so I have a carbon steerer on a pair of road forks, when I've been riding recently and gone over bumps at speed there has, on occasion been a noticeable crackish type noise from the bike (aluminium frame). it's one of those noises that could be something about to shear, a bearing on it's way out or your cables hitting the frame - annoying.
so I was greasing the headset last night and though I'd check out the steerer and it looked fine - no scratches, no delamination, aside from where the stem had been overtightened a bit and marked the steerer - an inch long indent about 1/2mm deep. they are ITM forks with carbon blades, bonded alloy dropouts and what looks like an alloy insert at the crown with a carbon steerer tube bonded into it.
something to worry about or just carry on riding it?
I've raced XC with carbon steerer forks (SIDs) and destroyed the forks, but it wasn't the steerer that failed, just the suspension gubbins in the aluminium legs which died of exhaustion.
I wouldn't worry about a road bike carbon steerer.
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maybe that's what concerns me - where the steerer is bonded to the crown rather than the dint in the steerer.