Originally Posted by
queenmildew
The best I can explain it is that when the bars are centered/inline with the wheel, the bike feels unbalanced and has a tendency to lurch to the left
I have a bike that does that - I slid off on diesel at fairly low speed and landed hard on my hip. There was no obvious damage to the bike but a few weeks later one of the pedal spindles sheered off, suggesting that it had hit hard. I've never pulled the bike apart to figure out exactly what was bent - it seems unlikely it would be the fork because it didn't really hit anything, so I'm guessing a twist between head and seat tube.