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?