Bikes suck :(

quote='dtmeister'alison_b said:

flyingdutch said:

snipping the sad story

*ouch* good luck. I often wonder what are the chances of getting
anything from the council when they fail to notify cyclists about road
hazards...

Still, was it really so out there that it wouldn't be in the realm of
'expected sh!t that a bicycle should cope with'? Especially a new
machine? and 85kilos isn't much, surely not in the realm of needing
anything out of the ordinary in a frame? It sounds like it was
dodgy...

Yeah, that was my thought. If you hit a pot hole or something, that
doesn't :

a) Buckle your wheels
b) Throw you off the bike

then it's unacceptable that the frame should crack! Hell, even if it
buckles your wheels, if you don't fall off, it can't have been bad
enough to crack the frame.

--
..dt
1996 Diamond Back 'Expert Tg' Roadie (7spd DT shifters, favourite bike!)
2004 Trek 2300 Roadie (9spd Ultegra)
2003 DiamondBack 'Criterium' Roadie (8spd Sora, rain bike)[/QUOTE]

Deepest condolences 😠 But finding the frame damage while washing it is way better than finding it on that long 80kmh downhill with a 500m drop to the side. :eek:

Go for the warranty claim first, on the basis that the pothole was not so much out of the ordinary that it should wreck a bike if it was 'of merchantable quality'.

Then, if that doesn't work, try the council with the opposite argument - the hole was so big and clearly dangerous that it would be unreasonable for the council not to fill it in ASAP.

The first argument is that it is not foreseeable that the hole would eat a bike. The second argument is that it is foreseeable. So you can't argue both at once (unless you are a lawyer in which case you can argue for opposite things at once any time you like).

The sister in law in Warrandyte threatened to sue a Melbourne council for 2 wrecked alloy wheels on a car that went into a pothole, and if I recall, got some compensation from them.

Oh, and if the LBS makes noises about exceeding the weight limit on the frame, you can argue that you bought it in person, you were relying on their special expertise, they could see the size of person who would be riding the bike and they are liable for putting you on a frame that is too light, even if the manufacturer disclaims liability due to some stated weight limit.

Now is your opportunity to 'upgrade' 😄

(I had a CF seatpost on the roadie 'let go' under me when I went over a small bump. Importer/wholesaler replaced it with an upgraded CF post no questions (other than whether I was OK))

Good luck

SteveA

Bleve said:

On the bright side, if it was steel, it may have turned into
a pretzel!

you kidding me?

i musta hit about 20 equivalent 'things' in 8 years on the 853 predecessor and it never blinked! I think you meant to say 'Alu' 🙄

flyingdutch said:

Joel Mayes said:

You weren't eh guy I passed on my Postman's bike where you? had a good
1.5 inch buckle in the rear wheel crawling home down the Park St. bike
path

Quite possibly... Park St? wherizzatt??

Fitzroy

Quoted message said:

Was a red Bianchi. Me in silver/light-grey jersey/red helmet looking
[censored] with the world 🙁

past me on a postman's bike. oh, the shame... 🙄 😄

Hey! with a seven speed hub and a cardboard-fiber veggie box to save
weight I can push it along at 20km's (with a good tailwind)

Cheers

Joel

flyingdutch said:

Last week (wed and Sat) i washed my 'new' bike. Wed due to wet/dirty BR
ride previous Sunday. Saturday due to... yep. wet/dirty ride on
Thursday.

Whilst washing it on Saturday i noticed a line, then realsied it was a
crack in the paint at top edge of downtube, just behind headtube.
Bugger!
Then i realise its more than that. glossy black in bright sunlight is
hard to see details so take into shade and soon realsie its quite deep
AND Long!!!!!!
Then i also spot similar on the underneath of top tube and top of top
tube.
WTF?????????????
The f@%#%$#&@&&*!*@*#**@*&@&#^#^@@*@@^#^%@!*!!@@@!n
frame is
f@%#%$#&@&&*!*@*#**@*&@&#^#^@@*@@^#^%@!*!!@@@!n broken
f@%#%$#&@&&*!*@*#**@*&@&#^#^@@*@@^#^%@!*!!@@@!n

I then remember the bloody huge whack i had taken on Thursday morning
going down Greythorn Rd IN_THE_BIKE_LANE 😠 😠 😠
was rolling down hill (estimate 30-40kph). Had spotted at lat moment a
hole where bitumen over row of bluestone pavers had crumbled away,
forming large/deep hole with bluestones approx 4 inches down and
nasty/sharp edge awaiting me on far edge.
I was concentrating more on staing upright as there was a car not far
back 'somewhere' that i could hear and also mindful of not
hurting/jolting shoulder also. Both my pedals came out at the time and
the bike took a fairly serious THUMP but as i stayed upright (just) and
kept it out of the gutter i clipped back in, mad esure everything was
still there and just soft-pedalled till i was not so shaken up (in both
senses of the word/s).

