Joe Gross

Earlier this summer I bought myself a spiffy Specialized S-Works Roubaix at Mike’s Bikes in Sausalito to replace my old Kestrel 300 EMS. I thought I’d occasionally ride the Kestrel but the Roubaix was superior in every way so I ended up selling it to some lucky person via eBay.A few weeks ago I found some sand on a descent of Apline Road and crashed hard. I had open wounds from road rash for nearly two weeks and caused significant damage to the bike. The crash snapped the carbon fiber handlebars, bent the rear derailleur hanger, bent the front brake mounting post, and most likely damaged the carbon fiber fork, stem, and seat post. Not wanting to pull a Hincapie I brought the bike to Mike’s in San Francisco. Normally I would have taken the bike to The Freewheel in San Francisco, as they’re an awesome shop with great wrenches, but I needed to get parts from Specialized so I brought it to Mike’s.

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Continuing the trend of recalls for parts of my bike Specialized has just announced a recall for the S-Works carbon stem that comes on many of their road bikes, including the Allez, Tarmac, Transition, and Roubaix.

Apparantly the magnesium faceplate many break “causing the rider to lose control, fall and suffer injuries.” I imagine having your handlebars come off in your hands could be a problem. Just ask George Hincapie, who lost his bars in this year’s Paris-Roubaix.

If you have a S-Works carbon stem with a magnesium faceplate bring it to your dealer or call 877-808-8154 for a replacement.

Update (8/4/2006): If you call the phone number Specialized will tell you to go see your dealer. I called around to find a replacement faceplate and only one shop in the bay area had them on hand. Half the Specialized dealers I called weren’t even aware of the recall.

I highly recommend Go Ride Bicycles in Redwood City as they not only knew about the problem and had a bunch of replacement faceplates onhand, and even stayed open late so I wouldn’t miss my ride the next morning.

Shimano just announced a Recall for many of their front quick release skewers made after November 1, 2005. This a pretty big deal as it affects a lot of wheels that are out there. Pretty much every recent bike sold with Shimano components contains this recalled skewer.

I just checked and my new bike has an affected skewer. Good thing I have many drawers full of bike parts, one of which should contain a good skewer. I’m glad I noticed the recall as at least one person has reported a nasty crash due to their front skewer failing.

No plan has been announced for replacement yet, but you should be able to take the skewer to your local bike shop for a cheap or free replacement.

Update (7/30/2006): I stopped by local bike shop to swap the old Skewer and they haven’t received any replacements from Shimano yet. They added my Skewer to a pile of about two dozen others they’ve received and will let me know when the new batch arrives.

Update (8/4/2006): One thing that’s a little upsetting is the full service shop where I spent $5k for this new bike never bothered to call any of their customers and let them know. If I were to rank all the services I’d like them to provide, this would be at the top of the list, far above “free tune ups.”

As I’ve said before, I like my Profile Airstrike aerobars but they have a nasty problem where they rattle incessantly while riding to where it’s barely tolerable. It’s really unconscionable that Profile designed these bars without some way of dampening the flip-down arms. The problem is that when the arms are flipped up you end up with a metal on metal rattling every time you hit a little bump in the road.

I finally got fed up with it and found a way to fix the bars so they don’t rattle any more.

Here’s the supply list: Screwdriver, superglue, alcohol, scissors, thick rubber shim from a clip-on headlight kit, and something to hold down the pads (I use velcro).
FYI: The binder clip is a cue-sheet holder held on with puffy sticky tape and a zip tie.

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I’ve been previously using a Niterider Blowtorch, both on my commuter as well as for the night section of doubles on my light bike and have recently installed a Schmidt E6 onto my randoneuring/commuter bike

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I recently switched from a set of Syntace C2 clips to Profile Airstrykes because I got tired of not being able to use the bar tops.
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