When you wait for a warranty replacement of your mountain bike, wait for a delivery of a new cyclocross bike, wait for replacements of recalled bike-light batteries that have yet to materialize and wait for the postman to drop off a box with new lights because days are getting too short to wait for the batteries - you find enough time to start analyzing what has gone wrong with your bikes when you would otherwise be riding them.
Back in early February, during routine maintenance of my Niner Air 9 Carbon, which had been ridden all through the snowy Swiss winter, I discovered that the shell of my EBB had crushed. Despite tightening it exactly to the required torque and not a Newton-Meter more, I was not overly surprised that the tube had collapsed. There are two huge cutouts for shifter cables after all and the remaining segment in between is further weakened by a threaded hole.
An email to Niner immediately resulted in the request that I return the frame. The frame didn’t cause any trouble while riding, but I returned it at Niner’s expense and quickly took possession of a new Air 9 Carbon. Considering the time difference while communicating back and forth and shipping the frame across the pond via postal mail, the whole warranty case was handled swiftly. I was back on the bike by March 5th. Unfortunately, the second frame had a lifespan of only six months. It quickly developed a creaking bottom bracket that I tried to fight by any means (CarboGrip, pipe joint, gasket paper) - unsuccessfully. The cause of the horrible noise - play of the biocentric insert on the non-drive side.
The frame’s been hanging on the bike rack in my basement for a month now. Once returned, it may be ending its days on a frame-testing machine in the Niner labs. Interestingly, the aluminum shell on this one has slightly crushed yet again. It’s awesome to have a universal frame that can be set up both geared or singlespeed, but for the purpose of an eccentric bottom bracket, I think it would be wiser to have a solid BB shell without large cutouts. Or use a Bushnell instead of the Biocentric. So, question to those running a Bushnell: Can they easily be pulled out of a frame when using external BB bearings?
★ collideous-
29inch posted this
