M2racer, I'm DONE with ye! BEGONE! (attn: record10carbon)

Triathlon Forum
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(r10c, read to the end, you’ll see…)

CONFESSION: My prophecy from the last dance with this component (http://tinyurl.com/2hxx4) was faulty. I’m man enough to admit that I was wrong.

The “sping” from somewhere under/behind my nether regions a week ago hardly came as a surprise. Where I’d erred was in forecasting the source. Hindsight (ha) being 20/20, I should’ve known it would in fact be the Power Module YET AGAIN that let me down.

http://tinyurl.com/ch8pc

The pics show where it failed. Similar location to that cited by other Slowtwitchers as well as the local guy I recommended this POS to. That was before I bought one myself. He doesn’t talk to me anymore. I deserve it.

No, the curve in the lower portion of the rails is not caused by the mounting system (though you’d be right to guess that it was)…at least one other poster has noted that they sometimes (always?) come like this right out of the box. Mine did. The two bolts you see are the mods I made after the SECOND time this damn thing broke on me. They worked. As I predicted, the failure was driven somewhere else.

Yes, my irrational insistence on retaining a frame and fit that worked for me led me to give this thing more chances that it deserved. Yes, I modified it to stay in positional heaven rather than go spend mega$$ on a new bike and thus voided any warranty m2racer might have honored (though at least one other poster has indicated they refused his $ back when his broke).

Yes, yes, yes. Turn off the flamethrowers. Three strikes, You’re Out. Go search the slowtwitch forum on m2racer and you’ll find one of the only PM happy campers is zipp, who only uses it for height, not for its stated purpose of forward adjustment. And even he indicated he’d be replacing the bolt(s) after reading my stories.

I tell the guys at my new workplace (Trek) that even the best ideas can be poorly executed and when that happens you’re worse off than where you started. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE CASES. No pussyfooting. (see http://tinyurl.com/b7wj5)

Side note to record10carbon…GT Vengeance, size Medium (effective TT 56cm), black, takes 650’s, coming soon to a TSR near you, I fear. Maybe even the Renn disc and H3 front…since all of Trek’s tri offerings take 700c. I’m undecided, but e-me and let’s talk.

(edited to correct record10’s material…I’ve been away for a while, forgive me)

(edited again to fix link to photos)

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edited to fix a couple things.

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I used one of those when I was trying to make a Cervelo P2 with visiontech bars fit my body. The M2 finished the deal and I had a few good races until it broke. It just isn’t sturdy enough to handle the weight you stress it with, especially if you are riding out near the end of the saddle. I tried one because the Cervelo had a 25.0 seatpost and nobody made a forward post for that size.

I finally ditched the cervelo and bought a Yaqui frameset. Best triathlon decision I ever made.

Chad

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Don’t need mine anymore. I sold the Softride. I used it to get the seat high enough.

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Carl, I’v been using one all summer and plan on using it for CIM. This is the first I’ve heard of these things failing so now I’m really nervous. Do you think there failure has anything to do with your weight? I weigh 130. Thanks Dave

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m2racer lists a 180lb rider weight limit for these things. I was ~25 lbs under that in all three of my failure cases. given the host of engineering/design issues this product has, I would guess that at 130lbs you’ll get more miles out of it before it fails…but you probably won’t avoid failure. my training/JRA failures were bad enough…but the race failure really sucked. I think the mileage I’d logged before the first one and between that and the second one are included in my previous posts that I linked to. the mileage between my 2-bolt fix and last week is probably on the order of 700mi.

add 'em all up, multiply by maybe 1.1 to give yourself a 10% credit for weight, and compare to the mileage you’ve logged on it so far. that’s probably a reasonable estimate of what sort of risk you’re taking on your next ride.

Chad (cdw) said it best: this thing is not up to the task. Avoid. Find any other way to get to the same place. A profile fast forward post shimmed to whatever ST diameter you’re running is probably the cheapest replacement…assuming you’re at or larger than the fast forward’s stock diameter (27.2? I forget).

if you search the forum archives for m2racer you’ll find more than one failure story…I’m just the loudest :slight_smile:

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I don’t know if it was this specific brand of seat shifter or not, but–

My brother knows a guy in the Denver area who had one of these type things fail on him. His “package” and surrounding regions were caught between the tire and the seat stays. Needless to say, his wife is no longer as happy as the lady on the Enzyte commercial. Need I say more?