So, 3 months old and its f@%#%$#&@&&*!ed

LBS has said both frame is cracked and fork is bent back which kinda
amazes me as it felt fine altho I must be [censored] at noticing what's going
on cos they said the front hub was sitting back about 7-8cm further back
than it should be?!?!?!?!?!?!?

As you can imagine, Im gutted. Im REALLY hating CF at the moment too.
OK I'm a 'svelte' 85kg and it 'was' a lightish frame but still?????
Warranty claim is looking dubious according to shop but will wait and
see.
Otherwise its claiming against council/Vicroads for damages.
I am very seriously dubious that i will get another CF frame after this
little episode (yes, i know thats a wide net to cast, but bite me!).
853 for me (shuddup Nick and Susie!!! 🙄 )

geez that does suck. Surely you've just about used up your bad luck by now?

I reckon a warranty claim is absolutely justified. A bike that can't
handle potholes is pretty bloody useless.

When they replace it under warranty, you can sell it and get what you
_really_ need 🙂

Maybe you can persuade Suzy to make a Little Fish for you.

--
Nick

flyingdutch <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

MikeyOz said:

... is there anywhere that says you need to be under a certain weight
to ride the bike ???

oy, what you sayin, skinny bugger???

actually i been trying to find that out myself. Did actually ask when
LBS recommended the frame as an option to replace my crunched 853
frame.
they said it was fine. i think there may be a slight
'conflict-of-interest' going on here as the LBS owner's Brother runs
Bikesportz who are the Bianchi importer. Im not panicking yet as this
shop have always been outstanding (to me at least 😄)

I'm also looking into claimin against Council which i think is my
'better' route

moral? never assume a BikeLane is safe!!!

Schiess, that's fscked.

Before you worry about the distributer/insurance etc give Fair Trading
(or whatever it's called in Victoria). There's some stuff in both the
Fed and State laws about mechantible quality and it is the responsiblity
of the seller to offer a warranty. 3 months of being ridden the way
it's intended without any major changes -> that's their problem.

Remember your contract is with the shop not the importer or the
manufacturer

Forget the council, they aren't liable and will be able to prove it.

Cheers

BrettM

BrettM said:

Before you worry about the distributer/insurance etc give Fair Trading
(or whatever it's called in Victoria). There's some stuff in both the
Fed and State laws about mechantible quality and it is the responsiblity
of the seller to offer a warranty. 3 months of being ridden the way
it's intended without any major changes -> that's their problem.

On top of that I recall that the Australian Standards for bicycles requires
all manufacturers to warranty their frames against failure for 7 years. This
was the case back in the late 80s, I'd assume it still applies. And any
attempt to sidestep this on the basis that hitting a pothole is
'unreasonable treatment' should be shot down in flames. As previous posters
have said, you were riding a 3 month old bike, on normal roads, and hit a
surface irregularity that caused no other damage, but the frame has failed
and forks bent. Any half-decent $200 [censored]-kicker bike should be able to cope
with that, but somehow its unreasonable for a $$$$ carbon wonder?

Quoted message said:

Remember your contract is with the shop not the importer or the
manufacturer

You in BV? Make them pay their way and get some good legal bods on your case

Quoted message said:

Forget the council, they aren't liable and will be able to prove it.

Agreed with this. You might be able to get something done on a personal
injury case, IF you had warned the council of the danger beforehand. The
property damage is down to the inadequacies of the bike manufacturer's
quality control. Good luck with the claim, you should be able to get some
fair treatment.

Cheers
Peter

BrettM said:

Remember your contract is with the shop not the importer or the
manufacturer

problem is they are brothers, so basically one and the same! 😠

flyingdutch said:

Bleve said:

On the bright side, if it was steel, it may have turned into
a pretzel!

you kidding me?

