AeroGut

I posted a link to the 1997 Litespeed warranty above.

70sSanO

Litespeed currently offers a “Limited” Lifetime Warranty. The website indicates that a Litespeed frame has a useful life cycle and is not the same as the warranty period. There is a bit of a laundry list of conditions that will reduce the life of the frame.

I think the chances that the current Litespeed owners will honor the 25 year old warranty made by the original owners are probably pretty slim. Unless someone has information on the wording of the sale of the company concerning previous warranties, it may be moot. The fact that they even asked about the original sales receipt might have been more to quickly eliminate any possibility for a warranty claim.

The frame will need to be stripped and shipped to Litespeed for inspection at the owner’s expense. Litespeed will inspect the frame, probably with cameras, and probably find some evidence that the frame has met its useful life.

Litespeed may then offer a discount on a new frame, or not. But pursuing this will probably be a waste of time and money. Time to move on.

John

purpurite

It was a joke. Trying to warrantee a 25 year old bike is also a joke.

curbtender

Anyone have a lifetime warranty Sears Diehard battery?

70sSanO

I have a 1986 Cannondale and the original receipt. There is a satisfaction guarantee as well as a replacement guarantee for damaged frames for $150. I believe the original words are “if you are ever dissatisfied with your Cannondale bicycle, we will replace it free of charge.”

While the bike is quite rideable, the possibility of a new frame does make me dissatisfied with my 1986 at this point in time. And if Cannondale would if fact replace it for $150 I’m all in.

John

Alan K

Not necessarily, if all conditions of warranty repair or replacement are met, life-time should not have a limit.

We have a Softride bicycle carrier we purchased in the early nineties. The rubber straps to tie down bicycles get stretched and start cracking in 10-12 years. I call the company and they send me a new set by FedEx for free.

Heck, even a faucet company that sold it to us with a life-time warranty, supplies all washers and plastic parts for free when it started leaking after more than 20 years of flawless service. I was going to buy a new one from the same company but decided to check with the maker if they still sell parts for it (our model had been discontinued several years ago). I was perfectly fine with paying for parts but they said, no need, this has a life-time warranty and you should have all the necessary components tomorrow.

It all depends on how a company runs their business.

t2p

good luck with that

I had a one year old / 1992 Cannondale 2.8 frame that had multiple issues - and Cannondale refused to warranty it

I was the original owner and had the original sales slip and was working through / with a long time Cannondale dealer

the frame was out of alignment - the fork was out of alignment - and the underside of the top tube where it was joined to the head tube was compromised where the built up weld material was ground too much (and into the top tube)

other than that it was a great frame !

Chuck M 

Reminds me of a time a waitress asked me if I enjoyed my meal and I replied as she was removing my obviously very empty plate that I didn't like it thinking she would get the joke. She apparently didn't understand because the manager came over shortly asking if there was anything she could do to fix it.

oneclick 

Moen.

merziac

Exactly this, the titanium bike world has been and still seems to be fraught with challenges, the companies that survived seem to have done so by outlasting those said challenges by offering reassuring warranties and then often not honoring them.

They have skirted a self fulfilling prophecy by offering a warranty then narrowing it to be useless at their discretion and playing the customers as guinea pigs while they figured it out which is debatable whether they have or not.

Alan K

Yes, indeed!
They were a little more expensive than some other brands when we changed all faucets in our home but I’m glad I used them. Kitchen faucet is used the most and eventually plastic parts wore out, not surprising but very impressed with their warranty fulfillment.

Alan K

And in there lies the catch, where you have ask the merchant whose life-time the warranty refers to!

bulgie 

Disgusting... inedible... and the portions were too small!

t2p

free calendar with the purchase of my Litespeed frame

Doug Fattic 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kontact

Have you ever seen someone that was unable to get their saddle back far enough for comfort when using a 73 STA?

