[jstuhlman]

race face atlas pedals. loved how they felt, but after a few rides the left one got loose. after much back and forth rf sent a bearing replacement kit. after a ride or two, same prob. the little screws to get to the bearings are so soft that the inner one stripped when i was disassembling for the third time. too lazy to have tried to ask for a rellacement yet...

 

[big-ted]

No, I have. What did you think sucked about it?

This is a rant I have every few months on here, hence my aloofness in bringing it up again, but having to remove the steel drive ring from the hub body to get to the driveside hub bearing is stupid. And it tightens under pedalling load, so inevitably it's stuck in there. I've seen teams of experienced mechanics put the DT tool in a vice, put the wheel on top, and break literally every spoke in a wheel trying to get that thing out of there. I've never been able to do it without resorting to an acetylene torch.

 

[big-ted]

At least the aluminum axle crushes easily and binds the bearings.

Not sure mine is binding the bearings, but it's definitely slightly crushed such that the OD has a slight taper to it, making rebuilding all the more fun...

 

[HAB]

This is a rant I have every few months on here, hence my aloofness in bringing it up again, but having to remove the steel drive ring from the hub body to get to the driveside hub bearing is stupid. And it tightens under pedalling load, so inevitably it's stuck in there. I've seen teams of experienced mechanics put the DT tool in a vice, put the wheel on top, and break literally every spoke in a wheel trying to get that thing out of there. I've never been able to do it without resorting to an acetylene torch.

Agree that it's not the best design, but mine came off relatively easily the one time I did it. Guess I got lucky.

They did go to a smaller diameter bearing with the newer ones, so you don't have to remove the drive ring.

 

[big-ted]

They did go to a smaller diameter bearing with the newer ones, so you don't have to remove the drive ring.

 

[maxyedor]

Off the top of my head....

Thompson 25.4mm clamp stem, the old style with the goofy round clamp wedge thing.

Manitou Sherman, all 3 of them that I owned were worked over by the Manipoo guys, all 3 were utter shit.

Hayes carbon mag brakes, ended up warrantying them, and getting non-carbons in exchange, fail.

Sram x-gen front deraileur

XTR cranks (the ones with 3 different bolt patterns, 960s?) bent the spider 2nd or 3rd ride.

All Kenda tires, especially the Nevegals. They were sold out everywhere and people were calling constantly begging us to find them a pair when I worked at a shop, so I tried a set, total fail.

Avid Exlir brakes, warranty, warranty, total replacement, warranty, 2nd total replacement, sold on PB for $40

Trek Rumblefish, everything about it. Not my purchase, but a buddy's who's bike I wrench on, suspension and wheels are notably terrible, though you can't hear them screaming and pinging over the BB.

All Park tools I've tried. Harbor Freight is higher quality.

I'm sure there are more, many more fails.

 

[StiHacka]

Magura MT8 - what an expensive POS.
RF BSA BB - bearings gone after less than six months.

 

[HAB]

I've ranted about this before, but I think the KS Lev is garbage compared to the Thomson dropper. The seat clamp sucks, the kevlar internal cable is stupid, and their lever ergonomics are terrible.

I shredded the casing on a Schwalbe Rock Razor in about a week. The side knobs are too far over, so they don't engage until you're leaned way the fuck over.

 

[Carraig042]

The only one I bought that was not part of a bike build is the Saint M810 brakes. They felt like crap from the beginning, inconsistent lever feel! Sold them after only a few uses.

-Brett

 

[ritche]

1. KS lev - now sags 1 inch, after I used it for 3 months.
* tried to pressurized it with a shock pump, through the pin hole at the bottom using a ball needle it failed.

2. first gen renthal integra stem, cracked, 1 month use.

 

[rollertoaster]

This is a rant I have every few months on here, hence my aloofness in bringing it up again, but having to remove the steel drive ring from the hub body to get to the driveside hub bearing is stupid. And it tightens under pedalling load, so inevitably it's stuck in there. I've seen teams of experienced mechanics put the DT tool in a vice, put the wheel on top, and break literally every spoke in a wheel trying to get that thing out of there. I've never been able to do it without resorting to an acetylene torch.

I feel your pain, I've had a hell of a time getting that damn drive ring loosened on several occasions. Last time a heat gun and impact gun did the trick. I made own tool out of an old ratchet ring and impact socket that I tig welded together. I don't regret buying them though, they are decent hubs and as an added bonus they used to belong to Neko.

 

[blackohio]

Lyric 09 or 10. The overlords sent it with zero oil. The shop built the bike without checking. This guy added air and went on a ride.

How long before it nuked itself? That ride. Shop warrantied it. New one shipped with a imcomplete piston assembly. Oil just blew by. Sent back to the overlords, the "fixed" and shipped back. All the oil leaked out in shipping.

Threw fork away. last RS item i've ever owned.

 

[kidwoo]

Brand new hadley hub. After ~7 rides on my new megatrail the hub literally felt apart in my hand after I took the rear wheel and cassette off last night. Granted it just needed to be cleaned, regreased and tightened. But still really frustrating and ridiculous for a $300+ 'premium, made in the USA' product.

