If it's Treks we're discussing here, they're still tubes glued together. The head tube, seat cluster and BB area are glued to the tubes.



Brian, so you had the H1 fit and they moved you to H2? Wow, that's annoying since you actually need H1 for your fit to work. You might want to point that out and ask if they can get you onto the 6-series that actually fits... after all, the 5-series used to be a US-made bike too. You bought in, they should move you up if that's what it takes to maintain your fit. And there's a chance they'll say yes, we've had a few successes at the horse-trading approach before.

I see the point, but I am disinclined to make a stink. Trek has been pretty accommodating; frames wear out and I believe this one did exactly that. I am convinced that CF does not a make for a lifetime bike for a racing cyclist. Trek has the balls to offer a lifetime warranty on a CF frame; it means they are not targeting racing cyclists that put a lot of high stress miles on the bike, and their decisions on geometry offerings, groupset offerings (other than their 6.x series, their bikes all come with compact cranksets), etc, reflect that choice. They accommodate racers simply by swapping the worn out frames every several years until the frame dies in a crash or the racer loses interest. I'm not trying to get ahead on the transaction. To put it in perspective, my Velo Vie race frame (great frame; as stiff as a Cervelo is aero, and marketed for racing) only has a 3 year warranty.

Besides, I looked at the geometry numbers pretty closely; I can make the 56 work fine just by moving the saddle back a few mm. They get the smaller frame by steepening the seattube by 0.3 degrees and slacking the headtube by 0.2 degrees (and, of course, lowering the top tube by 2cm). I can get the exact same fit by moving the saddle back 4mm and the handlebars forward 4mm; since stems don't come in these increments, I'll just move the saddle back 4-6mm and call it good.

New bike built up after its shakedown ride. Trek came through for me. Happy that they fixed it; sad that my old bike is no more.

On a fit note, it is a good thing I got the 56 rather than the 58; the stem is sitting on top of the headset even on the smaller frame. Something to consider when going with Trek. They no longer have a true race geometry at any level other than the 6.x series.

Overall though, nice bike.

weird looking bike

Looks sweet! Enjoy... You have long legs dude.

Yea... well... your face is weird too.

lol, hey what did you mean about when u said the stem is sitting on top of the headset even on the smaller frame, isnt it like that on all bike? what do you mean?? sorry im new to road cycling

Head tube height, and subsequently, handlebar drop, was an issue with this frame. My original bike was a 58; the new bike is a 56 for no other reason than the inability to get the bars low enough on the larger frame.

Normally there are spacers under the stem, that's what he meant.

Post #2.

Glad it worked out as it should.

You called it. However, whenever something is at the mercy of someone's interpretations, the outcome is somewhat in question.

What a coincidence. 2007 5.2 Madone here as well. Same exact problem. And yes, Trek replaced it with a 5.9 frame. I just brought the Trek store the frame and they replaced it. Took roughly 4 weeks.

What did your creaks sound like? Was it in sync with pedal rotation? And was it only apparent under heavy load/torque?

I won't speak for Scummer, but this is exactly as it presented on my bike. Every time the driveside pedal went down with high load, it would creak. It was creaking initially only when I was sitting, and then it got worse to the point where it was any time I put load on the pedal. I swapped cranks, swapped bottom brackets, swapped wheels, saddle, stem, everything and it didn't change.

That is exactly what happened with me. When I finally found the problem, I just took the frame in, they sent it off to Waterloo, and I had a new frame a couple weeks later. I then had to wait a bit to get a bottom bracket and headset that fit the bike. Apparently the "BB90" bottom bracket and the top cap of the headset are custom. I don't think the headset bearings themselves are custom though, just the top bearing cap.

When did your frame fail? I was told the 2011 4.x series was now the most equivalent tech to the 2007 5 series Madone.

Could you reproduce the creak just by applying weight/load on the driveside pedal while it was in the 6 o'clock position, without actually rotating the pedal/crank? Or did the creak only happen while the crank was rotating and at what point in the rotation did it occur?

Also, how did you finally figure this out?

Just like the original thread....Pics or it didn't happen. Have you learned nothing??

I find it odd that they would replace a 5.2 with a 4.6. I know a couple of guys who warrantied their 5.2's and got new 5.2's in return.

Just an observation.. In the end, you got a new frame and that is what is important.

Threads like this are the reason I still haven't made the move to full carbon. I'd like a lighter bike, but I'm pretty hard on equipment and don't want something that has an excessive failure rate even if warranty coverage is good.

I wond up abandoning Rival shifters for this reason. Overall, I really like them. But the levers have a tendency to break off. I've experienced this problem, and it's easy to find other who also have. I've experienced good things from SRAM's warranty coverage and have heard the same from others, but having stuff fail at in opportune times is really a PITA.

No, the crank had to be in motion for it to creak. The creak occured as the driveside crank arm passed from the 3:00 to 6:00 position.

Finally figured out it was the bottom bracket sleeve when I got it on the trainer and saw the chainring was moving laterally relative to the front derailleur cage, which had never happened before on this bike. I took the crank and bottom bracket off and could wiggle the sleeve inside the frame with my hand, which is definitely not supposed to happen.

I think it is simply because the frame was five years old and the 2011 5.x line is significantly more advanced than the 2007 5.x line. For instance, I would have gained internal cable routing, a seat mast, and a carbon steering tube. Putting the bike together, the 4 series frame is very similar to my old 5 series frame; the only benefit being the new frame feels just a bit lighter (not by enough to really matter though).

In my case it was creaking for a while when under medium to high load (if you can call 250 Watts a lot ), then the creaking went away after a while and one day the crank started to feel weird. First I blamed my cleats being a loose fit in the pedals. But one day I decided to pull and push on the crank arm and low and behold the whole crank assembly was moving slightly sideways.
So I took the damn thing apart, thinking that maybe my bearings had gotten loose and while I was trying to unscrew the bottom bracket all of a sudden the whole bottom bracket shell moved with it and I couldn't even get the bottom bracket loose from the bottom bracket shell.

So I completely disassembled the frame and took frame and fork to the Trek dealer for a warranty claim. Couple of weeks later I had the new frame.

Thomas

Mine failed end of season last year. I think it was September. It was still beautiful weather outside and I was wincing not being able to ride my race bike.

Damn, if only I had diagnosed what happened earlier... Would have gotten a better frame. Oh well, the 2012 4.7 (was initially told it was going to be a 4.6) is actually a pretty nice frame.