[Zark]

Well I found something very bad last night. A small crack propogating along the right side headtube downtube junction on my M1. I'd beeen hearing some creaking there for a while and inspecting everything regularly. I only noticed it under extremely good lighting.

I emailed Intense warranty about this and already stripped the bike to frame, I hope this is a quick process, I've got a race at the end of April that I've gotta do (I've only been working on the course for months now).

Anybody got a DH frame I can borrow for a month or so?

 

[MikeD]

Should stuck with the Big Hit. I hear 24" rear wheels make a headtube less prone to cracking.

Just buy another bike and sell your warranty frame when it gets back. I would...

(btw, that sucks, Zark brah...)

 

[Zark]

No, I love the way the M1 rides. It puts the Big Hit to shame. Not bloody likely I'll be selling it after this is taken care of.

 

[kidwoo]

I think that's what M1s do when they reach puberty. They have no voices so the headtubes crack. Sorry to hear that man. I really would loan you my bike if you lived within a 6 hour drive.

A friend of mine just got an 03 replacement front triangle for his 02. Hopefully they've got some more. You certainly aren't the only one with this problem.

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by Acadian
not the first time I hear about this...I was actually surprised it lasted this long considering where you ride that thing (tunnel is not the most gentle trail for bikes).

if they can't repair it, you should ask for an M3

No doubt, my trails are such a beat down on the bike and rider. Still, kinda suprised since I don't weigh that much and don't huck to flat

If they can't repair it and I get an M3, it'd be for sale. No vpp 4 me man. 4BAR-4EVA

 

[binary visions]

Originally posted by Zark
I emailed Intense warranty ... I hope this is a quick process,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...





Oh, sorry, were you serious?

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by binary visions
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Oh, sorry, were you serious?

Yes I am...

How's the weather in that block of ice?:devil:

Guess I'm gonna ride the hardtail in the sunny 70degree weather after workneaky:

 

[spookydave]

I had a problem with a swing arm once. I drove out there and they switched it out on the spot.
I'm sure they will take care on you. Just don't know about the time line.

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by spookydave
I had a problem with a swing arm once. I drove out there and they switched it out on the spot.
I'm sure they will take care on you. Just don't know about the time line.

That is good to hear. Do you think I'd be better off calling them as opposed to waiting for a response to my email? Lake Elsinore is a 5+ hour drive, so I don't think I can just pop in and see whats up. Wish I could, I'd love to see the factory!

 

[Ctfphotos]

Hey Zark. Sorry to hear about your baby. I know you love that M1. A bit off topic, but have you heard of The Acacia Strain. They're an amazing metal band. Three guitars!!! Holy SH1T GREAT! Definitly check them out, you'll dig em'.

 

[Zark]

Hey Chris!

Haven't heard of em, 3 gitters?! Thats nutty! I'll keep an eye out for it, thanks for the heads up!:evil:

 

[MikeD]

Originally posted by Ctfphotos
Three guitars!!!

Wow! Like Boston!!

 

[Echo]

I think IanF had that happen, Intense hooked him up good.

 

[Brian HCM#1]

Originally posted by Acadian
ya I hear Intense has great CS....


but then again...it's only Noah

Yep, they'll hook him up with a Huffy

 

[Matt D]

Originally posted by Zark
That is good to hear. Do you think I'd be better off calling them as opposed to waiting for a response to my email? Lake Elsinore is a 5+ hour drive, so I don't think I can just pop in and see whats up. Wish I could, I'd love to see the factory!

Sh1t man, I'd schedule a day to drive there. Think about it, if you send it back the normal mail way, you'll be waiting on shipping time two times and it will go to the back of the line with the rest of us peons who live multiple states away. . Call ahead and try to schedule an appointment to drop by. If they have one in stock, they might just trade it with you on the spot.

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by Matt D
Sh1t man, I'd schedule a day to drive there. Think about it, if you send it back the normal mail way, you'll be waiting on shipping time two times and it will go to the back of the line with the rest of us peons who live multiple states away. . Call ahead and try to schedule an appointment to drop by. If they have one in stock, they might just trade it with you on the spot.

Damn good point, thats a sick day if I've ever heard of one

 

[Brian HCM#1]

Originally posted by Zark
Damn good point, thats a sick day if I've ever heard of one

Yep, just tell your boss you have the sniffles and a hang nail.

