The Cervelo was a good bike. I bought the frame in December 2007 and then one by one I also bought all the components to assemble the complete bike. Nagai-San put everything nicely together. In 2009 I made one upgrade from Shimano 6600 to 6700 mainly because I liked the routing of the shifting cables along the handle bar.
This bike took me to a lot of nice places. We went down together fast and made longish uphill rides. The last one was with Juliane and David on Mallorca. Unfortunately I am too heavy for this bike, or well, after three seasons and perhaps 30.000 km I manged to crack the seatpost tube. Perhaps this is what can be expected from a high performance frame.
And perhaps I could have repaired it. Even Titanium frames can be repaired these days. But I have laid my eyes on something new already. Will blog about the new bike once the frame is here.
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| Crack on the left side developing from the round "stress-relieve" cut-out at the end of the slit. |
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| ..and a second crack in the same location on the right side. |
5 comments:
...looks to me like a classic example of overtightening the saddle post stay rather than an overweight rider...what a pity. But good you found a buyer who can fix it! Enjoying reading about your exploits into all these historic/nostalgic components!
Hi Tom,
well the guy at the local bike store said that it was due to the very long protruding seat stay and the fact tthat the saddle was adjusted to maximum distance away from the direction of the handlebar.
Perhaps it could have been repaired, but as I anyway had my eyes on something new, the cracks appeared at the right time. One bike less in the garage means one more space for a new bike!
Expect something new and something in Euro-cycling style. With spots of orange here and there.
It's Eastern holidays and the weather outside is wonderful. I caught a nasty cold and need to stay home, what a pity. At least I can work on my bikes and restore some components.
Mallorca was great but still envious looking at the pics from your ride to Yakyu Toge today.
Otherwise today:
Liege - Bastogne - Liege
...yes, it's easy to see how the leverage power produced by the length of the seatpost and angle of the backward saddle got a little too much.
Yakyu-toge is a wonderful addition to my repertoire of standard loops but of course, toge prodigy Ludwig had already been here before.
I'm enjoying my Super Six very much these days having found a climbing form I never had before (thanks to shorter crankarms).
Yes, Gilbert is Belgium's new hero! Very proud indeed. Seems like the days of Tom Boonen are over. Anyway, Gilbert is a much more all-round rider and he could very well be a top-3 finisher in the Tour!
I always thought the frame geometry was a bit odd and forced excessive weight on the rear stem.
So what will the guy who bought it do with the broken frame?
Not sure exactly what a "rear stem" is.....seat tube? As an engineer I would say, that the cracks are induced by the long lever of the seatpost and forces in direction to the right and to the left of the frame rather than to the rear or to the front. That wouldn't make sense. Or Perhaps Tom is right that the cracks started because the clamp was tighten too much.
The buyer will try to weld the frame at a bicycle Manufacturer in the Netherlands: Gazelle! It would be interesting to know if it works.
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