This was sent to me from Trek - an excerpt from their newsletter "exit 180".




Don't Believe The Hype!

As part of Trek's on-going research and development process of building better OCLV carbon fiber bikes, we do plenty of lab tests (frontal impact & fatigue) to see what works and what doesn't. Fancy finishes notwithstanding, the best measure of how well a frame performs is how well it is made. We slice open plenty of our competitors' frames to check their quality.

Recently, I was stopped in my tracks at the sight of this carbon fork. Wrapped along the inside wall of each leg was a portion of some Chinese newspaper that was leftover from the manufacturing process. This is what you get from an “American” bike company that sources their bikes off-shore with little control over the process.


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Take a Look Inside

Then again, there's also this fine example of foam filler in place of real carbon that was found on the inside of another brand that touts itself as a champion of new technology and hands-on fabrication. There's enough clay in there to sculpt a small ash tray.

I signed up for their newsletter because I'm a Trek owner. I guess they can't say what maker that is. This article was saying that they check out the competition so they can make improvements. I'm not sure if their carbon frames and forks are made overseas. Actually, I think the higher line Treks are made here. My Cake has CF seat stays and that bike was for sure made here.

I don't know how to enlarge the pics.

I got the email this morning too. They are doing damage control over the broken fork. If anyone wants the newsletter, let me know and I can forward it.

https://emails.trekbikes.com/exit180/200604/

Yep, Seeing crap like this only enforces my belief that.......

LUGGED STEEL IS REAL!!!

So..... did Trek slice open one of their 1000 series bikes to see if the Aluminum was lined with Taiwanese newspapers?

Are all Trek carbon forks OCLV and made in the US? Not sure...

This smacks of propaganda and damage control from the mighty Trek.

Guess I'll disect my Felt later on to see what the scores were in the table tennis matches the day my bike was made....

+1 - fillers and poor quality CF construction has been a known issue for a while, but the re-surfacing of it in a letter to Trek owners a week after a very high profile catastrophic fork failure does smack of a PR move.

BTW does the e-mail mention that a Trek frame bested this one in a fatigue test, stiffness test, weight, other quantifyable quality that means something?

Hey you never know...maybe the engineers have found that newspaper works as a great binder for the CF and saves weight over other resin layup techniques....

So filling the fork with American newspapers is better than filling it with Taiwanese newspapers?

The newspaper looks like it was used simply as a mold release and would not impact the strength or reliability of the fork.

I got a free Trek for my daughter through a promotion. Granted, it wasn't a high-end bike, but all the accessories were proprietary. I had to get a Trek bike rack because no others would work. We bought a Trek mirror. Seems like a sneaky way to eliminate competition.

Darn straight about that, buckeroo!

HA HA. Its like Trek has become the Wallmart of decent quality bikes. I guess somebody had to take Schwinn's place.

Yeah, before you know it some computer company is going to come along and try the same sort of monkey business.

Of course it is, since if we use "their" newspapers, the communists win.


Extra patriotism points if RNC flyers/pamphlets were used instead of newpaper.

Maybe Trek can learn something from this. That way next time Hincapie's waiting for the team car he'll have something to read.


I wonder if George can read chinese.

Those clever, thrifty Taiwanese. Just be thankful they didn't use TP.

Most don't use TP. Seriously. Real Chinese toliets are nothing but a hole in the ground. When I was living in Taiwan as a kid we went on a trip to climb Mt Morison with the Scouts. Hostel/base camp only had basic Chinese toilet - non western. Just about made myself sick holding it as long as I did

I've used those in Turkey. They are supposed to either have a hose or a watering pot. What you do is go, then wash your posterior when done.

As a bright side, those things are so nice when you have to throw up...head under stomach...almost painless hurling action.

+1

This same issue came up briefly years ago ( late 1970s, if my memory serves me correctly ) with fiberglas yacht hulls from Taiwan.

So after you crash from the failed fork you can sit back and read while waiting for the ambulance?

I'm not against "progress," but as I was riding my 23-year-old lugged steel road bike this evening, a similar thought popped into my mind.

So I had my great-grandpappy Harry help me slice open my CF fork today...

Here he is showing off our discovery from the inside of the fork!

Just think of how things would have been different if a Playboy was used in place of a taiwanese newspaper.


.....something tells me there would have been a lot of reports of kids breaking people's forks.