Tough Breaks

I haven't been writing anything lately because I've been riding my bike like crazy. I've been taking Power Advantage classes at the shop (PowerTap training classes) and riding at the very least on Sundays. Usually more.

My Tarmac has been up for sale on Craigslist for the past two weeks. After over a month of front end shifting just getting worse and worse, it finally got to the point where I couldn't shift in the front at all. It was found to be a fatigued braze-on and after two calls to the inside rep at Specialized, we never heard anything from them. I'm not happy about it at all, and if I buy another road bike, it wont be a Specialized. I'm not saying I will never own another one of their bikes, and I'm not going to bad mouth them beyond "I'm seriously disappointed."

Notice I said "if I buy another road bike." I've been using my cross bike with the PowerTap wheels and beat-to-shit Vredestein tires as my "road bike" for the past month and it has been awesome. The first time I rode it on the shop ride, it beat me up a little (38 small ring v 34) but I've been fine on it the past three weeks. I feel stronger than ever at the moment, and that feels really good. Or should I say "felt very good" because two minutes on the ride today my shifter on my Guru broke. Just a loud *pop* and a totally shitty feeling. It still shifted down perfectly fine, and from the bottom of the cassette going up, it would shift perfectly until I tried to downshift from my 19T cog. It would upshift if I tried to downshift any further I didn't do the entire ride, but I did 19 of the 24 miles and over 1,000ft of climbing in my 38/19. It did not feel very good. I never got off and walked, but I really thought about it. The longer hills hurt, but not as much as the short little rises right after the longer hills. Whatever doesn't kill you, I guess.

When I got back to the shop, Scott was there (unashamed Shimano lover) and we took some pop-shots at SRAM. Between my putting Force on my Tarmac and it NEVER working well, and breaking the Rival shifter on the Guru, I was ready to sell the lot and get two new Shimano groups. Jude came in, disassembled my shifter and told me what I already knew; the teeth on the gear were completely stripped off. We'll try to warranty it, but I'm not crossing my fingers.

So, here's where I stand on Specialized and SRAM. I'm not holding Specialized, the company at fault that an almost 5 year old bike had a piece wear out. That's to be expected. I'm not even upset about them not having any in stock, or supporting bikes older than 2009. I'm disappointed that their Inside Sales Rep didn't even bother to return a call from the shop about what we can do about it. That's shitty, and because of it, I wont be buying another Specialized road bike for a while. For the sake of comedy, they're serving a 2 year ban according to the NPG.

As for SRAM, I couldn't have been happier with the Rival gruppo on my Guru until today. If it was just the broken shifter, I wouldn't think much of it. I've seen a lot of SRAM bikes come into the shop with broken shifters over the years. But the fact that I spent a fair chunk of change for an entire Force group and it never did anything but cause problems on a bike that for 4.5 years prior had done nothing but shift flawlessly every time I asked it to, I have serious concerns. As best we can figure, the braze-on would have failed eventually with the Shimano parts on it, but the higher pull strength required from the SRAM parts seems to have seriously accelerated fatiguing the part. I find Specialized to be more at fault there for using too little aluminum. Or, maybe for using aluminum at all. But I still have a bad taste in my mouth. I have to wait 10 months before I can sell the Force group, and if SRAM doesn't warranty the Rival group, or have a rebuild kit, I'm probably going to just put the Force on the Guru (and order yet another set of chainrings) and put the Rival group (after it's fixed) up on Ebay. I'll have to buy a Force clamp-on FD to work with the bike, though. I'm going to put the 105 back on the Tarmac, A) to build it back to stock spec so I can put it on Ebay (no bites on Craigslist) and B) to see if the 105 FD will still work. If it works, I ask for more money. If not, I sell it for less and explain that it needs a new braze-on. I'd like to get $800 for it. Once it's sold, I will make a decision on whether or not I'll get an R3, and which model to get. If I can swing it, don't be surprised if I get the Ultegra bike.