| My Broken Bike and Bringing it Back to Life |
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Feeling good. Photo by Rob Noble
Not feeling so hot here. Photo by Rob Noble
I was not too concerned about the bike at this point. It was late August and I could not really ride for another six weeks, plus Fall is for cross and mountain biking, so I hung the bike back up and went inside. Over the next few months, I pondered what to do with the old girl (two years old). I could strip it and sell the groupo and the proprietary fork and seatmast and turn the frame into some sort of functional art piece that my wife (and most people) would mock. I could Ebay it "as is". I could fix it and sell it "as is", or I could fix it and turn it into a belt drive single speed or a regular single speed. The belt drive would take a bit of breaking/fixing to make it happen, but it would be pretty cool. After reading the Velo News article on repairing carbon, I decided to fix it, train on it and sell it "as is". For me, it came down to two options, and the manufacturer crash replacement program was not one of them. I could spend a ton to have a broken carbon frame that worked great and looked great or spend a little and have a broken carbon frame that worked great and looked okay. As far as I was concerned, the resale value was shot no matter what so why spend a ton making it look nice. Velo had great things to say about Broken Carbon down in Boulder. The price was right, so I fired Brady Kappius an email to check his availability. At the time, the Cliff Bar Mtb/Cross Pro was busy at CX Nats (he would go on to finish 5th in the single speed race) so the repair would have to wait a few days. I met with Brady at his house/office on Friday the 13th to get the ball rolling. To say that Brady knows what he is doing would be an understatement. He has a Bachelors of Science in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines as well as a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has repaired roughly 100 carbon fiber frames. His house and garage were littered with all the big brands in various stages of repair including Cannondale, Specialized, Trek, Giant, BMC, Ridley etc... belonging to weekend warriors to regional heavy hitters all the way up to Euro pros. Some of which can't be mentioned here for various reasons. I spent a few hours over the course of two mornings watching Brady work his magic. According to Brady, the repair process has three basic steps: Preparation: where I remove paint, clear coat and damaged fibers bringing out the raw carbon. Lay-up: I select the carbon fiber size and type that I want to use based on the damaged areas size, stresses and cosmetics, wet it out with a 2 part epoxy resin, then apply it to the frame and apply uniform compression. The final stage, and probably the most time consuming, is the finish work. I sand down the repair to a smooth, tapered finish and apply clear coat and paint in some cases. This quote was stolen from a Mud and Cowbells interview with Brady last fall. Broken Carbon saves 3-4 frames from the landfill every week. The most common affliction to those frames is a broken stay either seat or chain. Repairs at BC take between 1 and 2 weeks and usually cost between $175.00 and 200.00. I found it very interesting that BC technically could have you back on the road 10 hours after you snapped your frame. This depends on two things, BC being available to make the repair and you not caring about the cosmetics. This repair would be strictly structural. Below are before, during and after photos of my 2010 6 Series Trek Madone. I dropped the whole bike off (no disasembly required) one Friday and picked it up the next. The current plan is to train on it for the spring and Ebay it to help pay for a new one. If you have any questions for Broken Carbon, please tag @Broken Carbon and post them in the Facebook comments section below. Brady can be contacted at:
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