If you hit it hard enough to cause that sort of damage (unless,
and this is a big unless 🙂 the bike was underengineered in the
first place, remember the thing about CF requiring clueful
engineering, it's not for beginners) then yeah, steel would
bend. "something has to give".

But, it sounds like the bike is way underengineered. Bianchi
maybe don't know how to make a decent CF frame?

Quoted message said:

i musta hit about 20 equivalent 'things' in 8 years on the 853
predecessor and it never blinked! I think you meant to say 'Alu'
🙄

I've belted my Al Alloy bike pretty bloody hard (and it
has a CF fork) a number of times, including wedging the
front wheel into a gap in a bridge and coming to a dead
stop accordingly. No problems.

And, at he bike shop today there was a CF fork on a brand
new Trek 1000 (they come with CF these days!) that had been
smacked by a car. A fork leg had fractured, not someting
anyone could miss though ...

I reckon that Bianky no good, maybe defective manufacturing.

In article <[email hidden]>,

flyingdutch said:

BrettM said:

Remember your contract is with the shop not the importer or the
manufacturer

problem is they are brothers, so basically one and the same! 😠

Not legally. Unless there's a conspiracy...

I can't believe they'd even _think_ about trying to dodge a warranty
claim on this. Remind them of just how much stink you can kick up.

--
Shane Stanley

flyingdutch said:

problem is they are brothers, so basically one and the same! 😠

So between them they should be able to come up with something that fixes the hurt.

The legal playing field (in terms of the Trade Practices Act):

• TPA s71(1) makes the seller liable where the goods are not of 'merchantable quality'
  
• TPA s71(2) makes the seller liable where the goods are not 'reasonably fit for purpose' where the purpose is made known either expressly or by implication
  
• TPA s 74B makes the importer or manufacturer liable where the goods are not 'reasonably fit for purpose' where the purpose is made known either expressly or by implication
  
• TPA s74D makes the importer or manufacturer liable where the goods are not of 'merchantable quality'
  

In Victoria, s32I and s32IA of the Victorian Fair Trading Act take care of the seller's liability, leaving the TPA to cover the importer/manufacturer liability.

so they are both liable.

And that's just the statutory side of things, there are also common law remedies.

But I hope your problem does not need all this legal stuff to reach resolution 🙄 . Sounds like you have a good relationship with the LBS so a reasonable outcome should be possible.:o

Steve(the above does not constitute legal advice, it may or may not be accurate, it really has nothing to do with me, etc)A

flyingdutch <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

BrettM said:

Remember your contract is with the shop not the importer or the
manufacturer

problem is they are brothers, so basically one and the same! 😠

Not to the law it isn't. Play your cards right (pain suffering, mental
issues with riding due to the failure) and you could have more bikes than
you know what to do with (ie the shop).

Seriously though there is clearly a manufacturing fault or possible a
storage fault. There is a standard for these things ( AS/NZS 1927:1998 :
Pedal bicycles - Safety requirements) which would be worth a look (I'll do
it tomorrow).

Contracturally people go very wrong when a store says I'll send it back to
a distributor or I need to talk to the distributor and they except it. The
store is responsible to you but the distributor is not. It is the store's
responsiblity to recover costs from the distributor.

In legal terms you can establish an action against the shop but not their
distributors unless you can prove they were grossly negligent and you
accordingly suffered damages. In that case you go both the shop (which
should have noted the fault) and the distributor (for distributing the
underdesigned pos).

Of course they may defend the action by saying
"What did you expect from Tupperware?"

Opps did I say that. Sorry that was in very poor taste.

I still can't see how the fork could have been set back 70mm without
fracture. CF just doesn't yield (snap yes, yield no). Even aluminium has
some issues with yield.

Either way this is seriously bad and the shop needs to pay. If you're sick
of 853 I understand the Llwellyn uses either Dedacci or Columbus. And if
the potholes are that big maybe you need this: -

http://www.surlybikes.com/pugsley.html

Cheers

BrettM

"flyingdutch" wrote :

Quoted message said:

The f@%#%$#&@&&*!*@*#**@*&@&#^#^@@*@@^#^%@!*!!@@@!n
frame is
f@%#%$#&@&&*!*@*#**@*&@&#^#^@@*@@^#^%@!*!!@@@!n broken
f@%#%$#&@&&*!*@*#**@*&@&#^#^@@*@@^#^%@!*!!@@@!n

Aw [censored] mate. Hope you can get it all sorted out. Like the other's have said
the wheels should have prezteled before the frame cracked like that. Either
it was a defect or Bianchi just make [censored] carbon bikes!

