From NYTimes about the Tour/ Lance Broken Frame?

At the end of the stage Lance mentioned in the french interview (the
journalist was asking was his foot slip from his pedal) that his front
derailleur was not working properly after the chute. So he just stopped
using it.

--
Mike
"

Chris Neary writes:

| I guess Lance can throw away a bike after every crash, but if
| the OCLV can fail so easily then I think those of us who have to purchase
| our own equipment would be very wary of them.
|
| Two points:
|
| 1) There are a *lot* of OCLV bikes on the road, and stories of frame
| failures are rare (I personally crashed mine in a paceline going nearly 30
| MPH with nothing more than paint damage).

I had a chainstay break completely across on my Trek 5500 (well, to the
point where it couldn't be ridden, and could be flexed significantly with
almost no load). Trek's analysis is that it seems to have been gradually
increasing damage following an earlier accident (moderately major, a crash
at 15 MPH into a curb and on the bounce, into a steel fence). No visible
damage until the final failure (unfortunately the initial crack was right
under a decal, and was missed by the shop in their inspection after the
accident, as well as by me at the time and during later maintenance).

| 2) If is likely a frame failure such as that described could be repaired for
| a fraction of the cost of a new frame.

$600 for the repair at the factory, more for shipping, and a bit more for
the reassembly at the shop. Versus about $1600 for a new frame. And worst
of all, without the bike for 5 weeks, start to finish.

Terry Morse wrote in message
Very few frames can survive having their chainstays ridden over,
regardless of what they're made of.

Huh? Going uphill, not too fast, and Mayo weighs what, maybe 150?
bike on ground, so acting like a ramp not a barrier... Only bikes
that are going to the silly light end would be broken by such an
incident. Not what I'd consider a normal breakage.


Whitfit