid but I guess that I’m a still a little nervous about carbon.
I think that I was aware of the bike going down and may of hit the brakes and, as above, hit the ground hard on my right side; my ribcage took the brunt of the impact and there’s a bit of minor scraping on my right knee. The front wheel didn’t hit anything and I didn’t go over the bars (in fact I think I actually ended up in the road in the riding position); the forks didn’t hit anything and show no damage (the only damage anywhere is a bit of scraping to my right barend).
So, no harm done really I think (apart from to me) and I probably just need to man up and ride again – but can I assume that the fork’s good to go or is there anything I need to do beyond a the visual check?
I’m also fairly shaken and kept imagining the bike going again (even on good road) as I limped home; will my confidence return with better conditions?
For reference the fork is an MRP Rocksolid (famously tough) which I was told by the manufacturers could be ridden as hard as a sus. fork, and the bike’s a steel hardtail, so everything’s fairly robust.