They said any damage or issues that arise from running tires larger than spec would void the warranty. Pretty clear cut.
Decided to order the Seigla Ultimate in Medium and get both the rigid fork and the suspension fork. Figure that will be a super veratile setup and super easy to swap back and forth given the external routing. Assuming I don’t hate it, I’ll likely put the Checkpoint SLR up for sale as it likely would be redundant.
Thanks for follow up. I suspected as such…which goes back to my initial point above in that these brands get to post / claim their bikes fit race winning MTB tires yet us plebeians are SOL if we damage anything. Anyway, curious to hear what you think of the Lauf!
I don’t agree with this sentiment. Showcasing what a pro has decided to do with their setup is not the same as endorsing it being done by everyone.
Trek can share a video of Riley Amos sending a massive tabletop on his Supercaliber but I have no expectation that if I go out and try the same and bin it and destroy the bike that Trek is in any way to blame.
They pretty clearly state on their website/specs what the recommended tire sizes are. Decisions beyond that are up to user discretion. Furthermore, even if you do run their recommended sizes and then have the frame damaged in a muddy race, that wouldn’t be a legitimate warranty claim either?
I’m just not agreeing that showing us what a motivated pro is willing to do on their bike in any way entitles us to do the same with blame then placed on the manufacturer for issues that arise?
I don’t think it is that clear-cut. If a manufacturer uses footage of a pro doing crazy things on their bikes, they cannot completely shirk responsibility. Advertisements have to be grounded in reality. On some car commercials you see small captions that mention a “professional driver” was behind the wheel and “Don’t do this at home!”
I haven’t seen the commercial, but taking your word for it. To me that crosses the line, i. e. Trek is IMHO implying that you can use your XC machine for jumps and the like.
While some manufacturers occasionally show photos of the bikes with the riders and larger tires, it’s often pretty hard to make out the actual tire size. It usually takes a lot of instagram sleuthing to find the occasional post which is clear enough to read. Sometimes you can see the brand name, so a search on that model, and see sizes available.
With that amount of work, someone is likely knowledgeable enough to know what their frame is rated for and what the potential risks are in going larger. Since this small group is having the discussion, I think it’d be unreasonable to try and claim ignorance when reaching out to trek for some type of warranty claim.
That’s not a great example for this at all.
You crashing wouldn’t be warranty whether it was a huge table top or your garage with the bike on the roof of a car. Crashes are not a defect or an issue with a product not living up to what you were sold.
But if you both landed it and your bike broke then it would be perfectly reasonable to expect it to be covered as a defect or something you reasonably expected it to be able to do based on their marketing of their rider doing it.
They aren’t telling you not to jump the super caliber. They are telling you not to run the wider tires though.
Even then depending on where you are saying one thing but doing another in their marketing may actually supersede and make it covered under some consumer protection laws.
Yup.
The only exception are stipulations by many manufacturers that you should not use your bike on the trainer. Some, like Canyon, go a step further and sell trainers on their website, proudly displaying their bikes on the trainer. @dcrainmaker had a funny article about it. Fortunately, trainers do not break bikes (when used properly).
Fair point. So would you expect them to warranty the frame for you if you ran 50c and it built up mud and damaged the frame?
i.e should manufacturers have been responsible for any bike damaged at Unbound in the mud that was running spec’d tires?
I don’t agree with some need for responsible advertising. I just don’t follow how any one of us are “plebians SOL” if we damage our frames running tires with insufficient clearance for whatever conditions we’re in, regardless of what Enve posts a picture of a pro doing?
I felt really good about myself when I pipped 500W for 2min recently. 500W for 20min… I know he’s a big guy but holy hell.
I don’t think you’ll be getting any warranty from mud related issues. It is your responsibility to stop when mud gunks up and clean it off, even if you have the spec’d tyre size. it’s wear and tear and you have put the bike in a very accelerate wear and tear simulator i.e unbound.
It’s a tricky issue because there are wear and tear items on a bike that are not expected to be warrantied and simply require regular service. Brakes are an obvious one, but bearings/bottom brackets are another. Riding in the mud is going to accelerate wear on a lot of the stuff. However if my frame cracked during a muddy event I’d expect it to be warrantied. I’m buying the bike to be able to do tough events like Unbound 2023. That being said, my Checkpoint SLR held up just fine that year but did require some maintenance after, especially to the bearings.
Trek is in a bad spot right now with the Checkmate. They put a lot of resources into it’s development but in this past year, even the last 6 months, we’ve really seen an appetite for larger tires in gravel. Two major events on the Lifetime GP calendar, Unbound and Big Sugar, are a big factor, but now seeing the big tires are races like SBT is just driving this more. The Trek Driftless pro’s believe there is a benefit and therefore using them. Amateurs are going to want to emulate. So now Trek has a bike that with the latest groupset is $12,000 but is already not state of the art…and if you throw anything bigger than a 45 on it and something happens to the frame or fork, well you are on your own. Seems like a tough sell.
It’s going to get interesting when Allied launches their new gravel bike. Based on Payson’s prototypes it’s going to have bigger clearance, just a matter of how much. I’m sure they would love to have it front and center at Big Sugar in Bentonville next month, but wonder if it will be ready by then. Definitely will pay attention to what Payson is running that day.
If it cracked due to a manufacturing issue, yes, it should be warrantied. If it cracked because you wore through the carbon as a result of mud buildup, then no, that is not a warranty. That is classified as abuse / neglect on the part of the user.
What’s interesting is that Trek has (or had?) the ability to perform complex rolling resistance testing specific to gravel, so they could get in front of the tire size/clearance issue if they wished. There’s enough overlap between the fastest XC tires and fastest gravel tires it would be simple to provide counter-data or talking points.
Great bike. Seems like more gravel bikes will be going that way.
That’s pretty cool stuff. For whatever reason though Trek/Bontrager have been horrible with tires. I remember them hyping up the GR-1 gravel tire when it was launched and it turned out to be terribly slow. Their wheels seem to have improved a bit in recent years, but you still see a ton of folks on Trek’s who have swapped on Zipp’s or Enve’s.
Trek’s done a lot of innovative things over the years. The have really pushed aerodynamics with the Madone and then adding aero-shaping to many of their other bikes. The Supercaliber is a great example of thinking differently. I remember in their videos around the launch they showed many of the different prototypes that were put through testing leading up to the final design, so they do have the ability to build one-offs without issue. They are not always the fastest though to adapt. They were slow to get on the 29er band wagon and then it took quite a while for them to have a proper XC race bike to compete with the Epic.
Jumping in on the Trek discussion here - I tried fitting a 29x2.2 Specialized Renegade to the rear of my new gen3 Checkpoint SL5 which Trek lists as 50mm clearance. On the stock 21mm internal rim the tire measured 53mm wide. Minimum clearance I was able to measure was ~7mm at the driveside chainstay. Everywhere else appeared to be at least 10-11mm.
I didn’t try riding this configuration, this was just to see if it was plausible after reading some comments online stating that Trek were conservative when specifying tire clearance.
No experience with Trek, but I push the limits on my 2019 CruX with 40mm. 7-10mm is fine when dry, but I would avoid muddy conditions with that clearance.
Given the title of the thread, any idea what bike the Santa Cruz athletes will use at Worlds, given the Stigmata is not UCI-legal? Cervelos I imagine?
Why isn’t it legal?