Skip to 7:00 for broken bike action
TLDR: It's a video you can't read it.
TLDW: YouTuber breaks rental Spot bike and posts it on the internet. Spot blames rider. Everyone argues about it (cuz internet). Lolz
Lots of back and forth in the bike-o-sphere on who's fault this was and if Spot had a shitty PR response. Spot seemed to just blame it on rider error:
Andrew Lumpkin from Spot here.
First of all, we’re grateful that Alex is okay. Rider safety is our utmost concern and whenever anyone crashes, regardless of cause, it makes us all pause and hope that the rider is healthy.
Regarding the break, we are currently investigating all possibilities of causality, which are manifold. We became aware of the situation on the same day of the crash. We take these situations extremely seriously so we called Alex and Steve immediately, even though we were very busy at Sea Otter. Alex gave us limited information so that he could protect his story and his sensational reveal.
All of our bikes are tested to exceed ISO standards, EN standards and, in addition, meet our stringent in-house standards. Relating to this break, we test our frames to failure in a machine that puts over 3,000 lbf vertical force through the bottom bracket while allowing the axles to move in any direction—it’s designed to replicate the worst-case huck-to-flat scenario. In addition to testing all of our frames to optimize structure, and ultimately, failure mode, we test many competitors’ frames in the same ASTM intended use levels to ensure that we exceed their results. Yes, we buy premium carbon frames (many brands mentioned in this thread) at retail and destroy them to study the results and better our frames. It’s an expensive exercise that is well worth the cost.
In our initial analysis, one issue is apparent—the shock was grossly under-pressured and the compression under-damped. It should have had approximately 60psi (33%) more pressure in the shock! Although it had been reported that he hadn’t been bottoming out, many frames in the footage show that the o-ring was off or at least at the end of its travel. Only yesterday were we privy to this additional evidence. It’s up to the rider to notice and remedy such a setup issue. Alex’s intuition was that something was wrong, but he continued to send it.
The purpose of a spring-damper unit is to absorb the energy from the trail or the rider when riding in uneven terrain. If the spring-damper unit is under-inflated and under-damped, it prevents the spring damper unit from absorbing enough of the energy to protect the frame. With this inadequate setup/trail conditions, if you repeatedly deliver a high spike load to the frame, it will likely fail. We hereby explicitly state that if you ride any of our bikes with such inadequate setup, sooner or later expect the same result. Ask any other manufacturer/expert in the field, and they will tell you EXACTLY THE SAME THING. If the frame is not protected from severe bottom-out events, all bets are off—THE FRAME WILL FAIL EVENTUALLY. Have we had a few broken frames since we started selling them two years ago? Of course. Who hasn’t? There’s nothing new here; this is basic physics. There is nothing inferior about our frames.
Then there’s the next factor: the [at least] three crashes on rocky terrain. As we all learned with the famous Minnaar crash last year, crazy things happen in crashes, even to downhill bikes. To define this bike as brand new is misleading due to these crashes and entirely inadequate air pressure and damping setup with the severe riding conditions. Riding aggressive trails aggressively requires suspension adjustments to protect yourself and your equipment. One very important lesson that’s apparent is to always inspect your bike (frame and components) thoroughly, especially when you suspect that something is wrong. This final crash was avoidable. Again, we are extremely grateful that Alex is okay. We will report back when our investigation is complete.
-Andrew
It didn't look like rider error to me. Pretty standard riding and crashing. Nothing super crazy. And interestingly enough the failure was near this whole Living Link situation.First of all, we’re grateful that Alex is okay. Rider safety is our utmost concern and whenever anyone crashes, regardless of cause, it makes us all pause and hope that the rider is healthy.
Regarding the break, we are currently investigating all possibilities of causality, which are manifold. We became aware of the situation on the same day of the crash. We take these situations extremely seriously so we called Alex and Steve immediately, even though we were very busy at Sea Otter. Alex gave us limited information so that he could protect his story and his sensational reveal.
All of our bikes are tested to exceed ISO standards, EN standards and, in addition, meet our stringent in-house standards. Relating to this break, we test our frames to failure in a machine that puts over 3,000 lbf vertical force through the bottom bracket while allowing the axles to move in any direction—it’s designed to replicate the worst-case huck-to-flat scenario. In addition to testing all of our frames to optimize structure, and ultimately, failure mode, we test many competitors’ frames in the same ASTM intended use levels to ensure that we exceed their results. Yes, we buy premium carbon frames (many brands mentioned in this thread) at retail and destroy them to study the results and better our frames. It’s an expensive exercise that is well worth the cost.
In our initial analysis, one issue is apparent—the shock was grossly under-pressured and the compression under-damped. It should have had approximately 60psi (33%) more pressure in the shock! Although it had been reported that he hadn’t been bottoming out, many frames in the footage show that the o-ring was off or at least at the end of its travel. Only yesterday were we privy to this additional evidence. It’s up to the rider to notice and remedy such a setup issue. Alex’s intuition was that something was wrong, but he continued to send it.
The purpose of a spring-damper unit is to absorb the energy from the trail or the rider when riding in uneven terrain. If the spring-damper unit is under-inflated and under-damped, it prevents the spring damper unit from absorbing enough of the energy to protect the frame. With this inadequate setup/trail conditions, if you repeatedly deliver a high spike load to the frame, it will likely fail. We hereby explicitly state that if you ride any of our bikes with such inadequate setup, sooner or later expect the same result. Ask any other manufacturer/expert in the field, and they will tell you EXACTLY THE SAME THING. If the frame is not protected from severe bottom-out events, all bets are off—THE FRAME WILL FAIL EVENTUALLY. Have we had a few broken frames since we started selling them two years ago? Of course. Who hasn’t? There’s nothing new here; this is basic physics. There is nothing inferior about our frames.
Then there’s the next factor: the [at least] three crashes on rocky terrain. As we all learned with the famous Minnaar crash last year, crazy things happen in crashes, even to downhill bikes. To define this bike as brand new is misleading due to these crashes and entirely inadequate air pressure and damping setup with the severe riding conditions. Riding aggressive trails aggressively requires suspension adjustments to protect yourself and your equipment. One very important lesson that’s apparent is to always inspect your bike (frame and components) thoroughly, especially when you suspect that something is wrong. This final crash was avoidable. Again, we are extremely grateful that Alex is okay. We will report back when our investigation is complete.
-Andrew
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Spot on. I have never heard of bike conditions. But i would assume its safe to say Chasing epic would not get bikes they didn't think would survive on Moab trails. Nor do i think an experienced rider such as Alex would rent a bike he did not think would survive. Why he didn't check the bike after the first crack, idk. We are all human, but he thought it was just the tire. But yes, XC bikes would not fare well, and i assume that's a trail bike he's on.
