Bicycle Canticles

(part 1)

I will preface with this: I have no hard evidence.  I’m writing this entirely from my perspective, and I am telling these facts as I experienced them. With that in mind, here we go –

September-ish. I was on my way home from work when I heard an uncomfortable scraping sound coming from the back of my bike. An investigation found that the my fender was dragging on the rear tire because the mount on the seatstay bridge was hanging by a tread, which disengaged itself along with my fender as soon as I stopped. I tucked the fender into my backpack and rode home sans butt coverage.

H4ckw0r+h and I examined the damage and we were pretty certain that this was a defect in the frame, and would be covered under their warranty. Under that assumption, most manufacturers we’ve dealt with would replace the frame.  No photo of the damaged frame was taken. I do, however, still have my fender with the connector attached, and can show the piece the broke off the frame:

Close-up of the mount, where the frame failed:

Detach the fender from the screw for better view:

Same piece, underside:

Now, the Swobo seat are neat, with a built-in light in the seat post that I adore.  But my short little legs require the seats to be low, and there isn’t enough room for my old fenders to attach to the seatpost. So Wheelworks recommended the fender above, and even helped me install it.  In retrospect, that mount was the only thing holding the fender as it bounces up/down during my rides, which probably put more strain on the mount than it was meant to handle.

Because of my work schedule, H4ckw0r+h was kind enough to bring my purchase receipt and Dixon to Wheelworks on 09/02/09. They checked it out, said it was cool and it makes sense to do a warranty frame-swap, took the bike and said they’d keep us posted with updates from Swobo.

I wait.

(part 3)