Carrera Zelos

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squashedflat

New Member
My son 20yr old. 72kg cycling his Carrera Zelos road bike through Sligo town founded himself thrown from the bike narrowly missed by traffic following behind. The reason being that the aluminium frame had suffered a catastrophic failure at the point where the rear wheel is attached to the frame. The bike was purchased from Halfords Sligo in August of 2018 and has been well maintained. I thought carrera bikes were considered reasonably good. I would like to know if anyone else has had any similar experience with this model bike. If this is the case, a recall on these bikes would have to be taken.
 

biggs682

Touch it up and ride it
Location
Northamptonshire
Welcome @squashedflat sorry to hear about your poor sons incident.

Never had or heard of a similar incident apart from a good friend of mine had his 50+ year old bikes rear hanger fail after a previous repair many moons ago only earlier this week.
 

Cycleops

Legendary Member
Location
Accra, Ghana
Sorry, that’s rather scary. I should take this up with Halfords, it’s one of their own brands. Never seen any issue like this cropping up on theses pages but failures do happen albeit very rarely. Wish you luck.
 

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
Hard to say without seeing what failed .
As a rule carrera bikes are solid bikes , i have owned a few and done may thousands of miles on them with no issues.
Hope your son is ok
 

Kingfisher101

Über Member
My son 20yr old. 72kg cycling his Carrera Zelos road bike through Sligo town founded himself thrown from the bike narrowly missed by traffic following behind. The reason being that the aluminium frame had suffered a catastrophic failure at the point where the rear wheel is attached to the frame. The bike was purchased from Halfords Sligo in August of 2018 and has been well maintained. I thought carrera bikes were considered reasonably good. I would like to know if anyone else has had any similar experience with this model bike. If this is the case, a recall on these bikes would have to be taken.

You need to tell Halfords, theres not much people on here can do to help you. I hope your son is o.k, that must have been very frightening.
 

Peter Salt

Bittersweet
Location
Yorkshire, UK
These type of failures are extremely rare but almost always develop slowly - there must have been a crack visible before that you've missed when servicing the bike. Doesn't make it your fault - poor manufacturing is to blame, of course.
 
When you look at the Carrera Zelos the dropouts actually look very over-built but there are always going to be the odd poorly made frame. Halfords despite having a huge chunk of the UK market have had very few recalls. I seem to remember the Carrera Banshee had a recall which was a dual suspension bike and the pivot had an issue or something, can't be bothered to google it. Compare this to major competitors like Decathlon who have had a huge number of recalls. However recalls only kick in when a small but significant number of bikes have issues.

There are lots of ways a bike can have issues at the rear. The Zelos is an entry level road bike with I believe a quick release but a freewheel which means the axle is unsupported and if the axle snaps i.e. hitting a pot hole or dropping off pavements etc then the wheel may lock putting the frame under a huge amount of stress at the rear. Many entry level road bikes are configured like this but I would always suggest paying a little bit more for the Virtuoso bike which offers so much more in specification for only a little more in price. The Zelos looks pretty over-built with regard the rear dropouts looking at this image.

s-l1600.jpg


If the frame is damaged and they replace it then I would suggest an upgrade to a freehub rear wheel with a 7 speed cassette like 11-34T. This will offer much better high gearing, improved safety and strength, cleaner shifting. The Zelos is a nice bike and this situation is very rare I would say but the sweetspot for value I feel is the Virtuoso model which offers a Claris level groupset (probably a FSA crankset).
 

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
When you look at the Carrera Zelos the dropouts actually look very over-built but there are always going to be the odd poorly made frame. Halfords despite having a huge chunk of the UK market have had very few recalls. I seem to remember the Carrera Banshee had a recall which was a dual suspension bike and the pivot had an issue or something, can't be bothered to google it. Compare this to major competitors like Decathlon who have had a huge number of recalls. However recalls only kick in when a small but significant number of bikes have issues.

There are lots of ways a bike can have issues at the rear. The Zelos is an entry level road bike with I believe a quick release but a freewheel which means the axle is unsupported and if the axle snaps i.e. hitting a pot hole or dropping off pavements etc then the wheel may lock putting the frame under a huge amount of stress at the rear. Many entry level road bikes are configured like this but I would always suggest paying a little bit more for the Virtuoso bike which offers so much more in specification for only a little more in price. The Zelos looks pretty over-built with regard the rear dropouts looking at this image.

View attachment 647723

If the frame is damaged and they replace it then I would suggest an upgrade to a freehub rear wheel with a 7 speed cassette like 11-34T. This will offer much better high gearing, improved safety and strength, cleaner shifting. The Zelos is a nice bike and this situation is very rare I would say but the sweetspot for value I feel is the Virtuoso model which offers a Claris level groupset (probably a FSA crankset).

virtuoso currently prowheel chainset, not that theres anything wrong with it
 
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