Not all damaged carbon bikes are beyond repair. Don’t discard them, regardless of what the bike shop tells you. You’ll be surprised..
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This post clearly illustrates one of the ways customers can achieve the custom design they are after with the assistance of our design service.
As the downtube was being repaired, a rough illustration was submitted to us. We optimised the design to deliver their unique expression of what good custom design is – Balanced, individual and well executed.
In my opinion a carbon drop-out is a vulnerable and silly design for a modern frame. You might already be aware that I don’t like this design. It might keep the pros happy but we can’t chuck our frames away as readily.
Carbon is prone to abrasion. Particularly when the other half of the mating face is of a different material. The skewer will bite well into the drop-out but is VERY dependent on the amount of pressure applied to clamp it. It needs to be over-clamped (within reason) as opposed to under clamped to hold firm. Under compression the carbon drop-out is super strong as these parts are injection moulded and can withstand the pressure well enough.
Alloy drop-outs do not suffer the same degradation. Alloy is more forgiving in most respects. I assume the carbon design is to satisfy the weight saving efforts of the manufacturer even though the alternative is bleak when it fails.
If the skewer is not sufficiently clamped, the drive side face of a carbon drop-out receives excessive abrasion laterally by the pedal motion of the drive side pulling the wheel back and forth.
If it were an alloy drop-out this would not be as badly affected but with carbon drop-outs they give way to excessive wear. I will go so far as to say that ALL bikes should have removable alloy dropouts. (I hear loud cheers!) The weight increase is marginal and you don’t need to replace the whole frame!
We see many such problems. You can see how this is remedied here at CBR with an embedded alloy face 🙂
Shouldn’t this be the norm if you must have a carbon drop-out?
Here with a Venge being prepped, base coated and cured for custom livery. We don’t spray over the old decals. It all needs to be hand stripped to carbon to ensure the best finish and adhesion.
BMC Time Machine restoration of the top tube. We laser cut our own decals and colour match paints. With the amount of variation we see every day we have good knowledge of the paint processes of most manufacturers.
We have seen a number of 404’s this month with similar fractures. This is a pre-finished example of a ‘near spoke pull-through’
Back on the road for a fraction of the price of a replacement 🙂
BB’s can fracture in many different locations. So far we have repaired just about every manufacturer brand on the market.
All repairs are re-sprayed at customers request either as a complimentary block colour or total restoration depending on requirements. These are pre-finished examples.
LaPierre and S-Works rear triangle mounting fractures. We have noticed some weak spots in some MTB designs. When they fracture it is a good opportunity to put them right!
It doesn’t really matter how bad the fracture is. We can repair and restore the colours and details as per the original. This bike had another unrelated crash a week after the repair. Ah well they are meant to be ridden!
Another carbon dropout high compression rebuild.
Felt TT downtube fracture. Carbon matched layup and respray
We don’t post every repair obviously but some we like to share. If your carbon dropout is worn on the skewer face then your wheel will not be centered and could possibly fall out of the frame. This is a design flaw which should include an alloy face that wears and grips better. Here is one that was not ride able until we modified and bonded in a new more improved version!