Cracks in my Heart

April 17, 2013

After the ride to Mount Vernon, the rear derailer was having issues with the mid-gear rings, and I was going to clean the chain and take the bike in to drop it off for a tune up. As I'm cleaning the frame, and starting to clean the chain, I notice something at the base of the downtube:

I was a bit freaked out, because I wasn't sure what this was. Was this a crack in the frame? Or was it just chipped paint? Asking on Bike Arlington, it was suggested it might be paint, but to take it into Freshbikes just to make sure. I hefted it up onto the Xterra and took it in. Talking with Greg the mechanic, he was convinced it was a cracked frame, due to the jaggy angles and flexion there at the base. How completely depressing. I had owned the bike for 49 days, and it had cracks. I realized when I got it home, or it dawned on me over the weeks since buying it, that the bike was a shop-used bike, which I could understand getting the discount I did on it, but I was a bit more upset in retrospect, that the bike was delivered to me dirty, the grip tape was dirty and used, there was a scuff that I didn't catch on the fork, and that now, it might have had a crack in the frame the entire time. Well, it was waiting time now. (Note, that I dropped the bike off on April 1, and I'm writing this in a more calendarish fashion)
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