 

[JTN]

Intense has the greatest CS,
I cracked my '00 M1 in the summer of 2002, so I called them up and spoke with Marv Strand, who told me to ship the frame out to them so they could have a look (after seeing pics ofcourse). I think I shipped it at the end of July and recieved a brand spankin new 2001 mainframe in September!

Awesome CS!

JT

 

[Kornphlake]

As we reach the information age email is certainly convenient but it's also convenient to not respond. If you're going to have to wait for a couple days for a response that may or may not be much help, wouldn't it be better to just call and spend 15 minutes on hold to get things taken care of once and for all?

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by Kornphlake
As we reach the information age email is certainly convenient but it's also convenient to not respond. If you're going to have to wait for a couple days for a response that may or may not be much help, wouldn't it be better to just call and spend 15 minutes on hold to get things taken care of once and for all?

Looks like warranty dept. got a 3 day weekend, 2 calls and no answer. I'll try on Monday I guess. No biggie, I don't miss her too bad..... yet.

 

[Supa8]

Buddy of mine sent his back last year. He had the whole frame repainted new bearings etc.... They also found he had a cracked heatube. Took him 5 -6 weeks but that was also with gound shipping from and back east both ways.

Total for everything I think was $250.00. Bike is like new now. He said they were great and called him with anything they found and even gave him choices of decals colors etc. That's good CS in my eyes.

Wonder if Turner would hook me up with a metallic blue paint for the same kinda deal? Hmmm metallic blue

 

[kidwoo]

Originally posted by Supa8

Wonder if Turner would hook me up with a metallic blue paint for the same kinda deal? Hmmm metallic blue

first you gotta break it.

 

[MikeD]

Turner will refer any painting to Olympic powdercoating, their factory finishers. Olympic's service is prompt, helpful, and friendly, and their work is top-notch. To top it off, they've got really reasonable pricing. They really hooked me up when I had paint issues with my RFX. (non-factory re-coat gone bad...they stripped it properly and re-shot it, doing the proper masking for the bushings. The original re-paint had damaged the surface of the tubing during stripping, but they did a good job of covering it up and were really cool to deal with.)

MD

 

[Supa8]

Originally posted by kidwoo
first you gotta break it.

Don't see that happening any time soon. Just the first DHR I ever test rode was an 01 metallic blue. I have have lusted after that color ever since.

 

[Spunger]

Zark,

Sorry to hear this........where exactly did it crack and how did you see it/find it?

Was it anything to do with the "team" part of the frame? I know they used smaller/thinner tubing then on my M1, and we could see the differences in the frame design around the headtube. Just curious if you think that has anything to do with it.

Makes me want to go over my frame and check it out, but I doubt anything is wrong with it. Can you spot a crack easy? Are they pretty easy to find to the eye?

p.s. Will your digi cam take a good pic of the crack?

 

[Orvan]

Originally posted by Zark

Anybody got a DH frame I can borrow for a month or so?

I'll let you borrow this one for a week, but you have to ask Heather for permission first.

 

[mtnbikfrut]

Noah,

oye, nice work on that crack huh? Atleast it starting talking to ya before it failed completely! I've had great dealings with Intense, I have spoken with Bobby Vore and he has helped me out alot. Bobby was good over email, but phone as was said before, is just a sure thing.

you been hitting up the slalom yet? I hope it survived the rains.... My tazer rearing to ride it again. or is that just me that is stoked to ride?

tell me about the firestone course, i would like to come help work on it some time.

-g

 

[Peete]

Originally posted by Zark
That is good to hear. Do you think I'd be better off calling them as opposed to waiting for a response to my email? Lake Elsinore is a 5+ hour drive, so I don't think I can just pop in and see whats up. Wish I could, I'd love to see the factory!

I thought they moved to Temecula a couple of years ago.

I had to send back my Haro werx xcs for a crack on the front. It got there at the worst possible time. The warranty guy was getting replaced so I fell through the cracks. I had to wait a while for the new guy to get up to speed but they did replace it.
I've gone through alot of swingarm bolts on that bike. I emailed and got new hardware within 2 weeks(east coast).
Their CS pretty much was the deciding factor for getting an SLX 2 years ago and I haven't had a problem with it yet.

I'm not too keen on that vpp stuff though.

 

[BMXman]

Originally posted by Zark
Well I found something very bad last night. A small crack propogating along the right side headtube downtube junction on my M1. I'd beeen hearing some creaking there for a while and inspecting everything regularly. I only noticed it under extremely good lighting.

