New road bike. What's your desire ?

[AndrewCowley]

I have a decent gear cable eating appetite. Every 3-4000kms, which equates to every 3-4 months. Both front and rear will snap if I leave them much longer. I put it down to hilly rides.

[biker jk]

Ma-don-ee (like abalone) is what I have heard.

I don't think the other name is spelt correctly.

No, it's named after the Col de la Madone and pronounced Ma-don.

[AndrewCowley]

How is Domane pronounced then?

Do-man?

Lol.

[CmdrBiggles]

How is Domane pronounced then?

Do-man?

Lol.

Do-man!

It does raise the question of Trek having a bit of a word play, as it did with Émonda; if it is pronounced in traditional French as per the Col de la Madon, sounds legit. Many people looking over these have said (whether or not it is a hanging offence!), ma-don-ee or aye, which is one (or more) of a corruption, laziness or fun word play! They're more interested in the bike, not exactly the name...

Domane / Domain ...there are others. I think 'straylians screw their French pronunciation enough to the point where they can (and often will) get away with it, though in a French café I frequent in the CBD, there are some real clangers. Have you heard the hilarious "...a buttered and toasted kwoy-ssant thanks mate!" Eeeeeek!

[Mr Purple]

I have a decent gear cable eating appetite. Every 3-4000kms, which equates to every 3-4 months. Both front and rear will snap if I leave them much longer. I put it down to hilly rides.

The shifter cable eating appetite is the most explainable of my appetites. Plenty of people have said the same thing and I think it's down to the climbing - 4000m per week average. Weirdly the gravel bike which I abuse a lot less also gets exactly 3000km out of a shifter cable, so it must be the terrain rather than the abuse.

The others not so:
- 1500-2000km to a chain. Hoping to fix this with immersive waxing.
- 6000km to a cassette. Same.
- 1000km to a rear tyre. This is just ridiculous and I know of no-one else who does that - though I can get 1500km out of a GP5000TR.

But the frames have been the real carnage. In the last two years:
- Bowman Palace cracked through both chainstays. This seems to have genuinely been a manufacturing fault.
- Avanti Giro snapped through the downtube. probably aluminium fatigue, and 30,000km+ half of which was on an indoor trainer.
- Trek Checkpoint ALR5 warranty replacement due to cross threaded BB from factory. Hey, that one's just bad luck and clearly not my fault.
- Focus Izalco Max snapped through the seatstay. That one's probably on me but still a weird failure.
- Wahoo Kickr Core snapped a steel tube in half. Also on me, with the warranty claim statement 'this is not a common failure'.

Pretty sure all of this is a consequence of a mild but fixed scoliosis (so I can't straighten my back fully) and a fit based on a 20 year old bike which has left me riding slightly undersized framesets, often climbing in a standing position. With a lowish cadence and high power to weight ratio it presumably puts a lot of lateral force through the frame as well as picking it up from the ground a fair bit which kills things.

Either way three days in hospital and 12 weeks off the bike due to another snapped frame has you think about things so I'm hoping a proper bike fit and some focus on saddle height and sitting and spinning will fix it. I think if I bought a heftier frame I'd still do the same thing because I'd need more power to go uphill and throw it around a lot more.

[AndrewCowley]

Mr Purple we are the same. A normal week for me is 6000m of climbing. It leads to poor wear rates. Am thinking of waxing too but still can't get my mind into gear on this.

GP 5000 tyres are fast but they don't last. I use Continental 4 Seasons tyres. They are noticeably slower but last at last 8000km.

[Mr Purple]

Call from the shop today. Focus have predictably done the minimum required of the warranty claim and shipped out an identical frameset in a different colour.

So now I'm the proud owner of a NOS 2017 Focus Izalco Max in AG2R colours. When I first had the bike built up two years back they originally shipped out an AG2R version, which was Di2 specific and had to go back. I'm suspicious this is exactly the same frameset, we'll find out when it arrives and is Di2 specific. It probably still has my name on it from last time.

There may be someone who will ride a frameset identical to one that just broke and tried to kill them, but it's not me. I'll sell it for $1-1.5k on Facebook Marketplace to offset the new bike. Someone will get a nice basis for a lightweight climbing bike out of it, but I sort of feel bad selling it!

