For those who enjoy a bit of spectator sport, the threads currently seeing the most action are at Bike Forums, Cycling UK, and Velocipede Salon. Fortunately there are abundant cherries to pick. (I could've stayed with the metaphor – "some folks have hit it out of the park," etc., but the more the merrier.)
The big news is Enigma have spoken,
here and
here. It's a tricky move for a manufacturer, requiring certain rhetorical skills. Let's see how it's working out for them so far:
Manufacturers stepping into a forum is almost a no-win situation. The only way you could have won was to have stepped in and told the customer you had made a mistake, and were going to honor your lifetime warranty. As it was, you tended a little toward the blamey side, and that is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. My assessment is that you lost a little ground with your appearance here. Those pics don't lie.
Apart from any obvious crash damage, I would have thought the default position here would be that 99.9% of buyers of a boutique high end ti road bike would be sensible non-racing road riders and this would be their pride and joy. This line sounds more applicable to a freeride full suss bike owned by a reckless 17 year old or some unloved daily commuting hack left outside to rot. It also states the bleeding obvious!
Just give him a new frame, try and get some good publicity and not further point out the limitations of the warranty.
Repairing titanium is even more likely to produce this sort of failure, and while a factory repair under the same stringent process controls should be of similar quality to the original, a repair in a bike shop is unlikely to be.
Not to mention that process controls as stringent as used in the original are not confidence inspiring, in this case.
It's an interesting marketing strategy to come onto an online forum and imply that the damage seen in those photos was caused by hard/tough riding, and if/when that does happen to other buyers the warranty will not apply.
Talking about not seeing the forest for the trees. Enigma had an awesome opportunity to step-up and win over potential new customers by standing behind their product. Instead, they chose to be radioactive.
Even after a few decades of experience, it's always with trepidation that I venture onto forums. You never know when you're going to get beaned,
thrown a curve ball
or given a sweet pitch to knock one out of the park.
If I were a baseball fan, I'd record games and live on fast forwardOddly enough for a hard-bitten roadie, Singletrack World was the first place I posted, replying to a six month old thread in zombie territory (
mmmm, zombie threads). I was a little surprised by some of the replies, but it was a good reminder of how contrary people can be to one's expectations. The OP certainly wasn't deterred by my tale of woe:
Despite the post from @anothersam I’m still keen on an Enigma. There’s lots of great feedback and happy owners in the thread. Sam has put huge miles into the bike (more than I would do!) and Enigma have at least tried to resolve or assist in some way. Any manufacturer is going to have some issues to deal with. On balance they get great reviews and seem to have lots of evangelical fans. And I accept that NO bike is a bike for life. Once I’ve paid last year’s tax bill there should be enough pennies left in the piggybank!
Fortunately it would go on to provide a nice cherry, which I put to use on my open letter. (
Here that is again, right below the lemon. Now I'm mixing fruits.)
The BikeRadar thread was notable chiefly for its Homer moment.
"joins forum to promote blog..."
It's true I do some blog promotion, chiefly as an outlet for all this damn whimsy I've been cursed with, but homers_double's contribution was more a bunt than anything.
My post at Weight Weenies has attracted no response at all,* which works for me. There's only so much time in the day. At least composing it gave me an idea for a future photo op. See if you can guess what that'll be.
*
Spoke too soon.Velocipede Salon has been the thorniest. Initially I was attracted to what seemed to be a quirky vibe, and chose an offbeat approach. It didn't take long for
the umpire to call foul.
Damnit, I had a sheriff in mind, sitting on a barstool notched with Likes as the stranger walks in.I was near to hightailing it out of town, but providing more backstory helped. In the end (because there's not much more for me to say*), I was
invited to hang. There are worse ways to go.
*See previous asterisk. I may want to get out of the prediction business.
Click for killer bunny.
In my professional world (I design audio systems for concerts, theatre, special events and installations), the first rule is: make sound. The second rule is: keep making sound. Regardless of creative outcomes, if the rig is too fussy to be maintained or too fragile for purpose, it’s a massive liability. These factors bump up against cost and weight very often, just as a bike frame.
Though for the OP, it seems like this frame has cracked twice at the BB, and I can’t imagine a use- or abuse-case that gets you there without something deliberately insane or as others have posited, faults in construction.
this is exactly the kind of story potential buyers of high end bikes need to hear. When someone goes above and beyond, praise them; when someone reneges on a lifetime warranty, that's worthy of comment.
I appreciate OP's appearance here (even though it does apparently duplicate efforts on other cycling forums. Lord knows I've posted identical threads... mostly because I know I'll get different responses based on those websites' respective cultures/personalities but also, as someone pointed out, sometimes we need to use whatever social media we have available.
Either you dropped that thing out of a plane, or there are some serious stresses in that frame that should not be there. Their response has to be incredibly disappointing and is decidedly shortsighted on their part. Standing behind its product is the cheapest advertisement a good business can buy.
Let's close this post with a triple conjunction:
But, but, but there is abuse and there is abuse. Tuesday night's group ride had a nice flat straight of 6 miles with just a hint of a High Plains tail wind. Is a 230 pound old man riding 6 miles at 30MPH + use or abuse, or does it depend on who is making the decision?
I read that post by Enigma and it had so many weasel words in it I expected to have one jump out of my monitor. Do the right thing my tuchas. ["Tuchas" is Jewish slang refering to the ever expanding rear end - Ed., quoting from the Urban Dictionary]
No, that's a stoat. Probably.