I emailed Intense warranty about this and already stripped the bike to frame, I hope this is a quick process, I've got a race at the end of April that I've gotta do (I've only been working on the course for months now).

Anybody got a DH frame I can borrow for a month or so?

should have bought a Nicolai

 

[MikeD]

Originally posted by BMXman
should have bought a Nicolai

Yeah, and driven right over for an on-the-spot replacement...

 

[Karpieldisco]

Originally posted by Zark
No, I love the way the M1 rides. It puts the Big Hit to shame. Not bloody likely I'll be selling it after this is taken care of.

Intense is very good with their warranty program and they are aware of the "issues" with their frames.. Head tubes are common failures of the frames but they stand behind the product.. See if they will let you upgrade to a m3!

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by Spunger
Zark,

Sorry to hear this........where exactly did it crack and how did you see it/find it? ...

I heard it first and had suspicions due to the creeking sound (besides the normal Intense noisyness) it had been having for a little while. I had tried different forks, reinstalling the headset 2X and facing the headtube. None of this seemed to make a difference.

I looked for cracks for a while, but didn't see any until this week. It is a tiny crack and hardly noticeable, I could only see it under very bright lights. It almost looks like just a crack in the paint, but shouldn't creak that way. My camera couldn't get a good picture of it unfortunatly

Chris, I wouldn't worry about yours, since it obviously has a little more material up there.

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by mtnbikfrut
you been hitting up the slalom yet? I hope it survived the rains.... My tazer rearing to ride it again. or is that just me that is stoked to ride?

tell me about the firestone course, i would like to come help work on it some time.

-g

Garret!

No I haven't been out to the slalom, too busy with the course, check out the thread on the SoCal page to get some info on the course, its getting pretty sweet. I hope I have my DH to ride it soon.

 

[Spunger]

Hey Zark, quick ?

How did you know it had a crack? Was it from the sounds alone?

Will the M1 have creaks etc...all by itself or is a creak always a crack? I know my cortina doesn't make noises but who is to say another brand won't. I was out riding it around this weekend, but have noticed it in the past and while pedaling sometimes a creak comes. Nothing big, but since I've never had bikes that creaked it's hard to say what is doing it you know?

Just wondering how you tell if there's something wrong short of seeing it. I mean is it a creak like no other all the time, never goes away or was it a "once in a while" creak?

I am not really nit-picking my frame, but doing a search for creaking didn't come up with much nor did "how to tell if you got a crack" unless it is blindly visable. I have no cracks that I can see.

Just wondering

 

[punkassean]

Originally posted by Zark
That is good to hear. Do you think I'd be better off calling them as opposed to waiting for a response to my email? Lake Elsinore is a 5+ hour drive, so I don't think I can just pop in and see whats up. Wish I could, I'd love to see the factory!

Which way do you drive to Elsinore? I can get there in right around three hours (from SB) at speed limit? Bummer it cracked, I think I recall talking about that possibility in VP goleta once...
Good Luck!

 

[Zark]

Chris, your bike is fine, you don't hear anything nasty and can't see a crack. Don't worry about yours, I'm the one with the cracked frame dude, worry about mine

Mine sounded REAL nasty when you nailed the front brakes into a nose stoppie or landed from up high.

Don't be confused with the normal Intense "echo" sounds, the frames resonate any sound your bike has. They are naturally "vocal" bikes that announce their presence with various "clacks" and "pops". This was specific to certain conditions and independant of anything else and not the normal noises.

If you are really worried about it, you better loan it to me and I'll do some "testing" to see if its OK

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by punkassean
Which way do you drive to Elsinore? I can get there in right around three hours (from SB) at speed limit? Bummer it cracked, I think I recall talking about that possibility in VP goleta once...
Good Luck!

I guess they are in Temecula now, I just drive like a putz. Trying not to get any more speeding tickets bro

Yes, I mentioned that possibility then, but I still couldn't see a visible crack then.

 

[BMXman]

Originally posted by MikeD
Yeah, and driven right over for an on-the-spot replacement...

We carry 20 extra frames as back-up for just these type of emergencies

 

[punkassean]

Originally posted by Zark
I guess they are in Temecula now, I just drive like a putz. Trying not to get any more speeding tickets bro

Yes, I mentioned that possibility then, but I still couldn't see a visible crack then.

bummer none the less!

 

[Zark]

Originally posted by punkassean
bummer none the less!

No doubt, especially when your digging beauties like this all weekend