R1lee

Im ok with gouges and scratches and what not, but those two pictures don't look very nice. That's a compression of the carbon, so we know the first few layers are completely damaged. Without x-raying it you won't know the exact damage.

To the OP, it's great that you're dealing with the lbs. what has trek said? They usually have a local rep who would look at the frame. Is that part of the frame, high stress? Probably not but the bike is brand new and obviously it was the lbs fault for messing it up.

as for the sram chain catcher. Yes when buying the group or parts separately the sram chain keeper is part of the package, but because trek has its own chain keeper they do not need it probably don't have any at their assembly plant either. All treks come with the s3, no matter what group you buy. I will say that the sram chain keeper is just as efficient as doing the job as the s3, neither is better. If anything I like the s3 better of the fact on how it's braced to the frame, there's no movement no matter how much torque is applied. Chain keeprs like the sram, kedge still shouldn't allow the chain to drop but it's possible since they are held in place by 1 screw. Enough torque and it's possible for the chain to slightly move the sram chain keeper and drop it to the bottom bracket.

Honestly trek has reps all around the country. Get in contact with him/her and have them take a look. Let trek determine how this should be handled, then deal with your original lbs about it. Trek might replace the frame out of courtesy of offer a crash replacement frame at a major discount.

Campag4life

Great idea Lee to take the bike to another shop for their opinion. Excellent idea. Sounds like your current shop is cooperating which is great news.
Keep us posted and well done.
PS: it literally sucks...forgive the pun...that the carbon protective plate didn't cover the area where the chain assaulted it.

R1lee

lol nice to say when its not your brand new bike and not your life when you're on the thing. You must be a great armchair quarterback to.

It's always safer to be cautious over things like this, especially when riding on roads that have you next to a car.

fstshrk

Isn't that the chain stay where it attached to the bottom bracket. If it is anything like my Domane, that part is carrying a massive amount of load/power.

kookie

I don't think a chain catcher would have prevented chain suck. I had chain suck on my brand new S5 on the first day riding it and I had a k-Edge chain catcher installed.

From what I read, chain suck can happen with stiff links in a chain, flex chainring (I doubt in your case) or burrs on the teeth of the chain rings. Chain suck seems to be common in MTBs, I have seen chain suck guards for MTBs.

From that day on whenever I buy a new bike or new chain, I make sure the chain is lubed and the links are not stiff.

RNAV

Couldn't agree with you more . . . however, this bike has some meaning for me. While training for a charity ride 8 years ago, I was run over by a drunk driver, got a broken pelvis, and subsequently had to delay my entry into the AF by two years. To celebrate a complete recovery and my acceptance into the AF, my wife encouraged me to splurge with the settlement money and I bought my dream bike -- a 2008 Trek Madone 5.5 with full Sram Red. I LOVED that bike, and kept it absolutely pristine. Then when I moved to Pensacola last year, the movers totally trashed my dream bike. This Emonda was purchased to replace that bike. So to me, this bike represents all the hard work involved in recovering from my injury, and all the support my wife gave me. To see this bike get damaged due to improper setup and/or faulty equipment is very upsetting. Sorry for the long diatribe.

@R1lee:
Both dealers said that the bike is safe to ride on. In terms of what I'll accept, the frame and drive-side crank arm are the parts that have been damaged. At a minimum, replacement of the frame and crank arm are what I'll find acceptable.

It'd be a whole different story if I'd put 700 miles on this bike without a hitch, and then started having trouble due to improper maintenance on my part. But that's not what happened: I've had problems with the bike from the day I bought it, and the problems have been recurrent, unresolved, and ultimately damaging.

jkcrowell

I had the exact same problem with SRAM Red on my Trek, though my bike had (the new) 2012 Red 10 speed and is a Domane. In my case, it was because the braze on for the front derailleur didn't allow the derailleur to be close enough to the chain ring, as I have a 50/34 compact. It looks like yours is in spec, at least from the photo. However 2mm is maximum, I bet if yours was a bit lower, this could be less of an issue. There could be a little perspective distortion on the photo, and you could be hanging right at the 2mm maximum. 1-2mm is the range, and my bike when it was dropping the chain was set to >3mm and at the bottom of the adjustment range for the braze on. Also, it shifted like garbage in the front. Oh yea, had the mechanic at the shop look it over a few times, never found the issue. Eventually I did.

