That was probably me lol, I sent a warranty frame back because the stripes were not straight.

Mad skillz to the bike rider for staying upright, looks like a skewer loose/failure to me.

If the QR snapped or was too loose - wouldn't it be pulling out on the DS and hence put no force into the frame?

If the wheel was pulling out of the dropout wouldn't it hit the seat tube and stop pretty quickly?

From the account of the rider following maybe it might have been a broken axle. The frame and QR was holding everything in alignment and putting a lot of strain on the stays, but when he put some power down the cassette/hub interface flexed giving the appearance of the wheel moving to the side, but then everything pulled back into place when cruising.

Finally the frame or QR could have let go, and the whole system fell to bits.

Can the OP give any feed back on what state the rear was after it was replaced during the race?? Assuming it had been replaced as had been speculated.

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signature deleted by the Admin.

I've broken a chain stay before on my old mountain bike and while I could tell something wasn't right, it didn't lead to any kind of crash, seat stay breaking or tire ejection Sucks about the guy busting his frame, but it doesn't seem like a manufacturing defect

Ouch!! I'm guessing that also did some damage to the chainrings (and/or cranks) and the rear derailleur.

The rider wont comment on this or any other forum. He doesnt have time or read them.

The rider doesnt think it was the skewer but anyone that races knows things can and do go wrong and sometimes it can take a few moments to realise or work out what has gone wrong, the riders first impresions was something was wrong with the wheel, he did stop, he checked it and has it seemed ok he carried on (he chased for 3km) the incident happened after that. So in hindsight if he saw the cracks or put pressure on the right seat stay or chainstay he would have noticed something was amiss, but he was racing A grade and the pressure was on.

There is no way he would have carried on if he realised his brand new frame was cracked, no one would have.

A poster on the other forum works for the bike shop so the rider will be walking into the shop that already thinks he is at fault.

Tomorrow is Friday, it happened on the weekend, yet the bike still hasn't made it back to the shop??

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Baum Ristretto, Baum Mondrian Corretto & the '89 Merckx! | "If you could eat it in one sitting, hold your line." | twitter.com/Tinea_Pedis

So is the customer assumed innocent until the manufacturer can prove negligence/fault or is he guilty until he can prove he is innocent. Seems like on this forum everyone assumes he is guilty right off the bat. To provide a frame is a marginal cost for the maker and provides good will towards a customer who races their frames. It wasn't as if this frame went down in a large crash. If the results are equivocal I would lean towards the customer and give them the benefit.

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"Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man."

If you wan't to see more broked S-works just visit bustedcarbon.com

Should he had been there Monday morning at opening time waving his broken frame at the front door?

The bike shop has been rang, they are aware, they are open late on a Thursdy so he was going in last night. It's his race bike, he has other bikes.

I am yet to hear from him.

Don't be obtuse, that's not what I'm saying at all.

However given the nature of the failure, the race it occurred in and the age of the frame I think most of us would have assumed it would have made it to the shop by yesterday at the latest.

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Baum Ristretto, Baum Mondrian Corretto & the '89 Merckx! | "If you could eat it in one sitting, hold your line." | twitter.com/Tinea_Pedis

This seems to assume the frame was already cracked. Can you prove it was? If not, please stop stating it as fact when it is pure speculation.


And yet in your opening post and a later post you stated it was with the LBS already. These contradictions make it harder to believe the other "facts" too.


I can't speak for anyone else here, but my opinion is that both manufacturer and owner/rider are innocent until proven otherwise.

Walkercycling has, or so it appears, come on here stating that Specialized are guilty of supplying a frame that snapped with no external influence (poor setup, component failure, transit damage, etc.). I believe that, although this could be true, there are also several other posibilities (QR failure, rear mech going into wheel under power, etc.) that need to be considered. If the OP had posted the picture, simply saying "great skills to stay on", "great photo", or similar there would have been a massively different response to the "hey, look at this $h!t frame that failed for no apparent reason" style of the original post and his follow ups to other posters speculation/input.

The mode of failure as well as the decsribed position of the failures suggests outside influence is most likely, but not the only possible cause.
For both the chain and seat stay to fail simultaneously in a relativly low stressed area (mid points) is highly unlikely (but not impossible). I have seen someone ride down Ventoux with a busted seat stay on a Tarmac (rear mech went through it after catching spokes near the top of the climb) and the bike appeared stable (albeit at reduced speeds). More importantly, the chainstay didn't fail.

The way I read this thread, Walkercycling has not come on here stating that Specialized are guilty of supplying a frame that snapped with no external influence. He left the options open for what the reason of the failure could be. Ok, there were some hints, but hey, some are all too happy to read into things which were not said. Let's stick to the possible reasons for failure before pointing the finger to the messenger.

Photo sequence (don't ask for more, there aren't any):

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Bike Pure

previous post from me, as I have said many times, I dont know why it happened?

Once I know I will let you know, once posted it will probably be the last time I post here on the subject, thanks to those you have understood why i posted,

BTW: I have owned and will own in future Specilaised bikes, I have no vendetta against Specialised.

i have changed the heading.

guys, this isnt life or death, a frame cracked, it happens. I HAVE NOT LAID BLAME, i raised a few possibilites of what i thought but not being an engineer I couldnt say it was becuase it was this or that?

I DONT KNOW WHY IT HAPPENED

I have tried to answer questions the best I can.

I thought he was dropping it off but couldnt make due to work committments, should i have posted sorry "rider couldnt make it to the LBS yesterday as 1st thought"

he couldnt make it to the shop, it will end up there (maybe he went there last night) I havent rang my friend today to ask him if he made it there,

he is a CFO for a large multinational organisation, he travels, he is busy.

All along I have said what I saw, I even posted a link on the same subject from our local forum to give everyone here a wider viewpoint on the subject and what local people are saying. I am M_Walker on that site. My comments are no different.

Others saw what happened and posted their thoughts,

Using the word "failure" has made me suddenly a liar, there has been alot finger pointing along those lines.

I really regret posting but the photo was worth seeing

I dont think my OP comment was unreasonable, I asked how and why it could happen.

I will let you know what happens