Bike woes and an HIM in 2.5 weeks
I was working on my tribike (a Felt B16) over the weekend and noticed that my seat was moving forwards and back relative to the frame. I had put a new seat on a couple of weeks ago and have been playing with the positioning so at first I thought it was just loose. I checked the seat clamp and it was tight and then checked the seat post clamp and it was tight as well. It turns out the sheets of carbon fiber that come up above the seat post that the seat post clamp squeezes were loose and I'm assuming delaminated from the frame. I got online to see if that had been a problem for anyone else and found a recall notice for the bike except this was for the fork! The notice said to stop riding it immediately and take it back to the dealer. To top that off my wife also has a B16 but I'm not sure if it's the same model year covered by the recall.
The last time I was at the LBS where I bought the bike they weren't selling Felts anymore and they are no longer a Felt dealer. I called them and they are contacting Felt to see how to proceed. I may have to take it to another dealer to get warranty service. I've told the LBS that I have a HIM near so they are going to use that to try to speed things up. So that is what it is.
My main concern is that IM CDA 70.3 is 2 weeks from Sunday and IM CDA is 10.5 weeks away. IM CDA is my AAA race while I was looking at CDA 70.3 as essentially a course recon and supported training event. I can do my shorter, high intensity rides on the trainer, but I don't care to think about doing the longer rides on it. (You can tell me to suck it up cupcake if you'd like.) I have a road bike I could take out for longer rides but then I don't get the positional fitness benefits from being in the aerobars.
Does anyone have any ideas about:
1) Have you ever had warranty experience with Felt and how long something like this might take to resolve?
2) Have any recommendations about how to proceed with adapting my training rides, especially my long rides, i.e., split the long rides and do them on the trainer in two sessions, or do half on the trainer and half on the road bike to maintain my sanity, or just suck it up and put on the real course video and ride CDA?
3) Or make lemonade out of lemons and take my wife up on her suggestion of, "Well you do turn 60 this year, perhaps you should get a new bike." and do that now so I can get used to it before IM CDA? (This doesn't seem like the best time of the year to be buying a bike, but perhaps some of you have some good ideas about that too.)
4) Or something else that I'm not thinking about because I'm to close to it all?
Comments
The day before IMWI I took my Felt B2 to the shop in Madison because the derailleur wasn't shifting quite right. They fixed that problem but then told me they found a crack in the seat post clamp (which, on the B2 is actually molded into the frame). Frankly, I'd seen the little crack before- I kinda always thought it was suppose to be there! They wanted to drill a hole in the seat post and put in a screw to keep it in place, promised me this wouldn't void the warranty, and expressed a lot of concern about me riding it on race day. My response was "I've ridden thousands of miles on this bike with that little crack, 112 miles more isn't gonna scare me".
I rode the bike on race day with no incident, and when I returned home I called an LBS ("L" being a relative term here because the closest Felt dealer is 2 hours away) to work through the warranty claim. Within a day or so I had an update from them. My issue was that Felt didn't have any B2 frames in my size (XS) left in stock for the replacement and wouldn't be making more that year, so instead, they offered to ship me a DA frame (gee, if you must). I don't recall the exact turn-a-round, but I also don't recall it being very long.
So- my advice would be- Call the LBS and get the process started. Ride the bike for your 70.3 (unless you need to return it to Felt for the exchange before then), and my guess is you'll have the replacement frame in plenty of time to be ready for your full IM.
@ Robert, I got up early today to map my bike in case l have to take it in at a moment's notice. I will start looking around, but see above.
@ Nemo, that's encouraging. I did see that they don't make the B16 anymore so I was hoping l would get an upgrade. My grander hope is that they would offer to let me upgrade a couple of steps with a small cash investment. Regarding riding the bike, it's not the seat tube I'm worried about but the fork recall which stated to stop riding the bike immediately because they can break. I used to be a bicycle test rider and I've had a fork break while I was riding. It's not a good feeling to have the front end of a bike drop away from you that fast. OTOH, I was descending on the Felt last Saturday at over 30 mph and hit a pot hole and the bike did fine. Since CDA has some good, fast descents l would like to feel comfortable that my fork is sound.
Totally understand this point. In fact, a former ENer had this exact thing happen to him (on a Trek) several years ago and his injuries were far from minimal. He's OK now- but it was a very scary time. So I totally understand your desire to play it safe.
"Warranty" only applies to the original owner (I had to dig up receipts of my original purchase since it wasn't from the same LBS who took care of the warranty repair). However, I'd think a product "Recall" applies no mater how many hands it changed before you got it.
Update, Felt is still dragging their feet on my warranty claim, i.e,. they don't know if they're going to fix it or replace the frame. It turns out my bike is a 2012 model and so the fork is a moot issue. But Susan's bike is a 2010 so the fork was an issue for her. Felt sent a fork pronto and her bike is repaired and back home. In the meantime I have CDA 70.3 this Sunday. The dealer doesn't sell Felt bikes anymore (partially because of things like this) but he does carry Cervelo. He had a P3 in my size and a P2 in Susan's size. He made us a really good offer on the two of them so we're now proud owners of a P3 and a P2.
BTW, my daughter has a degree in Industrial Design and has worked with carbon fiber. She says it can probably be fixed.