He's just gone and done another one, this time one of his road bikes.

Frame is a litespeed vela, carbon seat stays but aluminium chain stays, where it has cracked. The left one is completely cracked all the way round, and the right one is on its way out. Its about 4 years old now, and was new when he bought it.

Because it looks a bit like it started on the weld, on the inside of stays, does it mean its a manufacturing fault? Would you expect litespeed to replace/refund? Or just bin and buy a new one?

Here's my litespeed vela

hth.

I wonder if flex in the carbon stays has caused the rigid aluminium stays to fail?
Or has your dad got legs like Chris Hoy?

manufacturing fault IMO unless he's been daft on it.

At least he can get one the right size now 😀

I blame it on the bunnyhops! (see other thread.. :lol:)

I wonder if flex in the carbon stays has caused the rigid aluminium stays to fail?
Or has your dad got legs like Chris Hoy?

I wondered that as well, but you get a lot of frames with that design, and would be pretty stupid if it was.

As for his legs, no, not really. And he's only 11ish stone.

Thanks cynic-al and samuri. He hasn't been doing anything daft on it, and its his summer bike, so it only gets used 4-5 months of the year. And yes, there is a lot of seatpost showing, maybe he could do with a size up.

This is the 4th Litespeed I know of that's given up on the back end of the frame, three of which were on the chainstays after 3/4 years.
What is the warranty on them?

aka_gilo on here had his very similar model (can't remember which specific one but it's alu with carbon rear as per the one posted) Litespeed break in a similar place – driveside chainstay and he's a 10 stone weakling 🙂

If it's inside warranty then it should be a free replacement

That's where Cannondales crack, due to hamfisted redneck all American welders.

Give me an attentive educated Taiwanese welder any day of the week.

I had a Vela which lasted a few months before the replaceable hanger bent, but didn't fail. The net result was changing down to the lowest ratio on the cassette on a tough climb the chain went into the spokes and the dropout cracked.

Despite the rear mech also being mangled the hanger still didn't fail! What really got on my goat was that despite still being within warranty Litespeed didn't want to know.

Aluminium does lack sufficient fracture toughness, for bike frames.
Another reason why Litespeed has dropped the name litespeed and became Lynskey, the warranty claims got too much.

Sweeping generalisation alert missed out there Macavity!

The Lynskey family sold the Litespeed brand in 1999, before the problems they had with the aluminium frames 🙄

http://www.bikemagic.com/gear-news/lynskey-performance-designs-reaches-uk/5258.html

Litespeed is still going http://www.litespeed.com/current/home.aspx

Ok, thanks everyone. Past experiences with trivial things seem to suggest litespeed have a good customer service, just need to see if it holds up for this.

Macavity – Member
Aluminium does lack sufficient fracture toughness, for bike frames.

WTF

cynic-al – Member

Macavity – Member
Aluminium does lack sufficient fracture toughness, for bike frames.

WTF

Cynic -Al : Agreed this is bunkem.

I think I'll save this for my "BS of the week" thread on Friday 😀

Could be a regular feature, will be oversubscribed though.

It's nice to make a positive contribution.

Macavity – Member
Aluminium does lack sufficient fracture toughness (? 😳 ), for bike frames.
Another reason why Litespeed has dropped the name litespeed ( 😳 )and became Lynskey, the warranty claims got too much.

I'm embarrrassed for you!

Is this Jackanory?