He can’t have been going that fast riding a girl’s bike?

I too would suggest that was a massive frontal impact that caused bending, then weld breakage afterwards. Ouch. And it depends what roots you ride into, a root whos top is at hub-height will stop the wheel dead, putting MAHOOOSIVE bending loads on the area we see bent here. Light and strong can be massaged a bit in frames, but ultimately you cannot have extremes of both together. I’d accept I’d killed it and move on.

He did not go to paligap, he went through Kona USA and the shop he bought it from. They then referred it on to paligap.

Ah. So all that advice and links to BERR is a little pointless, then. 🙂

Offering my opinion, just like everyone else is. Free country is it not.

Yup. I’m offering mine, too. As you say, it’s a free country.

Like to hear peoples views, and as you can read I changed mine half way through.

You have. Bravo.

And to be honest there is no way of measuring how big the impact was, where his weight was, etc. Kona say not their problem (rightly or wrongly).

Yup. And various people on here have offered offered opinions. Quite a few of them, as I pointed out, diverge from yours.

But it does make you think how strong is your frame??

Does it? Oh. I’m pretty sure it made me think something else entirely.

Hard to see from the pics, but our EUCC man Tom has snapped 2. This one went at the top tube-seat tube weld:

http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?forumid=49727&threadid=2015774

My point from the first time this got posted now I’ve seen the pic definately stands, your mate hit a “root”, got thrown off hard enough to break his shoulder, ripped his frame to pieces perhaps unsurprisingly in a crash big enough to cause broken bones, and you’re wondering if the frame is to blame?

Wheels wouldn’t be that stressed if it was straight on, and maybe you got lucky if the forks really aren’t bent after that!

Loving the lolcats reference

He did not break any bones…

Ligament damage to shoulder. He is back on the bike now, may take a few more weeks before he can do off road

The rider broke his shoulder in the same crash? Edit – just saw MS’ post. I hope he gets better.

My apologies for someone else’s mistake in the original thread stating he had broken his shoulder(blade?).

He was nevertheless seriously injured from the same impact. It was therefore clearly a pretty big impact that no XC race frame could be expected to cope with, and that very very few frames would be warranties for.

We can have a pretty good idea of the size of the impact from the state of the frame, too.

It’s unfortunate that he got hurt and that he broke the frame, but it’s not Kona or any of their agents’ fault. IMHO, which seems to agree with the concensus.

It still could be a frame failure from a low impact that you would expect it to cope with but because of the frame failure the fall was heavy.

Just devils advocate

He was nevertheless seriously injured from the same impact. It was therefore clearly a pretty big impact that no XC race frame could be expected to cope with, and that very very few frames would be warranties for.

I don’t see it that way – you can fall awkwardly and really hurt yourself without it being a “big” fall…and a “big” impact does not imply a big fall necessarily either.

The frame is designed for riding around flat fields. I guess the rider must have hit a rock hard cow pat. I’d blame the farmer.

Hard to see from the pics, but our EUCC man Tom has snapped 2. This one went at the top tube-seat tube weld:

Not both were Scandiums, one was a steel frame. He also snapped a Marin, possibly confirming that Tom isn’t the smoothest rider in the world, but seemed happy enough to take another scandium frame to france for the summer. I loved my original so much I bought a second one. James Ochterloney races one full time, Gareth Montgomerie has one as a winterbike. Etc etc etc. Race bikes are meant for smooth riding, not ramming into things, including roots etc.

Just my tuppence – I would like to say how strong the Kula frames are, at least the scandium one I had. Rode it as my only bike for about 3 years, did all the Welsh trail centres on it etc. Oh and I’m a 15 stone whippet – lol

I would certainly not worry about getting another.

As for bending it like christ knows what happened !

I reckon based on how it was purchased etc it seems like a reasonable deal to be offered a rash replacement.