I bent my seatpost clamp!

simonp123

Somehow I managed to bed the seatpost clamp lever (that came with my Giant Trance X frame). My seat was sinking slightly after I had lightly greased the post & frame tube, so I tightened up the thumbwheel and clamped up again. As I did so the lever (which is machined to split into 2 bits in the middle http://www2.giant-bicycles.com/_generated/_generated_pa/parts/products/images/225/2006/750684.jpg) bent! Surely this is designed badly if you can apply enough force with the lever to bend itself :roll: I'm thinking I should return it to Giant for warranty replacement.
I guess I will return to the Hope one from my previous bike, it may be slightly heavier (like that much will matter!!) but it definitely won't bend...

oodboo

I took a hope one off a previous bike and it was cracking. I've got a hope one on my current bike as well but as soon as that starts to get I'll be getting me some more Chromag bling.

How long have you had the bike and are you bothered enough to go down the warranty route?

benpinnick

This is a generic Taiwanese part common on loads of bikes... I am guessing that Giant will tell you you're ham fisted as they must sell hundreds of thousands of these a year without any issues....

cat_with_no_tail

If you needed to apply enough force to bend it, you had it done up too tight. If it hadn't bent, you would have crushed your seat-tube/post which would have been a lot more costly to replace than a £2 QR.

If anything, send giant a big thank-you email.

YeehaaMcgee

Cat With No Tail wrote:

If you needed to apply enough force to bend it, you had it done up too tight. If it hadn't bent, you would have crushed your seat-tube/post which would have been a lot more costly to replace than a £2 QR.

If anything, send giant a big thank-you email.

Not necessarily. I've seen plenty of cheap ones bend over the years with minimal force. My guess is that it was down to poor metal stock.

divingmoose

The Chromag releases are really nice but my size is 31.8mm and notice they only do 30mm & 32mm i take it from this i cant use them.

YeehaaMcgee

divingmoose wrote:

The Chromag releases are really nice but my size is 31.8mm and notice they only do 30mm & 32mm i take it from this i cant use them.

Either of those should work.
But, are you sure you're taking the right measurement? the outside diameter of the seat tube, NOT the seat post.

cooldad

If you are measuring correctly, 32 will be fine. 0.2mm is insignificant.

divingmoose

The 31.8 is the size given on Kona site so hoping its right, says seat clamp size. So the 32mm would work okay

cooldad

It would but no way would I spend that much on a clamp. £6 and they make decent stuff.
http://www.carboncycles.cc/?s=0&t=2&c=73&p=658&
Plenty of others around as well. My standard Kona one works perfectly after 3 years.

simonp123

Cat With No Tail wrote:

If you needed to apply enough force to bend it, you had it done up too tight. If it hadn't bent, you would have crushed your seat-tube/post which would have been a lot more costly to replace than a £2 QR.

If anything, send giant a big thank-you email.

Not that much force, how much can you really apply to such a short lever? Anyway you should never design anything that will be damaged by the force you can apply without adding leverage. You would be able to apply considerably more force with a bolt seat clamp.

simonp123

oodboo wrote:

How long have you had the bike and are you bothered enough to go down the warranty route?

I've had the frame about a month!

cooldad

As above, new clamps are £5-6. Is it really worth the effort.