Yes, there are situations where a 73º seat angle is too steep. A proper seat angle for a performance road bicycle doesn’t mean it is right for a recreational rider. Fitting is a complex process. It is a balance of aerodynamics, biomechanical efficiency and comfort. These 3 factors war against each other and a good fit is a probably a compromise between them. The ratio of each factor in the formula is different for each individual. Most American based fitting systems are based on speed/performance more than comfortable recreational riding. Lets take for an example an older guy whose gained weight and lost flexibility and no longer rides with the fast group on training rides. He is not going to the gym to increase his core strength and doesn’t like having the weight of his too large upper body on his arms and hands. For him the solution is to inch (or more accurately mm) his saddle back slowly on a fitting bike until he discovers – like magic – his weight is more balanced and his upper body no longer requires as much support from his arms and hands. The amount of setback where this happens could easily require a 71º seat angle.

Another group of people that like more saddle setback are young urban riders that get around by bike instead of a car. They pedal more slowly so they don’t arrive all sweaty and out of breath and like to be more upright so they can see down the road clearly to avoid trouble. If they use traditional drop handlebars, they will be higher than typcal and in fact use handlebars types much more common in Europe than the US. For them a shallower than 73º seat angle works best.

A 3rd group that likes higher handlebar height are some women of any age and fitness level that want to avoid pressure on the sensitive areas of their crotch. Sometimes this requires their drop handlebars to be several centimeters above their saddle height.

There is a relationship between handlear height and saddle setback – the higher the handlebars the more setback needed resulting in the requirement of a shallower seat angle. An extreme example is Dutch utilitarian bikes with very upright positions and 68º to 70º seat angles. We build our Ukraine utility bikes that have North Road handlebars with a 71º angle. I would have gone back another º but the bottom bracket shells we have available made that more difficult.

Of course a shallower seat angle requires the front end of the bicycle to come rearward to maintain the proper seat to handlebar distance. This brings the front wheel closwer to the riders toes creating overlap. Some overlap can be toleared by some riders but not everyone. It is easy for a non-athletic person to try and turn around slowly in the road and go splat on the pavement when their foot hits their front wheel. The solution of course is to use a smaller diameter wheel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kontact

People do not like non-700c wheels.

It is really too bad there is a prejudice against smaller wheels sizes than 700c. A 650b has a smaller rim diameter but their fatter/taller tires make them almost the same diameter as a 700c. I made myself a 650c go fast bike even though I like to ride a 57cm frame. I love the ride! I can spin up speed faster in a noticeable way compared to my 700c bikes. A bonus for me was that I could tuck in an inch closer to the guy in front of me and get a better draft on fast training rides. I’m sensitive to these small differences because I could barely stay with the fast group and needed every advantage not to get dropped. I once made myself a travel bike with 24” wheels to reduce travel case size. It is like riding a little rocket ship. My experience building many frames for many women (especially when they are below average in height) is that they can benefit with a bike with smaller wheels. For starters, it reduces toe overlap issues. Everything is more balanced and proportional. Of course there are drawbacks with ease of availability but those aren’t insurmountable.

Don’t let accountants and lawyers dictate your small frame design choices. Instead let small person herself Georgina Terry fit and design a frame that will work well for her future. I wouldn’t waste anymore money, emotional energy and time on a bicycle that has already come to the end of its useful life.

Kontact 

Says who? Show us the numbers of all the legit yet rejected Litespeed warranty claims.

This thread is about a failed frame with no receipt. That seems like the only relevant information. Not conspiracy.

Kontact 

I thought the context of this thread and your comments were road race type bikes, and your reference to steeper seat angles was the habit of many builders to use 74 or steeper in small bikes. My point was that 73 works for nearly everyone that is needing to fit those bikes, not that 73 is the correct angle for all bikes of any type. So what kind of steep STA were you referring to if bikes like the OP's tend to be 74 or steeper already under size 53?


I also don't understand what 650B wheels with large tires have to do with small people. If the outer diameter is the same, than they offer no benefit to making the frame geometry work out better.

But 650C wheels are out of favor because the tires, tubes and rims are hard to find, they make the bike look weird, they require different gearing and they may not feel like they roll the same. So while the concept of completely proportional bikes sounds good, they are not attractive to consumers. And bike builders can solve many of the problems of making short reach bikes with frame and fork geometry rather than scaling down the whole thing.

