Le Mechanic

No on Hanmbini. Definitely a hard no.

cyccommute 

Let’s look at the issue in the context of the measurement. Let’s just say that you can’t mechanically measure a ±1nm tolerance. Certainly there are ways of measuring a nanometer but they aren’t physical. It’s not like you can get out your nanometer calipers.

AnkleWork

What makes you think that the manufacturers don't do exactly that?

asgelle

You’re a little late to add this disclaimer.

woodcraft

I don't recall Hambini talking about nanometers.

Did he, or is this your own straw nan?

jadocs

Exactly, half of this thread is based on misinformation. The OP is wrong about the tolerance (.00001, etc) and some of you are just running with the misinformation. The BB Hambini talks about were so far off that it prevented cranks from spinning properly. He knows what he is talking about.

canklecat

I take a perverse pleasure in Hambini and Luescher Teknik videos. They show an alarming number of clearly visible flaws that don't require an unobtaniumeter to measure.

Watch a few Luescher Teknik videos on bad forks and you'll never look at your carbon fiber forks quite the same way again. Yes, I've taken mine off to give them the stink-eye with a magnifying glass and penny tap. I still can't be sure my carbon fiber bikes won't asplode. I can't figure out the trend toward putting carbon fiber forks on aluminum or steel bikes. Seems like it should be the other way around -- put steel forks on carbon fiber bikes. For that matter, my old Trek 5900 fork does have a steel steerer tube and despite the carbon fiber in the forks, the entire thing feels as heavy as a chromoly steel fork.

Regarding "close enough," assuming slightly off is still safe to ride, sure, it matters to racers. Invariably, what racers have, well heeled consumers want, and, eventually, other consumers expect at bargain prices.

mj0

Hambini is an aerospace engineer that makes videos on the poor engineering and bad science in the cycling industry. It's like if Gordon Ramsey reviewed all the food items on the Burger King menu.

ExMachina

At the beginning of the video he says that the frame was sent to him because the cranks weren't spinning at all.

Let me ask you all this: if you got a brand new bike and the cranks didn't go around, why would you contact Hambini and not the manufacturer? Did Canyon simply refuse to acknowledge the problem? Could this frame actually have been a factory reject that somehow got into the second hand market? Hambini never says anything about why the frame ended up with him before Canyon had a chance to respond.

More broadly, what does it even mean to judge a whole product line by what seems like a very edge case? Guarantee you that every bicycle manufacturer has let a few lemons out over the years--I would only become concerned when those lemons became acceptableto the company. Here, what would really be worrying to me would be if Canyon had said that the customer's bike here was just fine...and there's no evidence to think that

I like Hambini in general but these ranting videos of his are more about entertainment than anything else

TKJava

Thanks for the input and I'll try to ignore it for now :-) My Canyon Endurace is less than one year old and I was (hopefully still am) in love with it. It performs well very quiet and smooth and a great ride. Not enough miles to have a problem just yet. After doing my initial research on Canyon it seemed that most people who bought them are happy. Regarding "a little bit of research" well the little bit part is relative. I had not found this guy Habini and at the time of my purchase decision he had not reviewed them. If you visit a LBS and talk about their bikes, they never ever get into who manufactures the frame. I have been in stores looking at Giant, Cannondale, Trek, Specialized and Bianchi and you really cannot get the value proposition explained e.g. why is your bike better than theirs. I find it disappointing that the company who contracts a manufacturer isn't bothering to do a QA or at the very least a 1 out of x audit. I went on a ride that passes by a LBS/Coffee shop and they had a number of Specialized road bikes in boxes just outside the building waiting to be assembled. They were marked with the country of manufacture such as Taiwan, Vietnam even Cambodia. I asked the guy about it and he said Specialized has moved the mfr. around to avoid the new tariffs. I usually do a fair amount of research before buying but some of this is pretty buried and I would imagine the person who started at the LBS 2 months ago is not aware of all of this. Of course the LBS wants to have some margin left to pay the bills.

TKJava

I agree with your observations in terms of some information is left out and its entertaining. I cannot imagine how bike mfrs.could survive if they all put out bottom brackte holes in their frames that were visibly out of round. No bike shop ever told me that "all of our fill-in-the-brand-here" bikes are inspected for voids in the carbon fiber and meet strict tolerances. That said how old is your Canyon and how is it holding up?

asgelle

There is a history of Hambini's claims and data not standing up to a critical review. If you watch his videos for their entertainment value that's fine, but don't think you're getting reliable information,

WizardOfBoz

Wow, there's so many angles to this. First, I'd say that there's no set answer to "Hambini, Yes or No?". He's a young engineer, clearly bright enough, not mature enough to be introspective and charitable to those who've criticized him. Maybe he's trying to become this generation's Jobst Brandt (who was pretty prickly to judge by some of his emails). I'm a fairly well-trained and experienced engineer and I say that if Hambini touches on a subject you're interested in, and you enjoy his videos, get what you can out of them. I'd also say that on any important subject, it might behoove one to not rely on any one source.

Regarding "Quality", it's pretty important to make sure we realize that "Quality" relates to purpose. So if someone trashes a bike frame for being "low quality", what do they mean? If the framebuilder didn't smooth out certain spots on the frame finish, that's low quality if you are concerned with aesthetics. But if that frame is super strong and can handle bashing down a field of talus bearing a "Z"* sized rider, and that's what its marketed for, that same frame could be considered high quality. I think that Campy was able to charge so much for the old Nuovo Record stuff of the 70s was the aesthetics. That was part of their quality. Certainly Sun Tour came up with stuff as mechanically as good as the Campy (in the case of the canted parallelogram, better in terms of function).

