Hey everyone, I haven't been posting too much lately, mainly cause I haven't been riding too much. Football and school take up all of my time and even on weekends when I do have free time, I usually don't have enough of a chunk to take a good ride. Anyway I did take a ride last week, and had a pretty bad crash.
I was at a friend's house riding on these new jumps he has. The one I wrecked on was like a big step up, you jump over a trail and land on an uphill section of grass. So we were all hitting it and I hit a different line then they were, because it was starting to rut up and boy I should have known better. The section of jump that I hit wasn't as smooth as the other, it was a lot steeper and shorter, so it kicked you pretty hard. If it was a regular jump I might have been able to save it, but because it was a step up with an uphill landing, my front tire hit and my momentum carried the back over. OUCH, 200 lbs of machine smacked me pretty hard, but I only got a few scrapes.
But my bike wasn't as lucky. The first thing I noticed was my brake lever, bent really bad, but still in one piece (however today when I tried to bend it back, it snapped so I'll have to drop $10 for that). I didn't really notice anything else until I got it all cleaned up today. First off, when I took it out of the garage, it took a good amount of force to turn the bars from all the way to left to straight ahead. So I kept doing that (turning them to the left all the way and back) and I noticed it felt like a sticking point there when it was locked to the left, almost like magnet. The other side easily releases from the locked position to the right. It doesn't stick anywhere else in between, and doesn't move up in down but I wonder if it's a bent stem?
The other thing in question is my subframe. Perhaps it's because the fender is bent a little, and that's playing with my eyes, but things seems strange with the subframe. When I stripped it down to just the subframe, I noticed the bar on the right side of the bike with the silencer goes back at a steeper angle up then it does on the left side. I never really paid much attention before so I don't know if that's the way it is or not. But nothing else seems out of whack. And the metal shows no signs of stress or any visible bends. I'm sorta confused there, I sat a straight edge across the top bars and they both touched flushly, but I don't really have any way of telling if it's bent. I'm kinda worried because it sucks to have gotten all this damage on one of the last rides of the year.
I'm always paranoid about my things, so I easily see things that aren't there, and make it seem like everything is worse off than it really is. But I want to make sure everything is alright, mainly so I know what to save up my money for since winter is coming and it's time to fix things up. So if you could help me out I'd really appreciate it.