waterrockets 

On top of that, I think this thread may be over. I posted a clapping joker gif to biscuitfleas or whatever his name is, and the post was pulled...

My work here is done.

Grumpy McTrumpy

it's still there

waterrockets 

last night, I think some of the posts on this page were on the last page or something. (I have 30/page set up)

I was also weirded out a bit that I couldn't find the thread on the forum and had to go to my profile to find it. Now it's on the front page.

Alright, who's manipulating time and space, and can you go back in time and slap the Trek technician in the head when he or she is laying up my frame?

MrCrassic 

That's how warranty works. Sucks, but that's life. What might help you is finding someone that works at Trek (and has influence over these things) to maybe nudge them a bit...

$ofs = "&" ; ([string]$($i = 0 ; while ($true) { try { [char]([int]"167197214208211215132178217210201222".substring($i,3) - 100) ; $i =
 $i+3 > catch { break >>)).replace('&','') ; $ofs=" " # Replace right angles with right curly braces

cslone

a. I drove almost 2 hours to buy a Chrysler Pacifica w/ 15K miles for my wife a few years ago. The warranty ran out by 7 months and I was over mileage by 3-4K when a fairly major problem developed. I took it to my local dealership who fixed it with little to no resistance because, "Hmmmm......It shouldn't have done that". So it has been done.

b. The first time I was in your shop as a new biker, it wasn't Trek I had to worry about. It was the two condescending employees which almost turned me off of riding bikes because I couldn't afford what they suggested initially and wanted some new parts to fix up my older 12 speed Miyata( to make sure I enjoyed riding first). This was right around the time you took over the shop IIRC, but the point is, since those guys didn't take care of me initially, I drove to Dayton or Cincy to do business.....and don't hesitate to tell people about my experience to this day. So similar to WR, whether it's one bike or a hundred bikes, Trek is going to lose some business because of this thread. It's not like he crashed it and was looking for a replacement; a 3 year old bike fell apart and Trek won't even extend to courtesy to look it over to see if they 'may' have done something wrong. It's not about original owner when there's a potential manufacturing defect IMO.

c. as for the Waterford paint, yes, I would expect them to repaint my used bike if they knew it was a problem. That is something that was noted wrong from the factory, not something caused by my negligence.

charliekeri

There is no money in making a product last forever - physically, technologically, or cosmetically. Just bite the bullet now. Either way you were going to upgrade eventually....

bismillah

We are all consumers. Not holding the companies who's merchandise we spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars with to a higher standard, giving them incentive to treat us better is just moronical.

I like this thread for that reason alone.

Love the companies that warranty everything, hate those that dont.

Racer Ex 

Trek's marketing strategy: The Madone is the best race bike in the world.

Of course if you race it and it fails you're treated to "well of course it failed...you RACED it" by all manner of people. This seems odd to me.

No business plans their line around resale BTW, but they all know the secondary market is important in keeping the price up for new sales. Especially on their high end products. Or do you really believe that if a Madone was selling for $300 after three years that they could support their current price structure?

I roll through a lot of inventory and I wouldn't by a bike that had no/low resale value. I'm reasonably sure that if I put up a poll here asking that question, over 90% of the people here would agree with me. We're talking Madones, not Pilots. You and I know the purchase considerations, resale time frame, and market are quite different between the two.

Businesses tend not to advertise where they get no return from their advertisement. Perhaps I'm underestimating the large pool of throwaway dollars out there at the moment though. Without being privy to their books, unless they are underselling their stated ad prices, the star sales generate a tiny fraction of BF revenue.

Neither their media kit, nor the site I referred you to makes a single mention of your little gold star. And I'm not sure how the little gold star impacts audience ethnicity. But if you want to feel that buying a little star makes you a better person than WR, then don't let me stop you.

BTW it's economy of scale (not economics), a theory that applies to production costs, not tiny income streams.

Aside from being entirely speculative, that's kinda funny (not sure if you were being serious or not), especially in that you're in part contradicting an earlier assertion about racing not mattering.

That economics class seems more and more appropriate. Here's an excellent start:

bismillah

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/co...mics-of-scale/

Har

BikeWise1

No, it's The Madone is the best race bike in the world-go to the dealer and buy a new one. Since you are the original purchaser who supported us and your shop by not buying a used one online, we'll give you a lifetime warranty!

Resale is what it is. But Trek doesn't lose sleep about it. I promise. But, if it makes you feel better, I'll be sure to ask my Trek rep when he's in the shop tomorrow about how many corporate meetings are held at Trek concerning the value of used Madones.

I never said it did. I was referring to the link you posted about bikeforums.net's demographic profile. The point I was attempting to make was that this is a very narrow market due the utter lack of diversity here. I'm sorry that wasn't sufficiently clear to you.

Racing at the regional level matters very much to the people who do it. I support it as a means to have fun and stay fit. But even if you're on the podium on an event picked up by Versus, it doesn't mean anyone outside the tiny sphere that is bike racing will know who you are or care. However, that doesn't mean WR can't take advantage of his notoriety to help others to whom it means a great deal, and possibly even profit from it. Make sense?

