Cyclescheme refund - legal advice wanted

[Crankarm]

Greg - That crossed my mind yesterday evening although the 09 model was, iirc, also able to take rack and guards, albeit a disc specific rack.

Bikepete - Good grief! I bodge, I don't engineer! Fair point, I didn't know about the spacers. Mind you, Minoura know about luggage and they were responsible for the Space Grip...

I have been bodging things onto my bikes for years. Trust me, a GT Rave does not take kindly to having a rack and mudguards forced onto it, but that's a racing bike which happens to have the relevant fittings so I'll accept the compromise. The Kona is designed with light touring/commuting in mind. That's a key part of the bike's purpose (hence my question about 'not fit for')so the design fail on display is pretty shoddy, to say the least. If you have to start modifying standard accessories in order to make them fit, that's a failing on the part of the manufacturer.

I'll probably go with the guard and rack on the same 'ole. If the bolt fails and I die horribly then Baggy has instructions to sue you all until your gizzards glow.

No it's not .

Your bike is fit for purpose end of. Anyway how long have you had it? You've probably lost your right to reject anyway. As your issue is so minor and peripheral to the main functioning of your bike it does not amount to not fit for purpose. As Greg suggested you should have asked the retailer to supply and fit a rack before you took possession of the bike. It's not hard to mount a rack on your bike. To blame Kona because an aftermarket accessory won't fit is a bit rich. You should have chosen a model with a rack if that was an important consideration for you. An aftermarket rack will fit your bike with a simple modification/adaptor plate. There are so many aftermarket accessories it's totally unreasonable for you to insist that Kona, or any other bike manufacturer, makes sure they all fit their bikes .

 

[Baggy]

As Greg suggested you should have asked the retailer to supply and fit a rack before you took possession of the bike. It's not hard to mount a rack on your bike.

Or taking your post in reverse, it's not that hard to fit a rack to a bike, so why would you ask a retailer to supply and fit one?

Why should you need to anticipate that a bike designed for light touring/commuting might be incredibly difficult to fit a rack to?

 

[Noodley]

You've gone and done it now crankers! You've got Baggy wound up....


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO38rf1m0FU&feature=related

 

[Chuffy]

As Greg suggested you should have asked the retailer to supply and fit a rack before you took possession of the bike.

Why? I have many racks at home, any one of which should have been ok.

It's not hard to mount a rack on your bike. To blame Kona because an aftermarket accessory won't fit is a bit rich. You should have chosen a model with a rack if that was an important consideration for you. An aftermarket rack will fit your bike with a simple modification/adaptor plate.

You know what? I thought I had chosen a model that would take a rack. Without having to bugger about with nasty bodges or a metalwork kit.

There are so many aftermarket accessories it's totally unreasonable for you to insist that Kona, or any other bike manufacturer, makes sure they all fit their bikes .

Tell you what, go to Google and find me a rack that has minimal metal around the bolt hole. Should be dead easy, after all every rack manufacturer tells you this, don't they? After all, why should Kona bother to design an eyelet tab for their do-anything commuter/tourer that will accomodate any rack (by making it stand 5mm further off the seat stay) when five minutes on Google will find the one rack that fits! You've got ten minutes, should be enough to find what you want, make a cuppa and scratch your balls.

 

[dodgy]

Those eyelets definitely look like disk brake mounts to me.

 

[Crackle]

Those eyelets definitely look like disk brake mounts to me.

Presumably they wouldn't be on both sides though if they were.

 

[Crankarm]

Why? I have many racks at home, any one of which should have been ok.


You know what? I thought I had chosen a model that would take a rack. Without having to bugger about with nasty bodges or a metalwork kit.


Tell you what, go to Google and find me a rack that has minimal metal around the bolt hole. Should be dead easy, after all every rack manufacturer tells you this, don't they? After all, why should Kona bother to design an eyelet tab for their do-anything commuter/tourer that will accomodate any rack (by making it stand 5mm further off the seat stay) when five minutes on Google will find the one rack that fits! You've got ten minutes, should be enough to find what you want, make a cuppa and scratch your balls.

You know I spent some time on my initial post to you which you totally ignored including adding some pics of what I did to fit a rack to my Kona which also has disc brakes. I am glad I have now removed it as you really appear to be an ungrateful unpleasant person. Next time I will be more mindful not to waste my time trying to help .

 

[Noodley]

I am glad I have now removed it...

A post-modifying flounce?...

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Looking at the picture, Chuffy, as others have said, those really do look like disc brake mountings. The question is, if you were to have a case, were Kona really claiming that they were rack and guard mountings or did they just look like they were to you when you decided to buy it?

(And, to Crankarm - you may have wanted to help, but you seem to manage to come across as aggressive and disagreeable, so people are hardly going to say 'thank-you'...)

 

[Crankarm]

Looking at the picture, Chuffy, as others have said, those really do look like disc brake mountings. The question is, if you were to have a case, were Kona really claiming that they were rack and guard mountings or did they just look like they were to you when you decided to buy it?

(And, to Crankarm - you may have wanted to help, but you seem to manage to come across as aggressive and disagreeable, so people are hardly going to say 'thank-you'...)

Oh no not another one .......

And of course you've got form .

My initial post was informative ending in "I hope this helps". What is agressive or disagreeable about that?

On the few occasions I have posted for advice on a technical matters the first thing I do is thank everyone for their contributions whether their suggestions prove practical, uselful, helpful or not as the case may be. I don't think that the OP Chuffy has done this? In fact his OP suggests that he is intending suing Kona, the retailer or his employer or any combination of these partys or all of them , rather than taking on board advice and trying to find a practical solution to the problem which I get the impression is not uppermost in his mind .

 

[Crankarm]

A post-modifying flounce?...

No chance. A Special type of Armadillo is my skin .

 

[dodgy]

This picture looks different to yours, the brakes on this Dew Drop are mounted in a different place.

 

[Ian H]

Looking at the picture, Chuffy, as others have said, those really do look like disc brake mountings.

The proof of the pudding is whether they're the same on both stays.

 

[Ian H]

This reminds me that my shiny new Ti frame arrived with two rear eyelets as specified, which were too close together to allow use of both. Its predecessor, the Ribble, had to be returned for the seat-stay bridge to be repositioned, but the the cable guides for dynamo wiring weren't right and I lived with that. I think I've had to bodge to fit more fittings than not, over the years. Partly it's just that bikes have always been assemblages of parts rather than single objects (though they're increasingly sold as such). As to what degree we should put up with this...I dunno.

 

[g00se]

Techie-geek post - but some advise too....

I've a Dew Plus 2009 that suffered a similar issue with rack mounting due to the position of the rear calliper. The solution on the Dew Plus was a more dog-legged seat stay to accommodate the mechanical calliper between the seat and chain stays. With the Dew Drop, I guess they were able to fit the hydraulic calliper between the stays without such a mod to the frame.

Dew Plus old and new:

Dew Drop old and new:

Now, my suggestion is to head over to the Kona website, and visit the forums:

http://forums.konaworld.com/index.php

Sign up (you need to, otherwise you only see guest posts) and post on the tech-support forum. The Kona staff on there will probably be able to find out how the frame was changed and why - and suggest how to mount the rack. They can be ridiculously helpful on there.