Trakhak

Woody Allen stole that from Thomas Hobbes: "Life is nasty, brutish, and short."

When the Ramones first played in New Haven (one of the best shows I've ever seen), the reviewer for the local free paper wittily wrote that their songs were nasty, brutish, and short.

Alan K

I have several titanium bikes and my experience is quite different, I’m quite happy with all of mine.
Of course this is based on my individual (n=1) opinion and may not mean anything in the overall picture.

And to be fair to frames made from other materials, my steel bikes have not failed, my aluminum bikes are perfectly intact, so is the solitary carbon fiber bike own (took me a while to trust this material but it does seem fine).

steelbikeguy

The issue of 650C falling out of favor is somewhat a chicken and egg issue... I've got a high-racer recumbent that takes 650C, and there were quite a number of tire models available. The fashion seems to moving from recumbent bikes to recumbent trikes, and they don't appear to use 650C. As such, it's much harder to find 650C tires now (although they are still out there).
The I-Bob list has been bemoaning the shrinking availability of 650B tires recently too.

There's a lot to be said for using a "standard" tire size if possible, but smaller people need smaller wheels. Design the frame for the maximum flexibility, if possible (my 'bent also takes 26" wheels), but designing a small bike around a 700C wheel has produced some rather poor compromises in the past.

Fortunately, as Jan Heine has demonstrated, and Grant Petersen too, it's not that hard to get a tire manufacturer to crank out a modest sized batch of custom tires. 650C doesn't have to disappear.

Steve in Peoria

Polaris OBark

Aluminum and Titanium have nearly the same redox potentials, so my guess is this isn't caused by galvanic corrosion.

Cracking at or adjacent to welds is a known mode of failure.

Doug Fattic 

What I was attempting to explain is that when a cyclist transitions from a road racing style of bike whose position has a deep drop to a more recreational style of bike (as their fitness and flexibility decreases and their weight increases), the result is that their handlebars come up and in and a frame geometry change is beneficial to accommodate that new fit. That change would include a shallower seat angle.

Some people think a 650b wheel is actually smaller than a 700c wheel when in fact they are similar. I wanted to explain that to those that might not know because it will come up on almost every subject thread on this subject.

It is true that 650C wheels have availibilty issues but they are not obsolete. I can still buy them. Smaller wheels can also be MTB/559 size as an option too. I don’t agree with your opinion that 650c bikes look weird. I think a small frame looks better with slightly smaller wheels. And I’ve built quite a few and looks are very important to me. Gearing is not an issue with smaller wheels, a chart will show about a one cog tooth difference in back (starting with a 12 instead of a 13). In fact most recreational riders done’t need and can’t very well use higher gearing.

Have you ridden a bike with 650c wheels? My testimony is that I prefer the ride (and I’ve riddern many thousands of miles on mine).YMMV. My professional opinion on designing frames after doing a customer fit for recreational riders (not a go-fast-as-I-can-type) is that a steep seat angle is a pretty big compromise to optimum design. So are big wheels on a small frame. That the 74º seat angle the lawyers insist on for liability reasons might work but doesn’t mean it is best.

Alan K

As already suggested to the OP by several members here, the realistic option for him is to get a new or lightly used frame with a good fit for his wife. Depending on the available budget, the best option is always a custom fit, regardless of the material of the frame he selects. As already explained very well by others, with age our bicycling position changes in which we are comfortable so the old bicycle probably would no longer be the best suited.

The long discussion about warranty and business ethics is a moot point in the absence of receipt.

I am thankful to the informative contribution of frame builder(s).

repechage

A quick search unfortunately only brought up 650c x 23 tires.
‘better than 21’s but 28’s would be nice.
My wife could use a bike with those.

Kontact 

It isn't so much my opinion, but that of female customers that have rejected 650c customs in favor of 700c option for all the reasons stated. Women cyclists are, on average, more practical than their counterparts and seem rather concerned about being able to get a new tire while traveling or replacing a spoke on their less-than-ultimate cycling machine.