My riding buddy has the identical fork, and the identical crack. We
think it happened about six weeks ago, when he caught a stump and came
to an abrupt halt. I heard a pop, but he didn't have any broken bones
and the bike seemed okay. We rode the next week, and then the week
after that we went to a six hour race. As he was lifting the bike off
the truck he noticed that the arch was completely snapped.
Amazingly, he opted to ride the bike anyway (he's pretty stupid that
way). He made it through all of his laps without incident, but retired
the fork afterward.
The two lower legs were moving independently (obviously). I would have
expected the leg with the disc caliper on it to rotate around and cause
the caliper to bind, but that didn't happen. I guess the skewer was
doing the job of keeping the dropouts facing each other.
Now he wants me to find him another Manitou on eBay. Talk about brand
loyalty.
Dave
www.davewilson.cc/Bike