As the honorable lector/scribe of the Litespeed-BMW team, I have anxiously been awaiting some news from one of our longest running and most consistent riders; the abominable and evergreen, the one and only, Bill Feir.
As much as I’d have imagined, Bill has been busy spinning in his legs around at the races in one the most difficult starts to the year, temperature wise, that we’ve ever had.
The first weekend in March was the last of a 3 race series called the Snake Creek Time Trial in Dalton, Ga. It is one wicked trail filled with steep climbs, technical descents, and granite outcroppings just waiting for you to mess up and crash hard. Normally, Bill does the 3 races as a tune up to the XC season, but this year, he only had one shot at it. It really hurt to get back into race mode, despite being pretty well prepared for the suffer fest. Bill managed to claim 20th spot for the series, and do his last races as a “40+” year old.
SERC #1 in Gainesville, Fla. Welcome to 50+, and a XC1 cat. How do you mountain bike in Florida? By going in and out of a limestone quarry, of course. Lots of steep drops and climbs. Some climbs were 2 stories high and Bill was just making the tops by putting a foot down at the crest and pushing over. It was also the first time anyone on the team had seen temperatures in the high 60′s. It was a good day, but the legs were screaming, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering he garnered a top 10 for the effort.
SERC #2 in Columbia, Tennessee. Personally speaking, this is one of my favorite race courses around. The Saturday pre-ride, sometimes one of the main reasons for even doing this race, per usual was…sweet! Then around midnight it started thundering and pouring rain. It rained until 9 AM and the race started at 9:30. That sweet single track turned into mud that sucked the energy right out of you with every pedal stroke. After a couple hours of mud, sweat, and chain suck, Bill ended up with another top 10 finish.
For the efforts, Bill is currently standing at 3rd place in the SERC series. Right on, Bill!
Now let’s get that bike over to the shop for some clean up…
I have been an enthusiastic fan of my Litespeed Tuscany for several years. Often I would recommend the bike to others.
However, I learned yesterday that the carbon fiber fork was cracked and needed replacement. The local repair shop could not find a distributor with one in stock. As a result, I phoned the manufacturer of Litespeed (American Bicycle Group) to get one directly from the factory.
The reader might be surprised to learn that American Bicycle fails to stock them! I was advised to contact the manufacturer of the fork (Easton) who also said that they do not have them in stock. Whether Easton continues to build them, I don’t know, but this entire experience has been shockingly disappointing. I was stunned to learn that Litespeed would so flippantly abandon their customers.
Hey Phil,
Really sorry that happened to ya. I can’t speak for Litespeed, but having been involved in the bike industry for nearly 2 decades now, I’m afraid that what you experienced is pretty normal. None of the factories can really be expected to keep an infinite supply of each and every part in stock at all times…it’d simply be impossible. Especially in a case like that, where it wasn’t even a Litespeed product. In any case, this is really something that your local dealer is best equipped to help you with, but even they can’t be held on the hook to get you an exact replacement, but I bet they can get you something even better, for probably a much fairer price than anyone could.
I understand your frustration though…but when you break a part that is some years old, some product versions in the past, we just have to chalk it up as a cost of doing business and get a newer/current model and keep track of the warranty registration.
One thing I’m certain of though, if you have any issues with that frame, Litespeed will work it out for you like I’ve never seen. I’ve crashed in 30 man pileups, been hit by cars and rammed my frames in to garages and every time, they’ve been able to work magic and get my Ti frame back to me in no time.
Good luck out there!