Quarq Magnet
Went for a ride with Chris Martin (old EN member from 2 years ago) here at IMMT today. I hear his bike shifting like crap. 5-10min into the ride he yells pull over I have a problem , I dropped a chain, and then had some issues shifting, then I lost power and can't shift. Got off bike and couldnt get front or rear deralier to shift. I look at the bottom bracket ring that has the Quarq magnet and its missing. I said your magnet is missing that is why you lost power, and its probably on your chain somewhere. We looked and looked and couldnt find it. Took the rear wheel off , flipped bike upside down , and found it jammed between the pulley's. Had to remove a pulley to get the magnet out , re-assemble , shifting works fine but he needs to re-install magnet to get power to work again. When he dropped his chain , it hit and took off the magnet , and got into the gearing via being stuck to the chain. Glad it happened to him today and not Sunday at IMMT.
How did I know this you ask? Well a couple years I was standing and pedaling up a hill maybe 8mph , when all of a sudden my cranks stopped dead , almost crashed , barely unclipped before coming to a stop. My Quarq magnet had come off , jumped to the chain and jammed into the front rings, chain, deraileur much easier to find than Chris's.
Comments
I previously advertised that I have not had many problems with my Quarq, but now that I think about it, this is a pretty big / annoying flaw. It doesn't happen that often but it happens often enough to be pretty annoying, and enough that whenever I go to an LBS and ask for Quarq magnets they are always like "again? we just had a guy come in looking for those" so it seems to be just a little too common occurrence for my tastes.
Flaw is an understatement IMO ..... I had a conversation with Quarq at the time about how dangerous I thought it was.... Was assured it doesnt happen blah blah blah, just re-glue it. Now after having just recently crashed and broke my clavicle , heard and learned all the other ways people have crashed and broken their collar bones , this really is unacceptable since you could actually crash your bike and kill yourself due to the failure of a part/product , so I sure hope they did address it with the one piece ring... They ought to go so far as to contact everyone who has the old set up IMO.....
I have to laugh at all the lovefest threads about Quarq and how good their customer service is etc.... I agree they have the best customer service !!! How do I know??? Well my Quarq has failed and been replaced twice!!! On my third one.... So everybody ranting and raving about how good the customer service is because the product they bought from the company failed!
Anyway just wanted to make more people aware of the magnet issue.... By the sounds of it .. a lot more common than I would have thought.
I've had a magnet fall off and get stuck to my chain once in almost 4 years with a Quarq now. I've lost more magnets than that, maybe 2 or 3 total, but only once where it found itself on the chain and then it just got stuck on my cassette and impacted shift performance, but not much more than that.
I definitely agree with the others that it happens, it has the potential to be bad when it does, and Quarq *really* needs to change the design of their BB magnet cups if they have not already, but I dunno if it's something I'd avoid Quarqs entirely over.
Likewise, in 4 years of having Quarqs (I had the original pre-cinqo version, then later switched to S975 to go to compaq) I've never had to send mine back in for service but I definitely could be a lucky one.
Still, now that there are so many other options out on the market I'd definitely consider my options before paying MSRP for Quarq.
Mine is cemented onto my frame, however I dropped a cahin a few weeks ago and sheared the magnet off, which then got jammed into my chain resulting in a near-miss crash going up hill.
My bike tech re-cemented the magnet on and this time added a chain catcher so the chain will not shear it off again. I am glad that this has not only happened to me!