When I got a replacement frame (not because of dropped chains, but a seatpost issue), I noticed that again the derailleur height is just barely low enough to be in spec. Also, the replacement frame didn't have the Trek chain catcher, and I prefer the SRAM one in terms of adjustability and usefulness. With the SRAM chain catcher and my 2nd frame, I have never dropped the chain over about 2k miles thus far.

On the plus side, my warranty experience with Trek was excellent, though with the bike shop, less so. It sucks to have to be your own mechanic, but it almost seems like that's the only option.

woodcraft

I would certainly be upset if it was my brand new bike,

but IMO it is NOT 'safer to be cautious over things like this'. Riding on roads next to a car with confidence and focus= safer. Worrying that your life is in danger from asplosion- not so much.

R1lee

not telling the Op to be cautious riding in the road. I'm saying caution on the integrity of the frame. I would not hop on that bike until someone at trek confirms that frame is safe.

R1lee

I agree with you that a brand new frame should be given to you by the lbs. I know carbon is real tough and can sustain some serious damage before failure. I rode 3-4 rides on my propel which had a massive crack in the seat tube after I drove it through a height limiter. If the stores are saying it's safe to ride until the new frame arrives that's fine, but like I said a trek employee is a phone call away. Good luck with it, totally sucks to be in your situation.

Campag4life

In bold. Not so. Bikes one day will be lightweight transformer smart robots which will be able to recite Shakespeare and power and balance themselves.
Cyclists will even be able to ride them backwards. Current bikes like the Emonda are a stepping stone to this technology.

RNAV

UPDATE 29 Nov:

My dealer followed up with me yesterday to see if the bike was functioning ok . . . which it was yesterday, but not today. The only update from Trek was that they wanted to know how many links were on the chain (106).

To recap, the dealer:

Well, at 8:58 this morning, 32.8 miles into my ride, this happened:



The bike had been shifting great yesterday and when I started out this morning. Then around mile 20 the front derailleur just decided to give up on life, and started to refuse the large chain ring. I just kept it in the small chainring (which was super-awesome) and periodically attempted to shift into the large chain ring when I was tired of spinning out.

And then this time, when I shifted to the large chain ring, it caught on the large chain ring then literally jumped off, bypassed the small chain ring, and went straight into the frame (totally caught me by surprise), and jammed the cranks solid. It was so violent I darn near lost control. I unclipped my right foot, slowed to a stop, and started taking some pics with my left foot still clipped in because I wanted Trek to be able to see what happened prior to me dislodging the chain. Well, I didn't really need to worry about that because the cranks were jammed SOLID. This time was a doozy, and it really did some serious damage. I spent 20 minutes trying to dislodge the chain, and was 5 seconds away from calling my wife to come pick me up when I finally got it free.

Anyways, here's the carnage:

This one is titled "I see your two chain catchers, but I just don't GAF."


















So my patience is running thin. Initially my stance was that I wanted what was damaged replaced: frame & crank arm. Now, I don't know that I'd have confidence in this drivetrain being transferred over to a new frame. I have a feeling that there's something more than just install/setup going on here. What do you all think?

lennyk

ouch,

I wonder if the yaw is still not properly adjusted, I recently installed a yaw fd on my bike, the instructions are pretty specific AND require positioning with the factory supplied position. Once it has been moved from the factory position it would be a bit tricky to reinstall unless you can get it back to the way they have it.

Carbonfiberboy 

When your FD wouldn't get the big ring, that might be something going on in your shifter. I'd check the cable insertion in the mechanism, look for possible cable slip - something wasn't tightened enough? More than once it's turned out that going by the torque wrench on a cable securing bolt caused the cable to slip, sometimes with catastrophic results. When you've shifted the FD all the way down in the inner ring, your FD should be against its inner stop with just a tiny bit of slack in the cable. When you slack off on the cable bolt and push the FD out with your fingers, it should hit the outer stop before it could possibly go far enough to run the chain off the far side of the big ring.

