warranty

The new 2010 Rig. I just got myself the "frame only" as a replacement for my completely beaten 2006 version. It cracked, legitimately. After a couple of inquiries from Fisher about how it broke - they were insinuating that I had crashed, hard - they shipped a new frame my way.

It's all pretty and shit, tempting to build up, but it's pretty ridiculous to have steel and aluminum singlespeedspeeds. Kinda defeats the point of one bike, one gear, and only one way to rock n roll.

My buddy Joel spotted the obvious crack when he was considering buying it from me...I would have never seen it because I don't look for shit like that - though now I do. One of three scenarios would have happened:

a.) I would have kept riding it from time to time and would have had an accident at some point.

b.) I would have sold it on E-Bay, shipped it to Toledo - and had somebody call me a week later with a shattered face, or if I was lucky - telling me that the frame was cracked and he wanted his money back. Either way, I lose, and a shattered face would have been a nightmare.

c.) The bike would have gone to a friend locally who wouldn't spot the crack either and it would have been lights out for him.

Lose, lose, lose. Joel's keen eye was a blessing.

Joel was the dude who broke his pelvis in two places in August. I was right on his tail when he went down, and I've never seen someone go from 25mph to -5mph in a tenth of a second. It was scary and it made me realize how small the contact patch is between your tire and the ground when you're haulin' ass. I've noticed on the last several rides I've been slowing it down a notch on the descents. Hell - it's the climbing where you win/lose xc races anyway, so maybe this is some tonic I need to ingest too. He gimped around for a week because of no insurance and finally had to go to the ER because it wasn't getting any better. 2K later, he's on the mend and should be riding again in March or April.

Selfishly, I'm excited to see his face when I drop it off with a red bow on it 'round Christmastime.

On another note, I gotta give it up to Trek/Gary Fisher. They definately own up to their products. I loved my old Rig, and would probably dig this one too, but I'm just too darn happy with my new Marin.