Tollers
Guru
- Location
- San Francisco, California
When i ordered my Bianchi Sempre frame, despite my original plans to build it myself, my LBS offered to do the build for me. Seeing as i don't have a headset press, or a tool to install the OS ultra-torque BB cups i thought i'd take them up on the offer.
When the frame arrived, i took in my current bike to have the parts switched over, having wrote down exactly what i wanted them to do and supplied a few other parts (new stem on the new bike).
My first shock came when i went to pick up the build and the old frame. They had taken the headset cap from the old build and put it on the new bike, leaving me without a headset top. Now, anyone who's bought a frame before knows that frames come with headsets, but they had simply decided not to include the top cap for my new frame and instead used the incorrectly fitting one from my old bike. After a bit of arguing they said they would do me a discount on a headset cap.....and then sold me the cap that was meant to come with my new frame.
Second shock, i asked for the old stem from the original bike. At which point they looked worried! It turns out they had put it in the glass counter display case and marked it as for sale for $50!!!!!
Now, the most recent shock came last night. I was giving the new bike the once over and noticed that there sounded like friction when i turned the cranks, so, i took off the crankset to take a look.
It seems that instead of fitting the OS Ultra-torque cups, they fitted the new Power-Torque cups. That may sound like a subtle difference, but my Super Record UT crankset has expensive ceramic bearings fitted to the axle, whereas power torque has the non drive side bearing in the cup. They also have a different tensioning system. Basically, the two are incompatible. To cope with this, it seems they removed the ceramic bearing from my non-drive side crank and then fitted a hugely strong spring washer to take up the slack. This springs tension was the cause of the friction in my BB and the lateral force seems to have destroyed the fitted bearing in the power torque cup.
So....now i'm faced with the repair. They never told me what they'd tried to do and i'm shocked that they just didn't order the right part. The ceramic bearing they removed wasn't mentioned or returned to me, so i've had to order a new set of bearings, the right cups (they charged me for the wrong ones too despite this useless hack). I'll be going to a different LBS to get them fitted.
Worst (or best) of all. I'm venting in CC, because i can't vent at the shop. They've since gone bankrupt and no surprise if they are treating people's very expensive pride and joys with such bodge jobs.
Anyway.....i'll be $300 down, but am sure i'll get it running sweetly soon. Moral of the story......
1) If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself.
2) CC has collectively the 1,000x the experience of any single bike mechanic/cowboy. Anyone can do anything with the help of CC.
EDIT: 3) For reference, Ultra-torque and Power-torque are NOT compatible/interchangable
Anyway, rant over. Thanks for listening
Mark
When the frame arrived, i took in my current bike to have the parts switched over, having wrote down exactly what i wanted them to do and supplied a few other parts (new stem on the new bike).
My first shock came when i went to pick up the build and the old frame. They had taken the headset cap from the old build and put it on the new bike, leaving me without a headset top. Now, anyone who's bought a frame before knows that frames come with headsets, but they had simply decided not to include the top cap for my new frame and instead used the incorrectly fitting one from my old bike. After a bit of arguing they said they would do me a discount on a headset cap.....and then sold me the cap that was meant to come with my new frame.
Second shock, i asked for the old stem from the original bike. At which point they looked worried! It turns out they had put it in the glass counter display case and marked it as for sale for $50!!!!!
Now, the most recent shock came last night. I was giving the new bike the once over and noticed that there sounded like friction when i turned the cranks, so, i took off the crankset to take a look.
It seems that instead of fitting the OS Ultra-torque cups, they fitted the new Power-Torque cups. That may sound like a subtle difference, but my Super Record UT crankset has expensive ceramic bearings fitted to the axle, whereas power torque has the non drive side bearing in the cup. They also have a different tensioning system. Basically, the two are incompatible. To cope with this, it seems they removed the ceramic bearing from my non-drive side crank and then fitted a hugely strong spring washer to take up the slack. This springs tension was the cause of the friction in my BB and the lateral force seems to have destroyed the fitted bearing in the power torque cup.
So....now i'm faced with the repair. They never told me what they'd tried to do and i'm shocked that they just didn't order the right part. The ceramic bearing they removed wasn't mentioned or returned to me, so i've had to order a new set of bearings, the right cups (they charged me for the wrong ones too despite this useless hack). I'll be going to a different LBS to get them fitted.
Worst (or best) of all. I'm venting in CC, because i can't vent at the shop. They've since gone bankrupt and no surprise if they are treating people's very expensive pride and joys with such bodge jobs.
Anyway.....i'll be $300 down, but am sure i'll get it running sweetly soon. Moral of the story......
1) If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself.
2) CC has collectively the 1,000x the experience of any single bike mechanic/cowboy. Anyone can do anything with the help of CC.
EDIT: 3) For reference, Ultra-torque and Power-torque are NOT compatible/interchangable
Anyway, rant over. Thanks for listening
Mark
) but both can never get the right headset cap for the headset they've fit. Currently the road bike they fitted a new headset to has a Campag headset with a Cane Creek cap? Until a recent refit, the mtb had some anonymous cap on a Token Carbon headset. Do they collect the nice headset caps for themselves, are there so many rolling around in the workshop that they just pick some random one?
