Ouch. That's not good. Better inform Gerard.

I'm pretty sure he just did. I'm also sure that Gerard will take care of this issue, but I do agree that it's a scary find!

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
Get Fitter!
Proud member of the Smartasscrew, MONSTER CLUB
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I'm new here, so please forgive my ignorance... sounds like Gerard is a Cervelo employee? If so, I have a gripe to air here. First, I love my Soloist Team. Love it. I ride it 5x more than my Colnago C40. On to my gripe. The front deraileur mount is vertical (i.e., 90 degrees), on the 73 degree seat tube. This means the FD isn't sloped back the way it's supposed to, making the tail of the cage higher than it should be. Thus, any bounce in the chain means noise. Very annoying. And it will throw the chain off more often as well. Very very annoying.

I've looked around, and I can't find any others that are this way. My numerous contact attempts w/ Cervelo were rather curtly replied, and ultimately led to a "take it to the shop, they'll adjust it corectly, and if need be send the frame back." Well, I know how to adjust a deraileur, the shop is far away, and I sent pictures already. Plus, I need the darn bike and can't just hand it over for them to potentially take their time replacing. So, what did I want them to do? 1) to be nice about it rather than argumentative. 2) offer some other kind of option -- I told them I could use a dedicated TT bike, so give me a deal on a closeout 2004 P2K or something. But they just stopped responding.

In summary, I wouldn't trade my Soloist as it is a perfect fit, I'm going to live with the chain throw and noise now and then. And I just may get a P2K or P3 for TTing. But I'm also going to give Q-Roo and others a better look than I would have.

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**************
Too f@ckin depressed from various injuries to care about having a signature line.

Sponsored by Blue Shield PPO.

gerard is THE cervelo employee....he owns it.

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"Anyone can work hard when they want to; Champions do it when they don't."

Gerard Vroomen and Phil White founded Cervelo together. Unless I missed something huge, Phil is still around - but he lets Gerard handle us forum monkeys. ;)

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
Get Fitter!
Proud member of the Smartasscrew, MONSTER CLUB
Get your FIX today?

Ari -- Sorry to hear about your frame. That sucks. I'm sure Cervelo will take care of it. I don't think this reflects poorly on Cervelo. This is a new model, and new models always have problems in the beginning until all of the production issues are worked out. I bet they get you a new frame in a hurry, and will use yours as a sacrificial lamb to figure out why it failed, so it won't happen again.

I had a similar problem with my frame when I got it last summer. I had a defective fork, that would not allow the headset to stay in adjustment. The steerer tube ended up cracking. Once I replaced the fork, all problems resolved and I love the bike.

Be patient and keep the faith.

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*****
"In case of flood climb to safety"

Keep the Faith? Is this a Red Sox thread?

Oh ya, the R 2.5....As much as I love my Cervelo I think I should point out that over on roadbikereview.com there are a few stories about R 2.5 frame failures. This may be more of a statement about the type of material rather than the company, the quality of my aluminum frame is amazing. CST

it's not a new bike but it sounds like you are open to a solution.

setting the front derailleur mount on a bike can be a little tricky. a fraction of a degree out can cause a big distance down the derailleur cage several inches away. as a mechanic i routinely cut a tiny rectangle of plastic coke bottle and slip it between the front derailleur and the braze on. in your case putting it on top of the bolt will drop the rear end down. it's amazing how much it will drop for a thin shim. tighten the bolt and it will be secure and your probelms will be solved. if your good you can cut the piece to the perfect size so no one will see.

again it's not a new frame but it will save you a rebuild, ship cost, and time all for a $1.50 (but come on you were going to drink that coke anyway).

How many people remember back when the OCLV came out? Remember how they all cracked under the bottom bracket. Stuff like that happens. That's why I'll always stick with a brand that will stick behind their bikes. A lifetime warrenty says "don't worry buddy I'll be there when you need me." Sniff.... I think I'm going to call my dad.

Are you saying, that just because Cervelo is going to back up on their product, it is ok to sell it before it is tested long enough to confirm it´s strenght and potential weaknesses?



Hearing about carbonframes with lousy bonding isn´t new stuff. Maybe all you carbon-freaks should think about that when you lust after the newest, hottest carbon-ride.



Time to give those lovely titanium-frames a closer look, huuh?



Regards



Martin

ouch. assuming the stories at roadbikereview are similar in nature, it sounds like a processing issue (i.e. poor bonding practices) first, or maybe a bad batch of adhesive. these frames are, generally, too new to have been exposed to the elements long enough for a corrosion reaction to be occurring at the interface between the stays and the dropout...but out of curiosity, did you notice any "powder" or pitting in the metal?



it was either Gerard or Ves who I remember going on record as saying his designs (and fabricators?)were extra careful about consistent bondline thickness, galvanic corrosion barriers (i.e. a layer of fiberglass between the aluminum and carbon), and the like...and that not every company out there doing carbon stays paid as much attention to these things.



in any case, let's wait to hear the story from Gerard and see what the root cause is. like others, I'm confident he'll bird dog this until he's sure it's fixed.

