Keefer Madness

Free Wheelset Upgrade For Me!

// June 24th, 2009 // Cycling, Personal Crap

So about a month ago, my still fairly new 2009 Specialized Tarmac Expert started acting up. In the big ring, I started getting an occasional click and almost pulsing pull from the chain. It was hard to reproduce on a regular basis, but eventually started to happen more often. It started happening on hard, fast descents, and cornering.

I eventually took the bike back to the shop I got it and they adjusted the front derailleur, but on the next ride, the problem still existing. I rode on for a few more weeks, before finally taking it back to the shop a couple weeks back. On the way over, rolling it out of my office, the pedals were rotating as I rolled it on its back wheel.

Taking it back into the shop, they had a hard time reproducing the problem, but really putting some power into the crank, they finally got the problem reproduced. It took a real hard spin to get it to catch. Turns out the freehub in my bike’s Shimano Ultegra rear wheel broke internally. Now, while I love riding, I’m not real mechanical, so I’m not sure exactly what broke, but it was sticking and locking, especially under heavy load.

So the bike shop made a quick call to Shimano, and they said that the problem was super rare, but to send the wheel out to them, which unfortunately would mean about two weeks without that rear wheel. In the meantime, it was back to my old Mavic rear wheel as I waited for a new wheel.

Yesterday, I got a call that my replacement wheel was in and I went into today after work to get my wheel and got a really nice surprise. It seems Shimano didn’t have any direct replacements, and in what the bike shop said was a rare act of kindness, Shimano gave me quite the upgrade. I went from a roughly $475 Shimano Ultegra-SL 6600 700c aluminum Wheelset up to a $900 Shimano RS80 Carbon Clincher Wheelset — for no money out of my pocket. Even though, only the rear wheel was defective, I got the full wheelset replaced.

The real clincher (pun fully intended), is that I just lightened my bike by almost a half pound. My original wheelset weighed almost 1700g. The new set is 1486g. Not only is that almost a half pound, but it’s rotational weight, which is only going to help in the acceleration and climbing departments.

I’m doing the full bike commute in (and out) tomorrow so will give them a good 50+ mile test and will post a bit of review in the coming days. Great upgrade for nothing, eh? I lucked out this time. The defective wheel never caused a spill, and my replacement set should be quite the upgrade!