Here’s the big advantage of buying a bike from a small company that sells directly and keeps tabs on all the bikes it sells. Beyond Fabrications is awesome, and this story makes that obvious.
Last Thursday I proved that triathletes should never contest a sprint. Especially not at a Thursday night crit, when there’s nothing on the line. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I crashed hard and slid on my side across the finish line at the Seward Park Crit last week. I was making my pass for a hopeful win. The leader was to my right, and another guy on my wheel was trying to pass on my left. I’m not sure if the guy on my left got his bars under my bars, or if they hit my side, but my wheels didn’t stay under me. As I was sliding I looked back and curled into a ball hoping nobody would hit me. About five or six bikes swerved and made it safely around me, and then a guy sprinting (maybe with his head down?) ran square over the top of me and my bike. My poor Beyond Fabrications Radius Carbon frame took the full weight of the impact. Like a carbon secret service agent, my bike spared it’s life for my health. The frame is totaled. Done. Cracked in three places.
It’s pretty obvious where the other guy hit, just in front of the seat tube. That crack is the biggest, and caused two smaller cracks at the other end of the top tube and down near the bottom bracket. I must not have been thinking clearly because it took about four people insisting I not ride home for me to finally give in and call my buddy Peter to come pick me up. I’m pretty sure I would have a multi-piece bike had I hit a single bump on the 20 mile ride home.
While waiting for Peter I called up Jim at Beyond Fabrications and explained what happened. "Jim, I have bad news. I crashed my bike at a local Crit, and I’m leaving next week to go race in Korea."
"Ok, I can get you a crash replacement in the mail tomorrow," Jim’s response floored me. "You’ll have a bike no later than Monday."
"Really?"
"Yeah, you need a bike to race, so we’ll get you a bike. It’s bike racing, crashes happen, you’re not hurt, don’t worry about it."
Jim is my hero. My new Radius Carbon showed up Saturday morning! Jim paid the extra money for overnight shipping!
Now THAT is some quality service.
AND GLAD TO HEAR YOU’RE NOT HURT! Geeeeeeez, Ben! I didn’t think pro triathletes raced crits in the middle of their season because of things like CRASHES… :-/
Oh great Sarah, like I need one more person telling me how stupid it is to do crits in season. Loren told me beforehand, then reminded me afterwards that he was right, then emailed me to reiterate that I am in fact an idiot. Jim was nicer, but also indicated if I was going to ruin bikes it shouldn’t be at a Thursday crit. My coach, while patient, was not too happy either. Apparently this was very amateur of me.
Seward is about as safe as it comes for a crit – except the 5:30! What are you doing in the 5:30 race?
Well hopefully that will be enough people telling you so you won’t do it again. Hmph!
Enter every race that you can. Race as hard as you can. If you go down, make sure that you win first.
eeeeeesssshhhh! That looks like the rest of it Hurt! Glad your not banged up to bad.
And with a response like Jim’s, you’ll be with them for a while… Customer Service like that keeps me coming back to my favorite manufacturers.
Good luck in Korea.
Smooth move, ex-lax.
I think you have gone down more times than I did in my entire 4-year bike racing career. You have definitely killed more bikes than I have. Therefore I could be more pro than you are? I’ll ask Loren.
I posted two pony videos on my blog for you.
It helps when you’re sponsored by the company, they are generally nicer.
So before you go out trail running I’ll be the first to say DON’T!
True, as a sponsored athlete you get to know your sponsors pretty well, but since Beyond Fabrications is such a small company, Jim knows everyone that orders a bike from him. Every customer gets a little sponsored athlete treatment. Christine, you ride a Beyond Fabrications Blink, how does Jim treat you?