Imperfections on employee bikes

Occasionally, and despite all our efforts to prevent it, a frame will arrive to it's new owner with a paint chip. It's a bummer, yes, but ultimately they're no big deal, either structurally, which I hope is obvious, or even superficially. A paint chip always looks its worst on a brand new, unbuilt frameset, like a scuff on a new pair of Danner boots, but once the boots are used and the bike is ridden, even a couple of times, it'll blend into the milieu of dust, scratches, and stickers one naturally accumulates with use and become, if not invisible, a lot less obvious. It'll blend into the beausage, basically. If you've never heard that term, check out page 18 here.

Beausage always makes a bike look better. It personalizes the bike and shows the tool is getting used, and this is especially true (only true?) on steel bikes. Outside of getting smushed by a car, I can't think of a sadder fate for a Rivendell than to sit unused, or worse, as a wall-hanger. Yes, they're fancy, and that can encourage a certain amount of fussiness, but they're made to be ridden. 

To give some perspective, here are some employee bikes close-up after regular use. Some of these bikes are still basically brand new. Nobody here rides irresponsibly, and though we get employee discounts, nobody here (well, maybe Grant) is cavalier about their bikes, it's just normal wear and tear, and if your bike arrives with a chip, it'll blend right into this stuff:

Roman's Sam. 

Sergio's Appaloosa. He also has a mismatched fork from crashing. 

James's Atlantis

My Appaloosa, which I've had for maybe six months, has a dent in the top tube. I circled it here with a sharpie to show it better. I locked it up to go into the laundromat and when I came out my bike was in a heap at the bottom of the pole and the lock had pushed the top tube in a bit. It bothered me for about two minutes. I put a sticker over it (removed for the photo) and moved on. My Platypus has a similar top tube dent. 

When I was assembling my Clem, I dropped an Allen wrench directly onto the fork crown, chipping it. Again, no big deal.

My Roadini has a scratch on the top tube too. It got banged up in shipping. Maybe I'll put a sticker over this too.

Roman's Legolas has some chain-slap chips, like any cyclocross bike should have.

Sergio's Platypus, from this latest run, already has ding in the top tube. He filled it in with touch up. 

Roman's Hunq. Same deal.

Antonio's Roaduno.

And... Roman's Roadini, I'm pretty sure.

Please contact us if your frame arrives with a chip, or anything else unexpected. We'll hook you up with either a refund or a store credit, your pick, commensurate to how bad it is, but try not to let it get you too down on your new bike. 

One person, years ago now, used the word "gutted" to describe how they felt when they saw a chip. Paint chips don't warrant "gutted", seriously. Gutted should be reserved for natural disasters and deaths in the family, not scratches on a bicycle. With all the atrocities that happen on a daily basis, let's keep these scratches in perspective. I guess it's going a little far to say, "celebrate the paint chip", but is "don't sweat it too much" unreasonable?

Our frames are brazed by hand, painted by hand, assembled into bikes by hand and shipped by hand, across great distances, and with delivery people who, understandably, couldn't care less that there's a finely made bicycle inside the box. There's considerable risk at every step, and this is a good thing to keep in mind when taking delivery. We mitigate the risk wherever possible, and, although this blog post might make you think otherwise, we're mostly successful, but it's naive to think that we can get rid of it entirely. That's sorta the deal with something that isn't injection molded or 3D printed at home. 

-will