[baabaa]

Gawd - take care with that.
Belly ache starts now - I am at day 86 from a long spiral fracture(s) of the fibula surgery which needed a long plate, a heap of screws plus some sort of cord to fix the fibular to the tibia - all from a very simple trip up while walking from a fallen ringlock fence that I snagged a toe boot in. Have run over this thing for months but somehow not that day.
The post op 6 weeks of non weight bearing for the leg almost drove me crazy. The swelling right up to last week has also kept me pretty much sofa bound and static. Thought I would be off the bike for a very long time and guessing my days of trial running would also change. BUT - last week I felt a odd "clunk" in my foot and it seems the bones may have "refound" the right spot they belong in,the tension went away and within an hour my pain just did the same...

Is hard to go from running 10 km a day and biking often to doing nothing, so look after yourself and try and get as much time in nature that you can. I am still off the bikes and can't even look at them without feeling a bit glum. Will see what the orthopaedic surgeon says next week.
Long story short - the simple unforseen accidents can be just as bad as silly ones. I also felt like a fool taking up health care time and services and I have changed a lot of my risk management thinking and theories around biking. If you can avoid hospital, try and do the best you can. For me it is just slowing down and then importantly always take care when doing things out of mobile range.
Belly ache stops now

Anyway back to bikes and while pretty techy this is worth a look not so much on the type of materials of a frame but the explanation on the finer points of flex and stiffness.


(I need to watch it again, but as I ride frames around 60cm plus thinking size must also play a part in all that and I may have fluked it with the three bikes I have in a sportive, cx and single speed 29er flavours with True Temper OX platinum frames as they are a ideal match to the size and then my weight of 81/82 kgs)

[MichaelB]

Gawd - take care with that.
Belly ache starts now - I am at day 86 from a long spiral fracture(s) ....

Long story short - the simple unforseen accidents can be just as bad as silly ones. ...

For me it is just slowing down and then importantly always take care when doing things out of mobile range.
Belly ache stops now

Anyway back to bikes and while pretty techy this is worth a look not so much on the type of materials of a frame but the explanation on the finer points of flex and stiffness.
....

Ouch, nasty. I too have slowed down a bit since I did my shoulder ages ago, and getting older doesn't help recovery time.

Managed to get on the Llewellyn for the 1st time in many months on the weekend and it was sublime.

[warthog1]

Ouch, nasty. I too have slowed down a bit since I did my shoulder ages ago, and getting older doesn't help recovery time.

Managed to get on the Llewellyn for the 1st time in many months on the weekend and it was sublime.

Cycling aint good for bone density. Load bearing exercise or some sort of impact exercise like running or skipping is needed too. Pity I dislike those exercises. I would run but L5/S1 microdiscectomy rules that out.
I fractured multiple bones in my last fast fall..


Glad your Llewellyn is very enjoyable

[Mr Purple]

So back when I first built my Focus they accidentally delivered a 2017 AG2R DI2 specific frame that had to be sent back because I had a mechanical groupset.

Stopped by the shop to pick up the warranty replacement frameset today after that one tried to kill me, and it's a 2017 AG2R Di2 specific frameset. Presumably the exact same one they got wrong last time.

Shop reckons Focus are insisting they build up the replacement frameset, which obviously won't be that one. Bit rough because the frame breaking smashed the lefthand shifter and bars, which Focus of course won't cover.

Suspect there may be lawyers involved at some point here. Just feel sorry for the shop handling it given they just copped all this because the shop that built it closed and they're the only other agent in the area.

[blizzard]

How frustrating for everyone involved.

[Mr Purple]

How frustrating for everyone involved.

Yep. You'd think Focus at this point would just look at the circumstances and the receipt I have for the frameset and just say 'hey, how about we refund this guy his money'.

Presumably they'll be scouring stock in the country trying to find another XS frame. Not sure what to do if they manage to find an updated frame and want to have it built up. Might see if I can source a 105 Di2 groupset from somewhere and just use it for the flat rides. RRP on the Izalco Max frameset is around the $5k mark.

[jasonc]

How frustrating for everyone involved.

Yep. You'd think Focus at this point would just look at the circumstances and the receipt I have for the frameset and just say 'hey, how about we refund this guy his money'.