Adam

MikeyOz said:

Dude.... do you want even more bad news ?? That is only 2 episodes.... you know how they happen in threes ???

nah. that WAS the third one. the first was my stack in Cgrade at Glenvale

refer: RR:Glenvale 24.4.05. C-Grade hurts! thread...

flyingdutch said:

oh, and to add to my weekend of joy i rode the other bike (also a feggin
Biankee) and scared the bejeezus on the short-sharp DCreek hill by
snapping a spoke (drive-side of course! 😠 ). So much so everyone
but Blah rode off and left us to it. After extracting remains of spoke
that had managed to wrap around cassette/chain detaching rear brake and
offsetting wheel in dropouts so it was ride-able (albeit in a rather
Krusty-theClown type way 🙁 ) finally crawled home.

did i mention i hate bikes???

My deepest condolences to you and your family for your loss.
Here's the "Crusty the Clown Wheel" from Sunday's BR>

http://tinyurl.com/8hhc4

Really sorry to hear that, hope it works out well for you.
One q though, it is a full carbon fork, it is a full carbon frame, right?
HTF could the wheel move 7 cms? It can not move at all, the frame
would have had to be so broken that the fron wheel was hanging dangling,
not rideable at all. Sounds really weird to me, CF can not bend to a new
permanent position. Check it out. Or does the fork have a metal steerer?

Claes said:

Really sorry to hear that, hope it works out well for you.
One q though, it is a full carbon fork, it is a full carbon frame, right?
HTF could the wheel move 7 cms? It can not move at all, the frame
would have had to be so broken that the fron wheel was hanging dangling,
not rideable at all. Sounds really weird to me, CF can not bend to a new
permanent position. Check it out. Or does the fork have a metal steerer?

aah yes. update on that today from LBS

is a full CF frame and full CF fork. When testing/stripping down frame the shop put a 'new' bianchi fork in (off a 'Luna'😉 which they realised (later) was different offset/rake etc, thus the large disparity of measurements. The 'cuurent' fork is 'only' 1-2mm out, hence i didnt notice it till wash-time.
Make sme feel a little better. Was beginning to think i was 'totally' clueless not noticing such a huge wackiness in the position of things

flyingdutch said:

aah yes. update on that today from LBS

is a full CF frame and full CF fork. When testing/stripping down frame the shop put a 'new' bianchi fork in (off a 'Luna'😉 which they realised (later) was different offset/rake etc, thus the large disparity of measurements. The 'cuurent' fork is 'only' 1-2mm out, hence i didnt notice it till wash-time.
Make sme feel a little better. Was beginning to think i was 'totally' clueless not noticing such a huge wackiness in the position of things

Ok that is good then, but that shows that they are muppets, that could not happen with CF, unless the frame or forke was broken off and dangling so to speak, if it still hangs together, that can not happen. I can not see why Bianchi should not give you a new frame/fork, you did not come off the bike, you hit a fekking pothole, your rims did not break, in fact, the frame broke. That should indicate something wrong with it. Good luck.

flyingdutch said:

aah yes. update on that today from LBS

is a full CF frame and full CF fork.

snip.........

Rooly Rooly turned off CF now. Always had niggling doubts. Like, I could never comfortably ride a CF seat post. Would constantly be worried about it snapping and getting a nasty injury in a very delicate area.
Yeah I know, its only in my head but, Owwwwww :eek:

Looking for Reynolds 853 size 60 roadie x light tourer. Probably have to go custom built.

Bloody bad luck Dutch. Have got an Apollo hybrid in the shed u can borrow. Its just being used as a "jungle gym' by the cockroaches.

Cheers
Hugh

So, any news on your frame? Holding thumbs here, getting sore now, need quick resolution. 🙂

Claes said:

So, any news on your frame? Holding thumbs here, getting sore now, need quick resolution. 🙂

Heyzoos. what are you angsting about???
YOU have your fave road bike.
How do you reckon Im coping?

Im looking at doing Sunday's crit on the touring Bianchi! panniers perhaps??? 🙄