That said, I've been on many, many rides when someone's FD overshifted and put the chain off the far side of the big ring and I've never seen a chain suck as a result of that. Usually just pedaling slowly and hitting the shifter will put it off the crankarm and back on the ring. But that's the reason your chain keepers didn't work. They're designed to keep the chain from coming off the inside of the small ring, but your chain came off the inside of the big ring, bypassing your catchers, going all the way inside and probably getting hung up on the small ring because of the angle at which the chain crossed the small ring. Gotta say, I've never seen anything like that. I'd lay the fault on the shifter or rings or the combination. I suspect your current gruppo is just going to have that problem on that bike.

All that said, I just don't like the look of the teeth on your inner ring. I'd swap those rings for Shimano. Or maybe they wouldn't fit that spider?

bt

swap to a complete shimano groupo

bt

shouldn't the small ring sit a bit further outboard than the pictures suggest they are??

jtwilson

What a true and complete nightmare. At this point I would insist on nothing less than a complete, new replacement bike. I would [try] to be patient and understanding about any delay that might be involved in getting that replacement, but I would be steadfast on that demand. Stick to your guns, get what you wanted, and what you paid for.

TGT1

I upgraded from Rival to Red on the FD a couple of weeks ago and it was an all morning tinkering job to get it adjusted correctly.. The Yaw shifter comes with a very specific setup procedure. it's not intuitive and if someone just "did it the way I always did it" it's probably wrong.

Works slicker than owl $chitz once set up correctly though.

It also comes with a really nice integrated chain catcher. Why isn't that on there?

Chain keeprs like the sram, kedge still shouldn't allow the chain to drop but it's possible since they are held in place by 1 screw.

The SRAM keeper has two screws, a clamp screw and an adjusting set screw to dial in and lock the gap. It also locks down as a cone on a taper. The only way the chain could get past it if it was properly initially adjusted without breaking is if the whole FD got loose.

woodcraft

In one of the pics, the small chainring says "align crank here", & it doesn't look like the crank is there.

simplec7

Wow. Reminds me of threads in car forums where the dealer just ruins a perfectly good brand new vehicle due to a dumb issue like not doing a proper oil change on a dry sump system.

If I was you, it'd be new replacement bike or bust for the LBS.

cydewaze

Whoa there has GOT to be something wrong that the shop's missing. I don't know if it's a tight link or a bent tooth or what, but I'd consider that portion of the drivetrain (crankset, FD, and chain) suspect. And it's not like you can do anything about it. You realize the chain's sucked after it happens.

I really hope they just swap your bike out for a new one. Good luck!

lwrncc

This is a photo of your chain in the big/big combo? If so, chain is too long.

Campag4life

OP...your front derailleur maybe properly set up, but if your crank is NOT, then your crank could displace laterally during shifting causing your chain jump. It could be a chain issue...one of the links...or a chain ring issue as well.
If you can push on the side of your crank arm...or pull and you can feel your crank move axially, you may have found your issue.

A further note. I always set up my front derailleur to have a hint of chain rub on the small chainring (front) big cog in back. This prevents overshifting when shifting from the big ring down to the small and the overall driveline runs best for X-chaining in other combos.

RNAV

It is (top of the picture):


That's to align the non-drive side arm. Based on all the pics I can find on the internet, the inner chain ring is installed like all the rest, and the cranks are aligned like all the rest. The only thing I haven't been able to confirm is if the outer chain ring is installed correctly.

Well, they (and I) have examined all the chain ring teeth and none are bent, and this is a brand new chain with less about 200 miles on it (replaced because previous chain -- with 500 miles -- had a link seize). So, new chain, new shifter cable, new setup, new chain catcher . . . same problem.

I agree with you in that there's obviously something wrong on a systemic level, and thus far the shop in conjunction with both Trek and Sram have not been able to figure it out. At this point I am only going to be comfortable with a complete bike replacement.

@Campag4life
I haven't been able to detect any lateral play in the cranks. Something is up, though. When the derailleur started messing up, the yaw hashmarks -- which had previously been aligned with the large chain ring -- had noticeably moved inboard, and I couldn't get the derailleur cage to move any further outboard by shifting it.

Carbonfiberboy 

Should be easy to see if your outer ring is installed correctly. Doesn't your big ring have a pin on the inside? That should be aligned with the crank and is there to keep the chain from dropping between ring and crank in event of an overshift. FD not going over = bad tooth in brifter or slipped cable. It's fairly easy to break a tooth in some brifters by hammering the up and down levers hard at the same time.