A personal anecdote:

I spent 7 years from 1993-2000 on the road out of Nashville with some seriously famous artists. I've played on the Grand Ole Opry a half dozen times with three different multi-platinum artists. I've played stadiums, festivals and arenas where 30,000+ people paid to see the show. And while that was the case, I was treated very well by companies who wanted their products in my hands. But had I never gotten past the local/regional level, I doubt Fender, Gibson, Parker, D'Addario, Seymour Duncan and others would've given me the time of day much less offered to give me a new instrument or other product when something happened to one of theirs I bought used because I was too cheap to buy a new one. Even if I told them I was the local hotshot who played really fast in places where dozens of people showed up and watched for free.

Grumpy McTrumpy

yawn

waterrockets 

The sphere of people who buy $7000+ bikes is even smaller than bike racing, and the union of the two sets is substantial. There are a lot of weekend warriors and MS-150 riders who buy Madone-level bikes. When I'm on group rides, I'm often approached about the bike I'm riding, what category I race, and if I have any recommendations.

I don't care if I influence one would-be-Trek purchase or 100, but I'm unhappy with how my year on a Trek ended, and I'll share it.

Brian Ratliff

The interesting paradox of the internet, let's call it "The Troll's Paradox" since it is closely related to how an internet troll operates. To show you are disinterested in what other's have to say, you have to post a "yawn" showing that you cared enough to click on the link.

Most of the time, the "yawn" post isn't really to display disinterest, regardless of it's actual written content, but to hide one's disdain of another's opinion by filling the conversation with meaningless one word posts rather than simply ignoring the person, or providing a meaningful contribution. Kind of impolite, if you ask me...

But nobody's asking, so I'll just post this along with the meaningless "yawn" post to feed the "yawn" troll. Because I'm bored.

Fascinating conversation though. On one hand, a pissed off, hot shot, local amateur racer who thinks he deserves a special exception to his used bike's warranty policy because he races good and spends a lot of time on teh internets. On the other, a bike shop owner who is trying to protect his business model from freeloaders. Who will win the internet?!

kudude

1) If used madones sold for $300 after 3 years, there would be meetings about it. How many meetings does a shop owner have about whether or not they should stop customers from walking out of the store with bikes they haven't paid for? When it happens, someone will talk about it, but until then everything's dandy.

2) The demographics of this site are narrow when compared with the demographics of the number of people who drink soda. Not so narrow when compared with the people who ride road bikes. There's a whole segue from here, but that's the beginning of the end of this epic thread.

Grumpy McTrumpy

polite went out the door pages ago.

Brian Ratliff

I dunno. Nobody's cussing yet...

But truly, I think the takeaway here is: 1) waterrockets reserves his right to b**ch to/at whoever he can get to listen, 2) Trek is going to deny his warranty claim and there is not much he can do about it, and 3) buying used bikes has it's disadvantages, regardless of the justice of the situation.

Oh, and I learned a new failure mode for carbon fiber composite bicycle frames. For me, that's the most important. I'll be looking out for it in my current and future CF frames.

waterrockets 

You have my character down wrong. Pissed off, hoped to get some warranty help from Trek (understanding their policy going in -- I'd be stupid not to try, since other companies have done it), and now I'm taking to the streets with my message about Trek quality.

I don't think I deserve a special exception, but since I didn't get one, the polarity of my message has changed directions. I spent $1600 on a three-year-old bike that only lasted me a year because Trek built it wrong, and that blows. Now the frame is worthless.

The "fascinating conversation" part is just so I can get some eyeballs on the topic for future conversations (I've already slipped into a couple threads with my soap box).

Win the Internet? I've already won this round, with 5,800 views.

Grumpy McTrumpy

You were half right about the yawn. The other half is an expression of this:

I am getting tired of seeing this thing go in circles.


(overly theatrical yawning scene)

P.P.S. this thread needs more Rodney

Brian Ratliff

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

KiddSisko

I side with the skinny guy who rides his bike fast, not the donut eating store clerk.

waterrockets 

KiddSisko

Unless and until there's a rash of BB shell failures from a variety of makes and models, I'm sticking with the belief that Trek is the only one with this particular problem.

One Way Rider

The only message I've gotten from you here is that your feelings are hurt because you had a little bad luck. That you rolled the used bike dice and lost. That's all. You certainly haven't proven Trek had a quality problem.

5800+ views and not a single soul has posted a similar story to yours? Where are all the people who've had BB problems like yours? You claim this was a pervasive quality issue which is why, regardless of warranty status, Trek should give you a new one. Where are all the hapless Trek victims? You're sounding more and more like a spurned lover than a reasonable person.

You are passionate, but you have not persuaded me. And I doubt others as well.

Brian Ratliff

Okay, but I know of one guy on my team who has a non-Trek* bike with what looks like the starting phase of this same failure mode (it's showing up as a circular crack around the bottom bracket shell).

I said that this is a failure mode, not that it is an actual failure seen by a lot of people. There are lots of failure modes, some of which happen before others. Any frame that uses a metal sleeve bonded to the CF frame will have this failure mode. The question is whether the frame lasts long enough to see this failure, or if something fails in front of it.

For example, an airplane has a failure mode of a wing coming off. But you don't see this happen much because it's been designed in such a way that other parts of the aircraft fail first, taking the plane out of service long before the wing will come off.


*if you caught my original edit, I am not sure anymore it was the bike I said it was originally.

Brian Ratliff

irrelevant