mk1fan – Member

I blame TJ. He is totally responsible.

Wisnae me 😥

timc – Member

toys19 – Member
I don’t see this as a PR disaster

Product being of below par quality = bad PR..

Uhh yeah thats true. Sorry what I meant was it seemed like brant and jens were having reasonable conversations and it was all going int he right direction. But yeah I guess, you wouldn’t catch me on a blue pig after this…

Product being of below par quality = bad PR..
That is sooo true.
Why did i not mention this sentence

I think thebikechain saying these things is less than professional

I think it’s refreshingly honest although probably promted by the fact that the ultimate owner of shedfire/hotlines is CRC..

If we are going down that road you might want to think who the ultimate owner of The Bike Chain is too….

BH, I couldn’t face being on the second step below you so took my toys home with me early, and it still grates 😉

On a more serious note, £300 is a lot to spend on a frame (in my view), and for that I would not expect to have to bend/ream/force things to build it up if it was brand new.

TandemJeremy – Member

Wisnae me

Oh, you’d like us to just believe that wouldn’t you?

It all sounds very disappointing. The brand has to be bigger than airing personal details on the web. After saving plenty of money getting these frames built in the next cheapest factory then the QC has to have some investment.

I guess the frames have direct shipped to the retail without ever having a ‘Ragley’ set of eyes see them.

Plenty of messing around going on, on the Ragley website maybe some of this energy should be redirected so the UK has another brand to be proud of.

Junkyard – Member
If so, has it proved to be a double-edged sword, especially regarding the issues raised in this thread.

no one is as stupid as answer this on here – BRING BACK FRUIT. He works for them what do you expect him to say?

He consults for them. If I were Brant, and the gains that come with ‘consulting’ for CRC (cheaper overheads, greater range of production, etc) start to become negatives because of poor QC, then yes, I’d expect him to cough to it.

I see the strengths that Brant demonstrated at On-One being very low down on the list of priorities of those at CRC headquarters. As much as I’m not a fan of Ragley bikes, you can see that Brant has a real passion for cycling, bikes etc. CRC has a real passion for enormous cycle-related profit. I wonder how happy a union it is…

when did 300 quid become a lot of money for a frame, QC issues aside there are products out there costing 5 times that that get slated…you can please some of the people some of the time.

Are these the same 2011 Ragley frames which were supposed to appear in January and were delayed due to QC problems?

Exactly

lol just by a **** gaint.

The only Ragley I’ve tried to build would accept the headset, but then not the fork. I concluded that the headtube was too tight, therefore constricting the bearings, as the headset/fork combo fitted perfectly before being assembled into the frame. This was a Bagger 288 by the way. Frame went back to CRC as far as i know.
Other than that, Raggers seem like well designed and attractivly presented product. Sure they’ll be fine once they sort the qc.

My original Mmmbop had a wonky left hand dropout/brake mount plate. A QC issue but not an obvious one, easily missed (I missed it on the first build). Returned it to CRC and they turned it around in about 2 days and had a non-wonky Mmmbop with me within a week of me noticing the problem. Also had communication from Brant in the meantime which I think helped speed up the warranty job (being able to say “The designer says it’s wonky. I want one with less wonk please”.

So not ideal but recovered well and handled as well as it could have been.

This last two and a bit years have been a big learning process. Take head tubes. The 44mm standard is wonderful in terms of it’s potential to allow all sizes of forks to fit, but the scarcity of reaming equipment in shops to fettle problems is a toughie. So many frames are alloy now, and the processing of those head tubes post-weld, even post-paint is quite different to the steel frames. With all our samples coming out fine, and having been beasted around the world by various riders, the problems of moving those through to production, when we were assured that the samples were produced with production methods was a tough learning curve.

I’m extremely sorry that these issues weren’t inspected thoroughly enough, but a degree of faith was placed with parties who have badly let us down in some instance. Steps are being taken, Hotlines staff are, tomorrow, flying to Taiwan to discuss these very issues with companies there.

Happily the suspension project is being run by an entirely separate manufacturer, who has extremely high standards, though with all new projects glitches WILL happen.

Just to balance things out I’d like to say Thank you Brant, I absolutely love my TD:1.

Oh hang on a minute,

TD:1 – designed by Ragley and built by Lynskey!!

I shall never ride it again for fear that it may explode into a thousand pieces.

This isn’t bad PR, I for one would definitely buy Ragley again. Rigid carbon fork? 😉

mk1fan – Member

“TandemJeremy – Member

Wisnae me”

Oh, you’d like us to just believe that wouldn’t you?

I am innocent

Free teh Edinburgh one

Ive had a green Mmm Bop since 2009- and its been very good. Purchased from Bike Tart and built it up myself. Have no issues at all.

When I bought my Soul it arrived with a slightly ovalised headtube, which I just put down to it getting a clout in transit. I just assumed that installing the headset would gently bend the steel back into shape. The mechanic wasn’t convinced, but with some pursuading he agreed to get out the headset press and instal the headset. Several years on it’s still running fine.

And I thought all you needed was a hammer and a lump of wood
[video src="http://www.canecreek.com/tech-headsets?view=video&video=HS%20Install2.flv" /]

I just assumed that installing the headset would gently bend the steel back into shape.