Presumably they'll be scouring stock in the country trying to find another XS frame. Not sure what to do if they manage to find an updated frame and want to have it built up. Might see if I can source a 105 Di2 groupset from somewhere and just use it for the flat rides. RRP on the Izalco Max frameset is around the $5k mark.

had a mate get a warranty on an old rim-braked Trek Domane frame. all new Trek frames were disc. so the offer was a frame, or a similar costed price reduction on a new bike.

[Mr Purple]

had a mate get a warranty on an old rim-braked Trek Domane frame. all new Trek frames were disc. so the offer was a frame, or a similar costed price reduction on a new bike.

If that option comes up I'd probably take it.

I think the issue is that it wasn't a complete bike, it was just a frame. But it sounds like your mate had the same issue.

The Focus warranty advice actually says they'll replace it with a newer frameset if the original is NLA, which I think we're at about this point.

[warthog1]

Get the bike built up and flog it off. Buy a Giant. Biggest CF manufacturer in the world and great warranty support.

[Duck!]

Not road, but just a little tale from my time in a shop to add to the above post. A customer had a 2008-model Giant Anthem XC MTB, quite decent spec for its time, which cracked around the down tube/bottom bracket joint. 10-ish years down the track from when the bike was built, Giant didn't have any compatible frames to hang the existing components onto, so they offered the customer a whole new bike of the then-current equivalent spec, plus the choice of either the Anthem or next step in suspension travel Trance model. The customer chose his new bike, and after sending photographic proof to Giant that a hacksaw had been run through the frame, I got the broken bike as a parts donor. Happy times all round!

[Mr Purple]

Get the bike built up and flog it off. Buy a Giant. Biggest CF manufacturer in the world and great warranty support.

It'll probably come to this I suspect. Will be annoying to have to source a replacement shifter and bars though. I'd rather just be selling off the frame.

I do like the idea of Giant. I'm sure they'll stand by their warranty and it be less likely to break in the first place.

[JPB]

Giant replaced the frame on my aluminium Revolt when it developed a crack, no issues.

[blizzard]

I had a mate that had his 6-7 year old Defy frame warrantied straight away due to a crack by Giant Brisbane.

Trek and Specialized seem to have decent warranty too, partially due to their ubiquity.

[Mr Purple]

I had a mate that had his 6-7 year old Defy frame warrantied straight away due to a crack by Giant Brisbane.

Trek and Specialized seem to have decent warranty too, partially due to their ubiquity.

My list is Giant TCR/Specialized Aethos/Trek Madone for exactly this reason. And the Madone is probably a little too heavy and weird.

[Mr Purple]

So Focus have come to the party and are shipping a complete current model Izalco Max 9 frameset - comes with the aero seatpost and stem.

Given I'll have to source a LHS Ultegra mechanical shifter anyway ($300) I'm considering building this up with a 105 Di2 groupset (about $1500).

Possibly dumb, but I figure I can ride it for a while and that'll bring more on the used market. Most likely not enough to get the $1200 back but it'd be nice to try a decent aero bike for a while anyway.

What are the odds on me breaking two completely different generations of the same bike? Probably best not to answer that.

[jasonc]

So Focus have come to the party and are shipping a complete current model Izalco Max 9 frameset - comes with the aero seatpost and stem.

Given I'll have to source a LHS Ultegra mechanical shifter anyway ($300) I'm considering building this up with a 105 Di2 groupset (about $1500).

Possibly dumb, but I figure I can ride it for a while and that'll bring more on the used market. Most likely not enough to get the $1200 back but it'd be nice to try a decent aero bike for a while anyway.

What are the odds on me breaking two completely different generations of the same bike? Probably best not to answer that.

easy to upgrade a 105 di2 groupset too if you want to save weight - the 105 brakes are A LOT heavier than the dura-ace brakes

from memory the ccache website was the cheapest to buy the 105 di2 groupset (and had stock)
the other thing is to contact jules21 and see if he as a mechanical shifter for you
wait. is the new frame disc?

[Mr Purple]

I've actually got some unused DuraAce discs around and will use those, along with the minimally used 11S DuraAce crankset.

It'll never be particularly light (probably around the 8kg mark) but should be nice and aero.

Might seem weird building up another Izalco frameset but end investment isn't all that much, and I can always sell it on later if I want to go lighter.

You're right - I've priced it up on CCache and it's cheapest. Yes, it's a disc frameset, I believe that generation is only disc.

[jasonc]

good time to order some wheels from aliexpress (there's a discount code for singles day)