My road bike, a Rose X-Lite CRS 3100 Di2 that I got 2½ years ago, suffered a fatal case of death on a ride the other day, when the derailleur came off the bike, ripping part of the frame with it.
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 3.99mm f/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1/140 sec, f/1.8, ISO 20 — map & image data — nearby photos
Inspecting the Damage
iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 3.99mm f/1.8 at an effective 28mm — 1/150 sec, f/1.8, ISO 20 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hanging Derailleur
its mounting bracket ripped in half, taking part of the frame with it
In that moment, the frame was rendered completely useless. A carbon frame is difficult to repair in the best of times, but damage like this, in this location, means the end of the frame. It could never be ridden again.
No real idea why it would suddenly just give way. It could happen, I suppose, if a stick or something got caught in the chain, but that wasn't the case. It was at the start of the first steep hill of the day, so it was when I put in a fair bit of power through the drivechain.
It could have been a slowly-growing crack finally gave way, or that it got damaged during a recent flight. Perhaps most likely is that during a moment of inattentiveness 15 minutes earlier during a stop, I'd let the bike tip over and flop to the ground... perhaps that caused some damage? We'll never know.
My riding partners, who had a lot more experience with on-the-road repairs, set things up so that I could at least push the bike along. Luckily, I wasn't too far from a train station, so I walked the 2½km there (thank goodness for cleat covers). The train company wouldn't let me on the train with the bike, so I left it at the station and took the train home myself, switching to a car to return to pick up the bike.
I left the next day on a trip to The States, so I didn't have time to do anything further. I'll have to get another frame, a new bike.... or maybe both! 🙂
Carbon And aluminum frames like to break. Get a steel frame. Save money. They also look slimmer.
A steel frame sounds pretty heavy compared to a carbon or aluminum frame, though…
The Whoo bike shop is always posting cool Cherubim frame photos 🙂
Weight is like 1.35kg…
Trek Emonda SLR is like 650g…but who is keeping track? Steel frame is so comfy and you can bash it around 🙂
The difference in weight between a good steel frame and a carbon frame is about the weight of a water bottle. For Jeffrey, this might make sense, but for someone fatter (like me), it’s essentially nothing.
(And before you mention taking bikes on trains — that’s why I have a Brompton.)
That hurts! It may be repairable. Not sure if it would be worth the shipping back to the states, but check out these guys: https://www.ruckuscomp.com/
http://calfeedesign.com/repair/
(they also make bamboo bikes, if you want nature’s version of carbon-fibre)
This is one of the reason why automotive doesn’t use carbon-fibre, beside the costs of course.
It is maybe easy to blame the manufacturer, but it smeels like fatigue failure.
It’s hard to know where to place the blame, because it’s so mysterious. I just hope it’s because of me and not an intrinsic part of the frame, because I’ve got an identical replacement frame on order now. —Jeffrey
Yoy have some exif data below your photos, do you that by hand or do you have a program to do it automaicly.
I want te see some exif data when i go with my mouse over a picture.
Do you have a script of it?
Thanks,
Ronald
I have a little Perl script that extracts the data I want to show, and formats it for HTML. I use the ExifTool library to access the data. —Jeffrey
Sorry to hear about this damage. I had a similar one last year when I broke the hanger, derailleur dropped into rear wheel and exploded, kinking the chain, warping the wheel, then spinning around and cracking the carbon seat stay, all in one second. Fortunately, the carbon seat stay was repairable, all the bits replaced, and I’m happy to have my old bike still on the road. PS Enjoying reading your blog. My wife comes from Ishiyama/Otsu and I’ve taken my bike over a couple times. I love cycling through the forests, gorge and mountain area south of Lake Biwa. Cheers, Steve C
Wow – sorry for your loss! That could have been soo much worse, like giving way on some of those wicked descents you post about on those mountain downhills. I do love my Serotta steel frame. My buddy recommended a steel bike for my first road bike. I’ve done a couple of ‘non-graceful getting to love these pedals someday’ ballet maneuvers and the ‘midnight find the pitch between new and old asphalt in flat light flyovers’ and thankful for the forgiveness of steel. Looking forward to your posts with your new bike (s?)!
I had the exact same failure on my Rose Team CGF. I have shipped it back to Rose in Germany who have said it is not warranty. They blamed a damaged hanger which is apparently my fault. In my case, the chain also snapped, but i’m not sure if this was the cause, or an effect.
Anyway, they have offered a new frame and all the work carried out fir £700 (50% off the frame cost). I turned this down but asked for 10% off a new x-lite, to which they agreed.
Tommy – UK