After trying this procedure (with the first frame), my nukeproof bearing breaks. Not the headset cup bend my frame, my frame bend the headset cup.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/706/brokenbearing.jpg/
" alt="" title="" class="bbcode-image" />
The nukeproof headset is equipped with an industrial standard bearing, so you can´t normally see the ballbearings or the inner race.
And i think, that using force to fit on a part of the bike which is so critical than the headset is not a good practise.

And you should keep in mind, that a bearing could break due to the long term stress. caused by the transverse force on the bearing.
A bearing, which is stressed with force it is not constructed for is the quickest way to destroy the bearing.

Bit of a poor show imo – I wouldn’t be impressed with ‘just whack the headset in and see what happens’ Quoting the email is a bit off as well.

You’d think when sending a replacement frame to a customer who has had problems someone might just give it a check over to make sure everything is ok.

Brant has been very honest tried to sort things out, prevent future problems + coming on here to take the flack. Think that deserves respect. Hope you get sorted Bended.

Least you find it before its built not like a Orange after hard riding an you see cracks in places

bendedheadtube….

wo bist du in De?

hier gibt’s kaum neu skool stahlhardtails. good man.

du könntest deine kohle zurück haben und was anders kaufen…. on-one 456, Dialled Alpine, Cotic BFe. alle sind etwa änhlich. meine meinung, kauf mal den DB Alpine.

gruß aus bayern!

@alpin
Westen von Niedersachsen
Ich habe gelesen, dass one ones probleme mit chain suck haben.
Deswegen hab ich mir den nachfolger des one ones kaufen wollen.

so traurig es auch ist : mein vorletztes bike war ein bulls copperhead 2. Der Rahmen ist 4 tage vor dem ablauf der garantie gehaarrisst.
Rahmen hingebracht zum zeg onkel, die haben schief gekuckt und gesagt mal sehen was geht. 2 tage spaeter klingelt mein telefon :
“wir haben nicht ihre farbe da, nur mattschwarz und weiss”
(der rahmen ist mattschwarz gewesen, aber durch das “gesandstrahle” beim fahren ist der irgendwas zwischen alu und matt und glaenzend schwarz geworden)
dann 3 tage spaeter konnte ich dann den rahmen wieder abholen.
wurde zu nem bulls copperhead 3. Als entschuldigung ein komplett neues tretlager und lenkkopflager.

Oi no whispering or talking in code. Target language only.

He asked me of the region that i´m living in germanyshire.
now the whole world knows my real name and the region that i´m living.

and i respond my experience of an cheap frame which brokes 4 days before the warranty is void and the fast replacement of the frame.
The frame had been broken to the obvious fact, that i´m riding like the grimm reaper is following me.
it takes less than 5 days. they had not only replaced the frame, they replaced it with a frame slightly better than mine and also new bottom bracet and a new headset for the apologize

bendedheadtube, I’m not the police, it was a joke!

and i just want you to understand the post.
since march i learned, that
http://translate.google.com
is not the best way to get the correct information from language a to language b

No worries thanks! Oh and Germanyshire© is copyrighted to me, you have free license to use it but you must acknowledge toys19..

i had to lough sooo hard. funny thing. great idea.
(i mean the germanyshire)

QC issues happen everywhere, you think getting a bent 300 quid frame is bad, imagine forking over 1,750 for a frame and finding that one bent. (a USA made full suss frame)

Sure, it’s disappointing, sure you’re annoyed but it’ll get sent back and a warranty replacement will come. It might not feel like it now (I know it didn’t when I got a bent frame) but it’s a bike, not a replacement organ! A little perspective is due.

Also, how many other industries do you know where you have access to the man who designed your new toy? I think people on here tend to take for granted that they shout Brants name and he appears (trying now not to think of scenes from The Candyman) … you might not all like some of the things he says but at least give him some respect because he keeps coming back here despite some of the kickings he gets.

/EarlyMorningGrump

fishd – look at waht happened. He was told to sbodge it, he was told to send it to CRC for them to bodge it, it has taken months and he still does not have a functional bike

i have send brant a email, including the respect for the exhaustive answering all of the “frame sizing help” threads without redirect them to the table on the ragley home page.

@Fishd
how many miles did you ride this year. i have none.
Still wondered why i´m upset?

It’s all very well Brant suggesting that “sorry these issues weren’t inspected thoroughly” but as anyone in manufacturing would know it’s nothing to do with inspecting. I hope the ‘hotlines staff’ jetting off to Taiwan know a bit more about modern manufacturing techniques & processes !!!

Inspecting is an absolute last resort, as would be end of line measuring or somesuch. The actual cause of the problems should have been identified a long time ago and the manufacturing/finishing/distribution process changed to elliminate it. That investigation, analysis, correction & prevention should have occurred with just one fault, not multiple occurences. It should be second nature to any competent factory.

For the industry I work in we talk about customer failure in terms of “parts per million”. Our customers consider single part failures very, very, bad news – we have to continually strive to improve and maintain ppm failures approaching a maximum of 10. This for product that leaves our door with a value of < £100. Retail is (shockingly) some £300 and up!

now the whole world knows my real name and the region that i´m living.

fortunately no-one actually cares.

perhaps we would all be a bit more polite and accurate with our posts if we all had to use our real names, like, oh……Brant for example.

fortunately no-one actually cares.

^this includes me

perhaps we would all be a bit more polite and accurate with our posts if we all had to use our real names, like, oh……Brant for example.

his name is dave.