Trek Madone catastrophic chainstay damage

[plank]

Just after a bit of advice I have discovered that my 1 year old Trek Madone 5.2 has catastrophic damage to the underside of the chain stay due to chain slap. The carbon is compromised and the strength in the chain stay gone. I have taken it back to Evans cycles and they have said they will send it off to Trek. The bike is a stock build nothing has been changed since I picked it up from them.

Has anyone had a problem with this on a road bike?
Is this something I should have noticed/could have done something about?
Has anyone ever tried to claim on something like this? from Trek/Evans

 

[battered]

Just after a bit of advice I have discovered that my 1 year old Trek Madone 5.2 has catastrophic damage to the underside of the chain stay due to chain slap. The carbon is compromised and the strength in the chain stay gone. I have taken it back to Evans cycles and they have said they will send it off to Trek. The bike is a stock build nothing has been changed since I picked it up from them.

Has anyone had a problem with this on a road bike?
Is this something I should have noticed/could have done something about?
Has anyone ever tried to claim on something like this? from Trek/Evans

Chain slap will wear out the *top* of your chainstay as gravity only works that way. Chain *suck* will drag the chain into the frame as the pedals turn and mangle the undersiade. Is this what you mean?

Both these things are preventable.

You are prob looking at a new tube, fitted by the manufacturer and a bill, unless you can prove it was faulty. They may help you out as it's a newish machine and the high end of the range.

 

[AndyCarolan]

Blimey, chain slap on a road bike? do you have a lot of potholes around there?

I put a fabric chainstay protector on my bike to protect it from that, but thats an MTB so I kind of expect the chain to move about a bit

 

[zacklaws]

I had same damage on my Madone, but I do not think its down to this specific bike and can happen to any bike and probably goes unnoticed as its mainly out of sight.

My circumstances were caused by going up a very unexpected steep hill that caught me out and trying to get down the gears quick, everything locked up solid and jammed as the chain had come off and jammed between the frame and cassette, as I began to roll downhill backwards, I attempted to rapidly unclip with my right foot with my pedal to the rear and also get my foot down quick onto the ground, unfortunatly I remained clipped up and fell off.

Afterwards when I put my bike in the car, I noticed under the chain stay a lump of the outer coating missing and bare carbon showing. Eventually I worked out that the rear mech had hit the frame with some force to have done the damage as it was the exact position on the frame the mech would touch and it must have happened when the chain was jammed and when I tried to unclip and get my foot down quick, I had forced the pedal down, tightening the chain and forcing the mech up hard and fast.

Luckily its only been surface damage as the carbon seems to be OK

 

[kyuss]

When you said catastrophic damage I was expecting to see chunks of carbon all over the place. Maybe your picture doesn't do the damage justice (nice rim, carpet and shoes though) but are you sure it's not just the clearcoat that's damaged? What makes you think the carbon strength is compromised? Don't mean to question your judgement especially as it's hard to tell how bad the damage is from your picture, but it doesn't look particularly catastrophic. Guess it's still a good idea to have Trek take a look at it.

 

[rich p]

If you don't get any joy, this company do carbon repairs as I was grateful to find out. Highly recommended.


HQ Fibre Products
5 Norwich Road
Lingwood
Norwich
Norfolk
NR13 4BH

 

[e-rider]

The carpet is that of evans crawley but the shoes are all mine.

The damage is so bad if you pushed a nail(the finger type) into the stay the carbon is soft. Then if you squeez the chainstay there is movement and a horrid cracking sound. I have taken it back to Evans and they have been very helfull and it on it way back to trek so fingers crossed.

are you using a compact chainset with short cage rear mech?

The only thing I can think of that would cause this is riding along in 34x11; as if in the large chainring, the chain is miles away from the chainstay so there would be no chnace of damage. As said in early post, if Trek don't want to know, there are carbon fibre repair people out there that could easily fix damage like this.

 

[Banjo]

My friend posted this for me and I dont think the damge has been done either of these ways as its on the underside of the chainstay. It must be caused by the mech bounching back off the spring when I hit a bump of pothole. Its 100% clear that it has been caused by the chain hitting it.

Maybe there is a problem with the spring in the mech or somthing. The bike is just over a year old Madone 5.2 done about 1500miles.

I hope you get some satisfaction from Trek. Please keep us posted, I had a Madone 5 series in mind as my next bike so will watch this thread with great interest.