mail2josh
07-30-2004, 10:42 PM
I just returned from a two week bicycle trip to France to witness Lance win his sixth tour. The trip was absolutely incredible and I rode the most beautiful terrain I've ever seen. Climbing 22km such as the Col du Glandon or Mt. Ventoux really makes my local 5-6 mile climbs seem easy.
Here's the disaster:
Before my trip I was debating which bike I should bring to France between my prized Ottrott ST, or my backup bike. Logic told me to bring the back up bike because I was traveling with 8 cyclists and my bike was likely to get banged up. With this in mind why risk beating up the ultimate bicycle ever produced? Emotion told me that I am going to ride the mecca of cycling and that's exactly where the Ottrott should be. I started to ask myself if I'd bring my backup clubs if I ever have the opportunity to golf Pebble Beach. Easy decision, I'm taking the Ottrott.
Three days prior to departure I brought my Ottrott to City Cycle in San Francisco to get a full tune up and a new chain so that I'd be all dialed in for the trip. I picked up the bike and it worked perfectly. This is when the nightmare began.
On the way home my wife asked me to stop at a local store so that she could run an errand. When I pulled into the parking lot I didn't notice the low hanging pipe overhead, nor did I think about the fact that my bike was on the roof rack. All of the sudden I heard a scraping sound that seemed as if I were running over a big piece of metal! I didn't realize what was happening until I saw my prized possession falling over the side of my car. Silence. Silence was all that occured for the next few minutes, as I hoped that I would awake from this nightmare.
The bike was ripped out of the fork mounted roof rack, there was a huge gauge down to the carbon in the top tube, my shifter was bent inwards, and the only part of my Fizik Arione saddle left on the bike was the Ti rails.
At this point I decided that maybe I should take the backup bike to France!
City Cycle re-fitted me on the back up bike to match my positioning on the Ottrott and I bought a new Arione so that I didn't need to get used to a new saddle on my trip. I broke a spoke on my Ksyrium SL's which are the 2004 silver version. They replaced it with a black spoke that they had in stock. They got me in right away and really helped me out when I needed it.
The good news about this story is that when I bought the bike, I also purchased the owners club with crash coverage. I was told that most of the repairs performed occured from roof rack incidents and remember thinking, what kind of idiot wouldn't know he had a bike on the roof? Fortunately, the crash coverage is covering most of the damage.
The entire front end of the bike is being replaced. I actually have to decide if I want to keep the same appearance, or opt for a new look. Either way I plan on keeping the one black spoke on a silver wheel in memory of the original frame.
Hope this never happens to any of you.
Cheers,
Josh
Here's the disaster:
Before my trip I was debating which bike I should bring to France between my prized Ottrott ST, or my backup bike. Logic told me to bring the back up bike because I was traveling with 8 cyclists and my bike was likely to get banged up. With this in mind why risk beating up the ultimate bicycle ever produced? Emotion told me that I am going to ride the mecca of cycling and that's exactly where the Ottrott should be. I started to ask myself if I'd bring my backup clubs if I ever have the opportunity to golf Pebble Beach. Easy decision, I'm taking the Ottrott.
Three days prior to departure I brought my Ottrott to City Cycle in San Francisco to get a full tune up and a new chain so that I'd be all dialed in for the trip. I picked up the bike and it worked perfectly. This is when the nightmare began.
On the way home my wife asked me to stop at a local store so that she could run an errand. When I pulled into the parking lot I didn't notice the low hanging pipe overhead, nor did I think about the fact that my bike was on the roof rack. All of the sudden I heard a scraping sound that seemed as if I were running over a big piece of metal! I didn't realize what was happening until I saw my prized possession falling over the side of my car. Silence. Silence was all that occured for the next few minutes, as I hoped that I would awake from this nightmare.
The bike was ripped out of the fork mounted roof rack, there was a huge gauge down to the carbon in the top tube, my shifter was bent inwards, and the only part of my Fizik Arione saddle left on the bike was the Ti rails.
At this point I decided that maybe I should take the backup bike to France!
City Cycle re-fitted me on the back up bike to match my positioning on the Ottrott and I bought a new Arione so that I didn't need to get used to a new saddle on my trip. I broke a spoke on my Ksyrium SL's which are the 2004 silver version. They replaced it with a black spoke that they had in stock. They got me in right away and really helped me out when I needed it.
The good news about this story is that when I bought the bike, I also purchased the owners club with crash coverage. I was told that most of the repairs performed occured from roof rack incidents and remember thinking, what kind of idiot wouldn't know he had a bike on the roof? Fortunately, the crash coverage is covering most of the damage.
The entire front end of the bike is being replaced. I actually have to decide if I want to keep the same appearance, or opt for a new look. Either way I plan on keeping the one black spoke on a silver wheel in memory of the original frame.
Hope this never happens to any of you.
Cheers,
Josh