I crashed, handlebar tilted or bent?

[Goody Boy]

7 hours ago, Oxxa said:

Why loosen the 4 bolts of the fork brace, when the cyllinder inside the fork can rotate freely, what is the point?

Because it works for me. Just banging the wheel against a wall or pole without loosening those bolts, does not.

[Hollybrook]

48 minutes ago, Windblown said:

 

It may not be a factor on the T700. I have twisted the exact same handlebar mount style many times on KTM dirt bikes though and the fork alignment still be fine. Adding a stout cross piece between them that does not rely on the clamp pressure onto a round bar to prevent torsional twist made all the difference.  I've also seen the bolts into the triples shift if rubber bushing mounted and everything else still be true ( I usually switch to metal bushings when this happens so it only happens to me once). And of course the forks getting tweaked in the triples is common. 

 

That's why I suggested the op just starting to disassembling until the issue was found, it can be a combination of things. Well, and the way I normally fix that sort of issue until I'm pulling a full maintenance gives some folks nightmares so I didn't go there...

 

Most definitely disassemble, find the problem and correct it.  That's how I found the movement occurring at the base of the riser, rather than at the top where the connector between the bar mounts was twisted.  In my case, the forks were not twisted, nor was the handlebar bent.  It  seems to me that it would be hard to twist the riser connector without the clamps slipping or the handlebar twisting, but I could not see any sign of that during disassembly and inspection.

 

After the crash, the bars were far from pointing the same direction as the front wheel and we were not in a good location to wrench on the bike, so we tweaked the forks slightly to make it safer to steer on the short ride home.  Not the best, but I needed to ride in a high traffic area and was more concerned with safety than wear at that point. 

 

I do think that the HDB hand guards, combined with their center mount would be a good way to minimize damage in a crash, because not only do they have the center plate that minimizes bar twist, but they tie that into the ends of the handlebars.  In essence, they triangulate the bar assembly and also help avoid twisting the riser.