Translation: I dun dropped all the shit inside but then put it back tuhgether suh nevermind

 

[Kanye West]

- Formula brakes. Headache after headache.
- RockShox Pike RC (came on the bike, was supposed to be the cats ass, sucked in really every way)
- Crank Brothers Mallets. I've never had a pedal fail in literally every way possible within 3 weeks of local riding. Unreal.
- '08 Turner DHR, between the durability and the stability issues, was not impressed.
- Intense M3. Why couldn't American companies make pivots that don't suck?
- Gamut chainguide. Flexy thing that would jam chains between the backplate and the ring no matter who set it up.
- Any bike that has this silly "progressive to digressive" behavior to the rear end. Personal preference but despised the inconsistent harshness in the midstroke, with the added benefit of rampant bottoming out.

I'm sure there's more...

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Older Magura brakes that required shims to center calipers.

 

[Udi]

The worst expensive component I bought was a BOS Stoy.
Easily by a long shot the worst shock I've ever ridden / owned / purchased. Spiked like crazy on high speed hits, bike rode like a hardtail. Bought brand new with the right tune for my bike and custom linkage for the Sunday. Emailed BOS about it who were the rudest toolsheds I've spoken to, they tried to tell me the playbiker team were happy and therefore I should be too. My distributor was good about it and sent it back to them, at which point they (supposedly) dyno tested it, told me there was nothing wrong with it, and sent it back. It still sucked. I got a refund and my bike was great again. A good 4 years later they sneakily changed the recommended tune on the tune chart, and in the mean time I'd had the chance to see the valving configurations for all their tunes (ST01 - ST06) from working on them, and wonders of wonders, they'd spec'd the wrong one for the bike - one that was for a very high leverage frame like an older v10.

Everyone makes mistakes but the fact that BOS HQ were so blatantly rude about it and offered no useful help made me pretty keen to never purchase one again. The chassis was nicely made but the main piston was quite an antiquated design too, and there were other annoyances like them taking the liberty of rounding off shock lengths and strokes to metric numbers (so a BOS 9.5x3.0" is actually a 9.45x2.99") as well as nonstandard 12mm eyelets instead of 1/2".

Brand new hadley hub. After ~7 rides on my new megatrail the hub literally felt apart in my hand after I took the rear wheel and cassette off last night. Granted it just needed to be cleaned, regreased and tightened. But still really frustrating and ridiculous for a $300+ 'premium, made in the USA' product.

I had the same experience with Hadley. My brand new one seized on the first wet ride, probably a week after I bought it. The stupid needle bearing is ridiculously sensitive to water intrusion and the seals obviously didn't do a very good job. The stock bearings also didn't last very long, and both of the bearings have to be pushed out of the same side of the hub which was kinda retarded (so one bearing has to cross 2 interference fits). It was fine for ages after I put better bearings in and packed the needle bearing with grease, and the parts were machined nicely, but I wouldn't buy another.

For me it has to be DT 440 hubs. They're expensive, heavy, don't have spectacular engagement, especially with the 'standard' ring drive pieces, and my goodness they're a royal PITA to rebuild.

Likewise. Had to rebuild one recently and it went smoothly but only with the aid of a proprietary tool and a heat gun, neither of which should be required to change bearings on a hub. Apparently the 240 doesn't need the tool to change the bearing which is good, but I've heard of a few breaking flanges now since it's not actually supposed to be a DH hub - which I believed since the flanges cracked off my Hugi FR too (previous labeling of 440).

 

[slimshady]

Off the top of my head:
- A Truvativ Hussefelt stem, came on a brand new GT Ruckus. Two of the screw holes to mount the face plate were machined by some guy who thought it would be a great idea to thread them with a different pitch, so I cut them out while trying to adjust the handlebar's fore/aft. Just after taking the bike out of the box.

- The Fox Float RP2 in my Prophet, it was OK if you weighted a bit more than a baby chicken. Totally POS for anyone else.

- Magura MTS brakes. Bleed them, pump them twice, and BINGO! they already had fresh new air sucked in.

 

[jonKranked]

- Gamut chainguide. Flexy thing that would jam chains between the backplate and the ring no matter who set it up.

i had this problem, then i found out that they made a special bash guard for saints that compensated for the thicker chainring tabs. didn't have a problem after that. [edit: i've still gone back to e13]

 

[jonKranked]

i once bought some weed in the platty parking lot, and it SUCKED

 

[demo 9]

Formula brakes

But i also hated the 11-14 demos. Fun park bike but garbage in the rough stuff.

 

[Nick]

Ergon grips

 

[SylentK]

Any component that uses Torx bolts and doesn't need to. I'm looking mostly at you, SRAM.

Not to pick on SRAM, but the cassette "bolt" on the XX1, X1, etc. fancy 11 speed cassettes and Park FR5 tool aren't exactly compatible. It's like the length of the splines are not long enough, or the recessed area in the FR5 needs to be deeper. Most notably when trying to remove or fully tighten cassette. So easy to strip and destroy a very expensive piece of kit!

