It's cool, it's light, it rides really well, you can make bikes that are really cool shapes, and it's strong... Until you hit it with a rock.
Yeah, that's my mountain bike. Yeah, the left seat-stay is broken in half. I've literally had it for about 6 weeks. Trek sent me the frame as a replacement for my 10 YEAR OLD FRAME! That's right, Trek warrantied a 10 year old CARBON mt. bike frame. Talk about standing behind your product! We had a customer bring his broken carbon road frame in to the shop this week. I won't say who the company was, or which frame, but let's just say, they weren't quite as generous.
This frame is 2 months old, and according to the customer, hasn't been crashed or had something fall on it. That said, this type of crack wouldn't happen just from the stress of riding the bike, so it's not clear if the damage is covered under warranty. Huge bummer for this dude, cause now he has to wait for the frame to be sent back to the company so they can assess it and decide how the frame was cracked.
In fairness, this is exactly how a warranty claim has to go. Keep it above board, and by the books, that way nobody can accidentally or purposely screw anyone. The thing that bugged me about the whole thing was the attitude that the reps took right off the bat. Everyone seemed to default to "It was the customer's fault." Nobody even pretended to take the "Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe our shit was messed up" line.
That's sort of wack.
Oh well, hopefully everything will work out for him in the end. As for my frame, crashes aren't covered under warranty (apparently slamming on rocks isn't considered normal use) so I'll be paying to replace the frame. Thankfully Trek are pretty good with crash replacement, so I won't have to take out any more loans to pay for it. Until the new one comes though, I think I'm just going to ride it with the "splint" that my buddy, Todd, and I made out of garbage we found while I waited for my train home.
Think it'll hold up?
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