Originally Posted by
CliffordK
Ok, so as I understand it, that is a wear line where the seat post used to set. You've raised the seat post, then touched up the wear line with paint a year ago.
So, the cracking and discoloration is due to a bad touch-up paint job.
But, there may also be FLEX at that point which would also crack the paint.
You've ridden your bike some and haven't impaled yourself which is a good sign. You did have it inspected a year ago, but not recently. Do you still have photos of it before the botched paint job?
You could take it back to the shop for re-inspection a year later. However, put it back up on the web. Take good photos, and explain the situation the best you can do (pre touch-up would be good too). Perhaps it shouldn't affect the sale price, but I have no doubt that it will affect the final price as it just looks suspicious.
I did find a local bike shop that also does carbon fiber repair and they're going to inspect it for me. If the carbon is fine, they should be able to repair and repaint it to look almost as good as new. IF the carbon is indeed damaged, I guess I'll have to let them tell me if a seat post like that can even be safely repaired.
Anyway, it was worth posting my question here because I doubt I would have even thought this was an option.
Although I do have pictures of the frame before I built it up, there are no close ups of the post. The pic above that is touched up was just the first application of white paint, I've done it a few more times since to make it look better but the white wasn't an exact match as I wasn't too worried about making it perfect, just less noticeable from a distance. Never planned to get hooked and buy a new bike. Thought I'd ride this one until it exploded.