New bike - stem clamp not tightened resulting in catastrophic failure

[abo]

This is just going to bounce back and forth, get unpleasent and add no extra value. I think it'd be better if the thread were locked and we moved on

 

[youngoldbloke]

Howard - have you actually seen the stem, and the damage? It seems we are all making all sorts of assumptions, without any real evidence of what has actually happened.

 

[Scruffmonster]

Client of mine bought a brand new bike (£400ish) from an (unnamed) local chain store - not an LBS.

Couple of rides in the stem clamp drops off, bars with it. Appears not to have been sufficiently tightened. No serious injury, but a long walk home.

I advised that when he takes it back - the bike is now quite damaged - he should be after some serious goodwill. An upgrade to a £1000 bike wouldn't be unreasonable IMHO. If not, a letter to the Chief Exec, naming the manager on duty at the point of sale.

Out of interest, what do you think? What would you do if this happened to you? And how would handle the inevitable confrontation at the store?

Same thing happened to my mate on the first ride on his Boardman [bought from an unnamed store

] though it was his headset that hadn't been tightened. He'd stupidly gone on the first ride without transferring has saddle pack with tools so was left with a long wait in the lanes for back up.

Anyways, he got the bike serviced again, a free service at the LBS store of his choice for peace of mind, plus a £30 gift voucher.

I only write that as a way to establish minimum compensation. He hadnt fallen off, the bike wasn't damaged, but he still got a half decent apology.

{Edit, just realised that this thread turned into a shoot storm, ignore the above}

 

[mickle]

Imagine what series of events would have to take place for four stem bolts to fail and cause the front cap to 'fall off'. It's an impossibility. The OP owes it to the assembled masses to contact his client asap to clarify exactly what happened.

I'm more than a little dismayed that he hasn't yet since that would be the obvious way of putting this to bed.

 

[ianrauk]

Imagine what series of events would have to take place for four stem bolts to fail and cause the front cap to 'fall off'. It's an impossibility. The OP owes it to the assembled masses to contact his client asap to clarify exactly what happened.

I'm more than a little dismayed that he hasn't yet since that would be the obvious way of putting this to bed.

The story is so far fetched it's unbelievable..

 

[slowmotion]

Wasn't there a thread, not too long ago, where some guy was asking how much he should get in compensation after riding his bike into the back of a car that braked in front of him?

 

[Wankelschrauben]

This is quite a funny read really, clearly some thing isn't quite adding up.

 

[chewy]

Ha, sounds like either another money grabber, or another idiot when cannot possibly think for themselves!

Was he on his way to the Jeremy Kyle studios at the time of the incident?!

Sorry if I sound harsh but, really? There's little about this tale that adds up or any proposed answers that are reasonable/fair, this seems to be backed up by all the replies on the thread!

Doesn't sound like a hard fix either, so why all the hoohar? Sounds like your 'client' has either buggered it up himself (so needs to put his hands up to it, no shame - we all make mistakes) or has been so stupid not to notice a loose stem (annoying, but easily sorted if tightened immediately). Unless through either of those, he's trying it on - in which case I hope he gets nowhere with it!


God forbid people act fairly, with some level of intelligence.

 

[festival]

Client of mine bought a brand new bike (£400ish) from an (unnamed) local chain store - not an LBS.

Couple of rides in the stem clamp drops off, bars with it. Appears not to have been sufficiently tightened. No serious injury, but a long walk home.

I advised that when he takes it back - the bike is now quite damaged - he should be after some serious goodwill. An upgrade to a £1000 bike wouldn't be unreasonable IMHO. If not, a letter to the Chief Exec, naming the manager on duty at the point of sale.

Out of interest, what do you think? What would you do if this happened to you? And how would handle the inevitable confrontation at the store?

To go back to the original question, "What would I do" Well I would be embarrassed that I had not noticed the plate was loose and had worked it self loose and fallen off resulting in damage to the bike.

Or of course I could make up a cock & bull story about what went wrong?

 

[TheDoctor]

If I'd done anything that daft I'd be keeping quiet about it
I haven't done anything that daft. Obviously

 

[moxey]

Looking forward to seeing how this ends up.
When is he taking it into the shop ?

 

[abo]

Looking forward to seeing how this ends up.
When is he taking it into the shop ?

I'd put a wager on us not finding out. Hope I'm wrong, it'd an interesting read

 

[GrumpyGregry]

As for the M check thing, I agree, at a certain point in a bike's life you should be checking this stuff - but not, IMHO, a week into its life.

The certain point to start doing M checks is just after you wheel the bike out of the shop doors, if not actually in the shop before you accept delivery.

Thereafter you should be doing one before every ride. That's EVERY ride as in 'each and....' Yep even after you've left your ride outside a cafe in case some wag flipped your QR while you were drinking your latte. Been there, and with no lawyer tabs it could have been painful.

Besides all this to obtain compensation justly, rather than through bullying, intimidation and blackmail, surely the buyer would have to prove negligence on the part of someone. A mechanic screwing up the fitting of a stem bolt is not necessarily negligent per se.

 

[Borbus]

It's very easy to tell when the stem bolts become even slightly loose because the bike become almost impossible to control. I know this from experience... and it's not a very pleasant feeling. There's no way they could continue to ride until they became so loose that the handlebars fell off.

 

[Bicycle]

Tee Hee... I think the OP was put up as a joke....

I think the author is still giggling at getting so many responses .

The situation described is no one that any cyclist (or cycle-shop employee) would take seriously.

This is the sort of thing that only happened in Norman Wisdom films.

"Bikes fine... Bike's fine..... Bike's fine... Bike's fine.... AAAARGH! The handlebars aren't attached!"

You don't need to be a lifelong bicycle mechanic to know there are several paragraphs missing in the above chain of events.

I've been back to cycle shops a couple of times over the years and have always found that they have a grown-up attitude to good will and customer service.

Did the 'client' ever work at Ealing Film Studios by any chance?


But well done for getting 5 pages of responses to a joke posting!