i bought a kilo WT from bikesdirect at the beginning of the summer. after a month, the seat tube had cracked horizontally about an inch from the seatpost clamp. i wasn't sure what happened, so i sent it back to bikesdirect in august. after a month of waiting, i got a replacement frame. that frame was damaged by bikesdirect while removing the parts from it and again in shipping. after another week, i finally got a damage-free replacement frame at the beginning of october and bought an extra long 26.8 thomson post to replace the stock one.
long story short, the frame began cracking again in the exact same place, so i decided to measure the inside diamater of the seat tube. lo and behold, it actually requires a 27.2 seatpost, not the 26.8 that the frame is sold with. so now i have a useless 26.8 post that i bought, and i have a bunch of beer can shims stuck in the seattube so i can keep the thomson set until i can afford to buy a new one.
i emailed bikesdirect again about a month ago and never herad back from them.
has anyone else had a problem with their WT frame cracking and/or needing a bigger seatpost?
You people are kind of being assholes (given, expected). Here’s my understanding:
Generally when you buy a bike you expect it to match the specifications you’re provided, no matter the producer. Sometimes things do change, and then web sites are updated as well as dealers. BD doesn’t have a dealer and support base to watch their back, they HAVE to be consistent on things that may affect how a frame is built up.
The BF thread mentions the frame specs changed mid-run. If the new frame had different specs than the old, it is totally dumb they didn’t fill you in. What other expectation than, “oh, it’s the same frame, I’ll swap everything over” are you supposed to have? If you had put the older, factory spec seatpost in the new, different, frame, you would have had the same issue. It’s not like this is a 27.0 vs. 31.8mm seat post difference, it’s totally within the realm of error if you didn’t measure them, I think we’ve all had frames or seatposts that were tighter or looser. Can you eyeball .2mm on either side?
From the BF Thread, “He took zero responsibility. He in fact told me that he worked in several bike shops and that standard procedure would be to install seat posts, BB, or headset on a new frame without checking with calipers to see if they fit.”
…Are shops seriously expected to completely disregard provided measurements and specs? I wonder what the total time difference between re-measuring everything and not would be…quite a lot I would expect, and I doubt many shops would do so unless they feel like they have to. I’m no expert though.
Not sure what exactly the best way to deal with this would have been, but without a shop network BD is pretty much on their own with stuff like this, and if they’re providing the wrong measurements that cause a problem, they should own up to it and correct it.
I don’t think i’ve ever been in a shop where mechanics check all measurements with calipers when given a bike to build.
maybe it’s standard procedure there to check everything with calipers because qc is all over the place.
my experience with mike is limited (I was supposed to help photoshop the background out of pictures for bikes on the site, but when i got the photos i was dumped with midterms and finals and forgot. when i remembered it was so late i figured it would be insulting to send him the pictures). He seemed alright, but I wasn’t confronting him with any problems.
it seems to be standard procedure with their bikes to have to bend fork droputs back into place, just find that kind of funny.
I consider myself a pretty competent home mechanic (I have been volunteering for over a year on a weekly basis at the local bike coop as well) and I would never ever caliper something when I had the published specifications in front of me. And if I didn’t have the published specifications in front of me, I would check if the stock parts were stamped with the measurements I would assume to be correct.
Yeah, I probably came off super harsh, but I was just pissed at bikesdirectmike and his continued asshattery. I work in a shop, and builds would take upwards of three or four hours if we measured every single part before putting it on. Generally, we consider it the responsibility of the manufacturer to ship a bike with a compatible seatpost and seat tube, stem and bar, fork and headtube,wheels and frame, etc. What kind of a company is incompetent enough to ship the wrong seatpost?
No, I agree with you. I was referencing posters like Face and the people who are saying that since it’s BD he shouldn’t be surprised it’s not working. Regardless of the manufacturer, you’re allowed to be pissed if shit is breaking. I’ve never put a 26.8 seatpost in a 27.0 tube, but it seems like the difference might work without too much weirdness to notice…?
i dunno, i put a big 26.8 post into a smalllllllll 27.2 tube and it still rattled around.
doesn’t mean bd didn’t fuck up royally and handle it poorly, but i mean come on. if you have space for several beer can shims, you should realize that the seatpost isn’t seated properly. any time it just slides in with the force of gravity is a red flag.
No, I agree with you. I was referencing posters like Face and the people who are saying that since it’s BD he shouldn’t be surprised it’s not working. Regardless of the manufacturer, you’re allowed to be pissed if shit is breaking. I’ve never put a 26.8 seatpost in a 27.0 tube, but it seems like the difference might work without too much weirdness to notice…?[/quote]
im actually saying its his fault that the frame cracked. ive seen bikes come with the wrong or broken parts come from all spectrums of manufacturers and distributors. you need to check your parts before assembling them no matter what the source. if he noticed that his seat post was almost half mm undersized this thread and problem would have never existed and he could be happily riding his whatever the fuck he got from bd.