 

[Sandwich]

ooh, my new fox 36 uses a t8 torx head to adjust travel. ie, nothing a normal person would have in their toolbox. Had to run to a couple of stores before I found a tool kit that had one. An allen head would have sufficed just fine, as the bolt does nothing but hold two unstressed rods together. oh well.

 

[gemini2k]

I had the same experience with Hadley. My brand new one seized on the first wet ride, probably a week after I bought it. The stupid needle bearing is ridiculously sensitive to water intrusion and the seals obviously didn't do a very good job. The stock bearings also didn't last very long, and both of the bearings have to be pushed out of the same side of the hub which was kinda retarded (so one bearing has to cross 2 interference fits). It was fine for ages after I put better bearings in and packed the needle bearing with grease, and the parts were machined nicely, but I wouldn't buy another.

That's interesting. I guess the perks of licing in CA is that your bearings last forever. I've got an older Hadley on my DH bike. Been on 2 different frames, over a million feet of vert and the bearings still spin *almost* like new. Probably only ~15 days or riding in the rain though.

 

[HAB]

That's interesting. I guess the perks of licing in CA is that your bearings last forever. I've got an older Hadley on my DH bike. Been on 2 different frames, over a million feet of vert and the bearings still spin *almost* like new. Probably only ~15 days or riding in the rain though.

I live in Seattle and have 3 Hadley hubs, none of which have had those problems.

 

[TrumbullHucker]

fuk torx

 

[big-ted]

Any component that uses Torx bolts and doesn't need to. I'm looking mostly at you, SRAM.

My XT chainring bolts are the same. There is no need for Torx bolts on a bicycle.

 

[slimshady]

There is no need for [Torx bolts | Boost 148 | 15QR | PressFit BB] on a bicycle.

 

[HAB]

My XT chainring bolts are the same. There is no need for Torx bolts on a bicycle.

They are nice for really tiny stuff, since they are harder to strip. Ideally the whole world would be torx, the problem with them isn't that they aren't good, but that they aren't prevalent.

 

[StiHacka]

I wish the RF cinch preload collar's pinch bolt was torx.

 

[Dogboy]

Ideally the whole world would be torx, the problem with them isn't that they aren't good, but that they aren't prevalent.

Quoted for truth.

 

[jonKranked]

They are nice for really tiny stuff, since they are harder to strip. Ideally the whole world would be torx, the problem with them isn't that they aren't good, but that they aren't prevalent.

the vast majority of the bone screws we make are torx.

 

[Jim Mac]

I'll go old school - Stratos Helix shocks....thing was a pogo stick from day 1.

 

[Da Peach]

See? NOBODY has mentioned a bad RUX.

Therefore, they must be good.

 

[FlipSide]

Maybe it was too "entry-level" to qualify for this thread...but what the hell: my 2002 Marzocchi JuniorT was amazingly crappy.

• The 7" travel and QR dropouts made for an incredibly flexy fork;
• The stock damper was a total Spike-O-Rama shit-show;
• The adjustments were also really user-friendly:
  • Compression damping: Play with the oil weight and drill more holes to increase oil flow;
  • Rebound damping: Open the fork, plunge a 2ft-long hex rod in the oil to reach the rebound damping adjustment;

The 2003 Manitou Sherman that replaced this POS JrT was such a sweet upgrade (seriously).

 

[jstuhlman]

See? NOBODY has mentioned a bad RUX.

Therefore, they must be good.

That's because no one's been silly enough to buy one.

 

[Sandro]

That's because no one's been silly enough to buy one.

Blasphemy!

 

[SkullCrack]

Corsair Marque. What a complete piece of shit. It would have been more fun to take the money I spent on that frame, put it in a pile, and set it on fire. A poor execution of a shitty design.

•The linkage bottomed out on the frame before reaching full travel.
•The idler functioned either poorly, or not at all.
•The alignment was laughable.
•It weighed a ton for a 5" travel trail bike.
•Best of all, customer service from the company was slow, surly, and rude.

I don't remember any Torx head bolts though, so I guess that's a plus?

 

[captainspauldin]

The only one I bought that was not part of a bike build is the Saint M810 brakes. They felt like crap from the beginning, inconsistent lever feel! Sold them after only a few uses.

-Brett

Had the exact same experience, I bought Avid Code-R's and never looked back. Kinda wish I had the Code-R's on my megatrail, I think I glazed the brake pads in my XT brakes a couple weeks back, scared the crap outta me on some steep stuff.0

Nobody had problems with anglesets? Kinda suprised that hasn't come up yet, I never had one, just thought of it..

 

[IH8Rice]

That's interesting. I guess the perks of licing in CA is that your bearings last forever. I've got an older Hadley on my DH bike. Been on 2 different frames, over a million feet of vert and the bearings still spin *almost* like new. Probably only ~15 days or riding in the rain though.

my stock bearings lasted 6 years riding in the rain and constant washing of my bike before i decided to replace them... not because they were bad, only because i felt like rebuilding it. the replacement bearings they sent me felt like shit after a year. figures. the two front hubs i have are just as old and still spin for ages. theres one constant on all my bikes for the past 15 years. Hadley hubs