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Carl Matson

As an owner of both the R2.5 and the P2K I can tell you that both are very quality bikes. I love both of the. I ride the R2.5 more at this point in the year. I have only had them over just over 2 months (aint my wife grand, bought me 2 top bikes the same day, I love her) and have not had a single issue with either one. I've got maybe 400m on the R2.5 and it's not had any problems. I can't say enought about the ride of the carbon R2.5.

Problems happend and I'll stand by a company that will stand by me.

Aztec,

Maybe I'm a little dense... Are you saying that the hanger for the front derailleur is turned 17 degrees to the downtube? If so, Wow!

I had a problem with running a triple on my 2003 Soloist, in that its hanger is mounted too far forward. I had to have a huge (20mm) shim made to push the derailleur rearward. But my hanger does run parallel to the downtube.

--Mark

"and what was the reason Cervelo put those carbon stays on there again?"

While you have a point about the carbon stays...let it be noted that the ONLY bikes Cervelo makes with carbon stays are its FULL CARBON FRAMES...They don't do the carbon stay thing on their aluminum bikes.

So your small dig at Cervelo is off base. Your obvious bias against carbon bikes blinded you to that "small" detail.

I see your point about not buying carbon bikes due to failures, but I once rode over a guy who had his new, high end steel bike break for no apparent reason, I've had an aluminum chainstay crack, an aquaintence had a ti bike break, the early Mg frames all broke... I never heard of a Be frame breaking or a bamboo one, but only a dozen or so frames have been made in those materials.



Styrrell

I am demanding Gerard put steel stays on all his full carbon bikes.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Yes -- the FD mount is perfectly vertical, while the seat tube is at 73*. A wedge isn't going to work for this, as it's way WAY too big of an angle to try to create. I'd need an offsetting wedge on the other side of the bracket, of course, which makes it all the more of a kludge.

Clearly, Cervelo messed up on this. And I'm getting more and more annoyed at it (even more so when I think about how they stopped responding to my emails on the subject).

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**************
Too f@ckin depressed from various injuries to care about having a signature line.

Sponsored by Blue Shield PPO.

You ride your Soloist Team 5 times more than your C-40??? Man, you deserve anything bad that can happen! ;-)))

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

I’m sorry to hear about your problem. As you may know, the rear dropout area is traditionally a problematic area on carbon frames (some of the other posters in this thread have commented on other brands), so we have gone to great lengths to develop a system that avoids these problems. The result is that this kind of problem is now very rare on an R2.5 (keep in mind that thousands have been sold). That said it will continue to have our attention and in fact, we recently developed an additional test that checks the bond of the dropouts even more accurately. We're sorry yours slipped through our quality control.

If you would like, feel free to e-mail me your information and the name of the shop you are dealing with, and I will make sure your frame is replaced asap.

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Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle

C-40, oh yeah the sexy stuff.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Gerard,

Were talking up a carbon Soloist earlier. I think I sold a bunch already, so as soon as you want to get to work making it, that would be really great...

Although, no pics of it, or Mr. Tibbs really will go blind...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Hey, the C40 (HP version, no less, and in one of the colors that actually looks good) is awesome, no doubt. And for the only century I rode, it came with me. It's smooth, and probably all 'round faster/better. You can really tell when you hit a pothole. Plus, it's as stable as a bike gets. It's the most expensive art I'll ever own, sitting poised in the garage on a rack w/ Rolf Prima Vigors...

I bought the Soloist thinking it would be my race (read: crit crash), rain, and sometimes TT bike. And it is. After awhile I decided that I like the sloped top tube, and I got the fit *just* right. Slowly, the Campy Veloce stuff "fell" off and Record found its way on!

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**************
Too f@ckin depressed from various injuries to care about having a signature line.

Sponsored by Blue Shield PPO.

I don't understand what the problem is? I just went out and looked at my bikes, and I have three with braze-on FD's (a P2K, a Bianchi, and a Torelli). All three have a der. hanger that is 90 degrees when the bike is on the ground. What I mean is that they are straight up and down as the bike sits on the floor. The seat tube slopes back, but the hanger is vertical. Sorry to sound picky, but I think I must be misunderstanding your problem. Is it possible that your front deraileur is bent, or mis-adjusted. On my bikes, if the der. hanger were aligned with the seat tube the cage would be in the chain rings. One note, I did notice that all my front der's. have a slightly larger gap at the back of the cage than at the top, between the cage and chainring that is.

Bottom line. Based on all the pictures I could find, and my own bikes; the front deraileur hanger is supposed to be vertical (perpendicular to the ground).

Chris