Again, I'd watch Hambini, note his observations, and then check with other sources. I think that even if you disagree with him occasionally or think that he's an arrogant twit, there's useful information there, and useful ways of thinking about things.

*Z is Zeppelin sized. As opposed to "D" (dirigible) or "B" (blimp).

ExMachina

I'd go one further. It would be as if Gordon Ramsey judged Burger King by only the food that customer's threw in the bin. Hambini is not randomly sampling the output of manufacturer X, he's only analyzing those problem cases where the owner felt compelled to send it to him for help.

Wilfred Laurier

Hambini videos feature frames that have been sent to him because there was a problem discovered or suspected by the original purchaser. AFAIK, he doesn't buy randomly selected samples from bike shops to test. He is critical of the manufacturers represented in general, but it might be best to assume the criticism can at least be assumed to indicate QC departments that let a few 'bad ones' get through.

My experience from working for a company importing bike frames and parts from Asia is that there are two main issues at play - the manufacturing tolerances (which you can specify when ordering parts from manufacturers, but you pay more for tighter tolerances), and the ability of the final seller to catch and remove 'defective' items before they are sold. These two things are related in that you can order parts with looser manufacturing standards, but the percentage of defective parts will be higher. The reverse is also true - you can pay a premium for the Chinese factory to build your parts to tighter tolerances, and that puts the onus on them to catch most of the ones that don't meet the standard (and then they likely sell the 'defective' parts out the back door of the factory unbranded or as counterfeits).

cyccommute 

I'm just going by what TKJava posted. I don't follow nor even know who Hambini is. I'm trying to point out to TKJava that the tolerances he posted are ridiculously tight. If he is error, he needs to check his information. If Hambini did post that kind of tolerance, he is asking for the absurd.

smashndash

Hambini didn’t. The canyon he posted was off by tenths of a mm which is lightyears when it comes to pressfit. Here’s a screenshot:




I will openly admit to being a huge Hambini fan. I drink the kool-aid and use one of his Racing bottom brackets. I noticed a big difference. One of the better upgrades for the money.

I doubt he’s making a serious amount of money from his bottom bracket “business”, considering that many of them seem to be out of stock most of the time.

Yes, Hambini deals with the crappiest of each mfg. The best case scenario for a mfg is to never have a frame show up at his door. But the floor should not be this low. It’s fine for the occasional lemon to get manufactured - every process has a yield rate. It’s not OK for it to get past QC. Nope. Not even ONE. Checking these tolerances is easy, quick and probably automatable (if that’s a word). If a company is selling this to a consumer, they are OK selling this subpar crap. Even if 95% of people have 0 issues, how would you feel if you were one of those 5% who paid full price for a high end road bike and got crap?

ExMachina

If you accept that perfection in manufacturing is not possible, then why expect perfection in QC?

jadocs

I just recently started watching his videos. I have not seen them all, but everything I have seen is logical and makes sense, it's not something that is subject to interpretation. This is also not nitpicking nanometers or manufacturer tolerances, he points out legitimate design flaws on the frames and components that were sent to him for him to troubleshoot that directly caused a problem (through poor design). There was one, I think it was SRAM that had a lip/ledge on the crank so when it was fitted, the lip contacted and applied pressure to the bearings, instead of the bearing race. This significantly interfered with free rotation and accelerated bearing wear.

AnkleWork

But you didn't measure the "big difference."
This thread is just religious spam.

smashndash

For the reasons that I stated directly after. Obviously nothing is perfect, but the response when a consumer ends up with something like this should not be “oh boy. That sucks. Better luck next time!” or “You can’t possibly expect better”. It should be “this is wrong, and we will make it right”

Right, because my subjective enjoyment of the bike doesn’t matter at all. I enjoy and notice my BB more than I noticed my upgrade to aero wheels, which cost me far more. Does that necessarily mean it’s saving me more watts? No. I ride my bike to have fun and that is the only measurement that should really matter. This BB rewards me emotionally for smashing on the pedals like my praxis never did. You can call it “religious” as though any sort of subjectivity automatically renders things irrelevant if that makes you feel intelligent.

ExMachina

And what response from Canyon are we talking about here? Did you see one? Did Hambini mention one? As far as the video goes, it sounds like the customer went directly to Hambini and not to Canyon--why? Do you think Hambini is too shy to mention that Canyon didn't want to fix the frame?

I honestly want to know why a customer with a (supposedly) new bike where the cranks would not turn, did not simply ask for a replacement form Canyon.There's got to be more to this story than is coming through in the video

smashndash

I am also curious but keep in mind that Hambini doesn’t work for free. A rational person wouldn’t send him something unless the free (warranty) option didn’t work out. Why would you assume that Hambini is somehow sinisterly brainwashing people into sending in frames to him before contacting manufacturers? That is absurd.

The frame could also be used or out of warranty. In this case, it seems like the frame was old stock.

AnkleWork

But it matters enough for you to push someone else's talking points for them to make money off other's lack of knowledge.

smashndash

What??? What is your claim? Seems like you just hate Hambini and anyone who claims to like him. What have I said that you disagree with?