D’oh double post

Entertaining read. OK OK I digress.

But seriously juxtapose the photo above with this BS on Rock Shox’s (for example) website:

RockShox was born out of a belief that the mold was meant to be broken. We know one size does not fit all. We know even the longest rides are too short to worry about your equipment. Our patented designs push the limits to bring the utmost in performance, control and adjustability to every product in our line. From our Motion Control damping to the easiest to use thru-axle on the market, the Maxle, we believe race-proven technologies shouldn’t just be for racers. Being on the leading edge of technology isn’t just our history. It’s our future.

Oh come on! Not just the mold that’s broken, etc., etc.

I’ll get my coat.

jhw, you are quite the drama queen aren’t you? Ever considered a career in the west end?
From what I can gather the lowers detached from the uppers. Personally I’ve never known a fork fail that way from proper use. Incorrect assembly perhaps. Nothing to do with tolerances or anything like that. Accidents happen, user error etc.

I have litterly snapped a snowboard riding through a snow filled ditch. Stuff happens.

I like the way the F1 driver tries steering away from the barrier with no front wheels. 😀

And in the far less exciting and weight conscious world of trucks and buses; propshaft bolts shear, propshaft UJs fall apart, clutches fall apart, half shafts snap, hub reduction gears burst open, diffs fly apart and punch their way out through the casing, springs break, axles crack, chassis crack…

Yeah, I love the drama. So what’s the difference between “tolerance” and “specification”?

Lawyer caught out blagging it with engineering terms not properly understood…

The specification is what it’s designed to, eg, ‘The forks will withstand a force of x N with no more than y mm of deflection at the drop outs’

Tolerance is how tolerent the design is to variation. This variation can be manufacturing things, like the torque used to assemble it, or what range of sizes the parts are (the +/- bit in a dimension) but it could also be how it’s used.

As has been mentioned above, without knowing more it is impossible to say whether the failure was due to design, tolerances, manufaucture or misuse.

Stuff breaks. Your assertation that it doesn’t break in other sports etc has been proven wrong.

So, given that stuff breaks in all sports, hobbies and machines around the world, what is your point?