Bent bent :-(

[Guy Chapman]

No cyclists were harmed during the making of this incident.

Riding from Henley to St Albans as I occasionally do, this time I
decided to take the Stinger. All went well until Rickmansworth, when
the boom started to feel distinctly strange - and five yards later the
pedals headed for the road. The main part of the boom has fractured
just in front of the headset, a classic fatigue fracture at the weld.
Needless to say I am not entirely delighted: I sort of expected that a
bike costing in excess of a thousand quid might make it at least to
the 12 month mark. The Stinger has done under 3,000 miles since it
was delivered in September last, and has already spent a month off the
road due to a failure of the rack. / seat mounting.

I'll be taking it to Darth Ian tomorrow in my Mum's car because mine
has an obscure fault in the electronics. Mum has a Yaris Verso, which
is quite handy for bike transport. Oh, and the bottom bracket on my
tourer went yesterday. Things seem to be going a bit pear shaped
just now :-(

The blow was softened somewhat by a delightful chap named Peter who
lives right by the roundabout in Rickmansworth where things went
wrong. He came to talk recumbents, being the owner of a PDQ, and
ended up supplying me with a consolatory Stella Artois while we waited
for the sag wagon. What a gent - and he rides his PDQ on the British
Legion rides to Paris and Brussels.

The frustrating thing is, it's a really great bike to ride. But I
wonder whether I should trade it for a steel framed recumbent, or
maybe a Trice, because it looks like it can't handle the riding I do.

And now - beer.

Guy

[Garry Broad]

People in Ricky are ok....that's just a few miles from where I live
:-)

Sorry to here of your 'malfunction'.

But to be honest, I doesn't kind of surprise me. Never ridden a bent,
although I'm in the process of building one at the moment, and they
seem to have (by their very nature) 'weak spots' - although this would
depend so much on how they're made of course. One such weak spot in
the SWB would appear to be the headset/boom connection. Still....you,
know all this :-(

You mention whether you should get a "steel framed recumbent" ? Excuse
the naivety, but the Stinger is aluminum, right? So much stress on
that headset/bottom bracket area.

Meanwhile, we have the mountain stages, and the golf to enjoy :-)
You'll be up and running again, sooner or later.


Garry


>No cyclists were harmed during the making of this incident.
>
>Riding from Henley to St Albans as I occasionally do, this time I
>decided to take the Stinger. All went well until Rickmansworth, when
>the boom started to feel distinctly strange - and five yards later the
>pedals headed for the road. The main part of the boom has fractured
>just in front of the headset, a classic fatigue fracture at the weld.
>Needless to say I am not entirely delighted: I sort of expected that a
>bike costing in excess of a thousand quid might make it at least to
>the 12 month mark. The Stinger has done under 3,000 miles since it
>was delivered in September last, and has already spent a month off the
>road due to a failure of the rack. / seat mounting.
>
>I'll be taking it to Darth Ian tomorrow in my Mum's car because mine
>has an obscure fault in the electronics. Mum has a Yaris Verso, which
>is quite handy for bike transport. Oh, and the bottom bracket on my
>tourer went yesterday. Things seem to be going a bit pear shaped
>just now :-(
>
>The blow was softened somewhat by a delightful chap named Peter who
>lives right by the roundabout in Rickmansworth where things went
>wrong. He came to talk recumbents, being the owner of a PDQ, and
>ended up supplying me with a consolatory Stella Artois while we waited
>for the sag wagon. What a gent - and he rides his PDQ on the British
>Legion rides to Paris and Brussels.
>
>The frustrating thing is, it's a really great bike to ride. But I
>wonder whether I should trade it for a steel framed recumbent, or
>maybe a Trice, because it looks like it can't handle the riding I do.
>
>And now - beer.
>
>Guy

[elyob]

"elyob" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Guy Chapman" > wrote in message
> m...
>
> <snip>
>
> > And now - beer.
> >
> > Guy
>
> And tomorrow - wish you'd spoken to the bike builder before flaming him to
> the entire biking community?!
>

I think that came out wrong ... sorry to hear about your bike. I'm sure the
bike should have done more than that .. you have some sort of warranty with
it? Enjoy the beer ...

[Just zis Guy, you know?]

in article , Garry Broad at
wrote on 19/7/2003 12:20 am:

> People in Ricky are ok....that's just a few miles from where I live
> :-)

I learned to sail at Rickmansworth Aquadrome :-)

> But to be honest, I doesn't kind of surprise me.

Surprises me all right :-/

> You mention whether you should get a "steel framed recumbent" ? Excuse
> the naivety, but the Stinger is aluminum, right? So much stress on
> that headset/bottom bracket area.

It has a very large diameter thick-walled frame tube - it should by all
appearances be well over spec for the job. I do have pretty powerful legs,
but it really should be able to stand that.

Guy

[Peter B]

"Guy Chapman" > wrote in message
m...
> Mum has a Yaris Verso, which
> is quite handy for bike transport.

International Rescues MDG 2 is called into action ;-)

Pete

[Jim Price]

Guy Chapman wrote:

> No cyclists were harmed during the making of this incident.

> Riding from Henley to St Albans as I occasionally do, this time I
> decided to take the Stinger. All went well until Rickmansworth, when
> the boom started to feel distinctly strange - and five yards later the
> pedals headed for the road. The main part of the boom has fractured
> just in front of the headset, a classic fatigue fracture at the weld.

When I was doing my research on building recumbents last summer I came
across a lot of people whose early efforts had failed at just this sort
place, especially with this sort of bent design (double meaning
intended). There was some concensus that welding the head tube where the
main part of the frame has been bent was a potential cause of the
failure IIRC. This was with mild steel "muffler pipe", rather than
aluminium, but similar effects may be present.

> The frustrating thing is, it's a really great bike to ride. But I
> wonder whether I should trade it for a steel framed recumbent, or
> maybe a Trice, because it looks like it can't handle the riding I do.

With luck it was just a design defect, which they will have now
corrected. From what I said above, the material is not as important as
the design when trying to make something like this robust, so just
switching to a similar steel design will not necessarily be any better.
What should happen is the heat treatment stage after the welding should
strengthen the materials around the welds. If they are welding aluminium
without heat treating it afterwards, then you would have a reason to
change to a steel frame (sorry - I don't know if this is the case with
the stinger).

> And now - beer.

Cheers.

--
Jim Price

http://www.jimprice.dsl.pipex.com

Conscientious objection is hard work in an economic war.

[Just zis Guy, you know?]

Jim Price > wrote:

> With luck it was just a design defect, which they will have now
> corrected.

As subsequently posted, it was and they have.

Guy

[Just zis Guy, you know?]

"Dave Larrington" > wrote in message
...

> FWIW I've heard of a Several of Optima frame failures in this region - all
> on Barons IIRC - and Optima have in all cases replaced the frame with all
> despatch. Fortunately, Cosimo doesn't get ridden far enough for this to
be
> a major worry for me.

Your name was taken in vain in conversation with Darth Ian - he couldn't
remember if Cosimo had the New Improved! frame or not. The Baron in the
shop undoubtedly does.

Baron. Mmmmm, nice. Where's my cheque book?

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.com

[Kit Wolf]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:01:15 +0100, Dave Larrington wrote:

> Ouch encore.
>
> FWIW I've heard of a Several of Optima frame failures in this region - all
> on Barons IIRC - and Optima have in all cases replaced the frame with all
> despatch. Fortunately, Cosimo doesn't get ridden far enough for this to be
> a major worry for me.

Do you know if it's a problem with frames that have bends in the tubing -
i.e. would those old-fangled ones with a straight boom be less
susceptible?

Kit