Howdy gang,

Last spring a semi blind coworker backed into my old girl in the parking lot at work. She didn't notice she'd hit my bike, thought she nicked a nearby pole and took off. When I ended my shift I came out to see my bike still standing but pushed back ~3ft from where I had originally parked. It still amazes me that it didn't fall over, but there's ~3ft long gouge in the asphalt that the side stand grooved out while she was pushing it. My handle bar lock was still on but my front wheel was straight and my front fender was cracked in many places and chunks of it were on the ground. Side faring cracked at a few mounting locations. Side stand bent backwards a tad.

That night I cursed a lot and straightened my wheels/bars like I straightened my bmx bicycle when I was 12 years old; standing in front of the bike with knee's holding wheel and muscling the handlebars. I removed as much of the front fender as I could, so as to clear the front wheel, gave it a quick once over and rode home cursing. Once home I used a flashlight to look for any cracks in metal. None found. I removed all traces of front fender, loosened everything, tried to straighten again by my eye and re-torqued everything to spec. I rode it all last season like that, sans front fender. No fun in rain but I was still riding.

This spring I caved and bought a crappily painted used front fender and slapped it on as we need a yearly department of transport inspections here. What discerns me is though the used fender appears to be fine structurally (all bolt holes lined up perfectly), my front wheel is not centered in it. Visible at the front of the fender, my tire is quite close (but not rubbing) on the left whereas the right side has too much of a gap between fender and tire.

Bike rides smoothly and tracks straight. I can take my hands off the bars at 100kmph and it's as smooth as it's ever been. Not a rattle.

I'm guessing/hoping my "best eye" alignment last spring wasn't up to snuff and am wondering if there's a more accurate way to make sure everything is aligned properly. I should also mention that I bought my bike 8 years ago from a tow yard; bike had been low sided on both sides by PO's but bike has always been smooth and straight as far as I could tell. The front wheel was not off centered before last springs parking lot incident.

Any suggestions on how I can get my front end as close to factory straight as possible?

thx,
Mike

ps - coworker fessed up the next day and has an open offer to foot the bill for replacement part costs.