[email hidden] (Scoochiro) wrote in message
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Quoted message said:[email hidden] wrote in message
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Quoted message said:K? Harper said:> The Cinelli crown has fairly thick lug extensions that go inside the fork blades and end
> abruptly (because no one can see this) and out of sight out of mind. However, fork blades
> fail in fatigue at this transition, breaking off after an insignificant life duration. As I
> said, I had tow of these failures and insisted on an external crown that was filed to have a
> zero thickness transition. This has worked for many more miles than any of my Cinelli forks
> survived.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:How many miles constitute an "insignificant life duration"?
About 5000 miles.
I'm interested in your observations on this, and I want to make sure that I've got your statement
clear: is it your experience that a Cinelli fully sloping crown can, and often does, fail by
breaking fork blades at or around 5000 miles? Did the ones you write of break at or near that
mileage?
Maybe I have misconstrued your statement but, if not, then I find it hard to believe. Since fork
crowns are made to be ridden, and since they are an integral part of the steering/safety of a
bicycle, and since we have no shortage of plaintiffs lawyers in this country, why wouldn't Cinelli
be fending off lawsuits left and right, presumably with your testimony as Exhibit A on why these
things are unreasonably hazardous?
Now, of course, just because something exists in the marketplace is no real evidence at all of its
safety, design wisdom, etc. That is obvious. But the Cinelli crown has been around a long time, a
lot of frames have been built using it, and if these facts resulted in a disproportionately large
number of breakages (and, presumably in many -- though not all -- cases, resulting injuries), then
wouldn't the tort system/products liability law force Cinelli to acknowledge a design defect?
I know that you don't like the crown, and I have no reason to debate the engineering basis for
your dislike. In terms of the design's drawbacks, I have to assume you are correct.
I'm just asking, is it as failure prone as you say (i.e., reasonable expectation that a reasonable
number of these things won't last over 5000 miles)?
I don't think personal injury lawyers pay much attention to bicycles. Sure, there are some lawyers
who advertise in the back of Velonews, etc., but they're probably suing drivers in most instances.
If lawyers were constantly breathing down the necks of the bicycle industry, do you think we would
be seeing ever lighter components, including things like titanium pedal spindles that we know break
in fair numbers? How many decades did Campagnolo produce cranks that were prone to breaking? How
many boutique companies come and go, putting ill-thought-out products on the market and then
disappearing from view in a few summers?
Personal injury lawyers are looking for deep pockets, quick turnaround, and the most bang for the
buck (in other words, the biggest recovery given their investment in time and resources). Most
bicycle accidents not involving cars are fairly minor compared to automobile accidents (and that
automatically puts a limit on how much you can collect). If it involves a car, it's easier to go
after the driver's insurer. Think about the effort involved in proving that Cinelli-style fork
crowns are more dangerous than other designs. First, you'd have to get Cinelli and other fork makers
to cough up a lot of proprietary data -- no mean effort. I believe it took months or years before
lawyers suing Ford/Firestone realized that there was a pattern to SUV accidents. Ford and Firestone
certainly weren't spreading the word.
On the whole, even the biggest pockets in the bicycle world are small potatoes compared to the
companies personal injury lawyers usually target.
Yes, I'm aware that there are lawsuits against bike manufacturers and that some people have
collected on frivolous claims. But I haven't seen that translate into any impact on bicycle design
(with the possible exception of lawyer lips, and that was probably adopted as much because it was
virtually costless as for any other reason -- just like you see warning stickers on some products
instead of a redesign). I suspect lawsuits have their biggest impact on the bicycle industry in the
form of higher insurance premiums, and little else.
Have you been following the thread on James Annan's discovery regarding disk brakes? Perhaps
there's something going on behind the scenes, but it looks like the industry wants to bury its head
in the sand.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I think the bicycle consumer might actually benefit from some
well-targeted lawsuits against bicycle manufacturers. I don't expect to see it anytime soon, because
the smart lawyers have bigger fish to fry.
I'm not entirely hopeless about the situation though. I do think it's heartening that people like
James Annan and the contributors to this newsgroup are trying to uncover patterns that the bicycle
manufacturers are indifferent to or too lacking in resources to uncover. If we publicize these
things, the manufacturers (or, perhaps more importantly, their insurers) will probably begin to
take notice.
