Cyclist sues Halfords for £1 million, claims steerer tube "failure" led to severe facial injuries

You wouldn't check your cam belt was properly installed after taking your car in for a service, why would you want to on a bike? May as well do it all yourself if you plan on checking every bolt and cable when you get it back.

I think the outcome of this could be quite interesting based on the marketing pitch of

Quote:

He said: “We ask the court to bear in mind that marketing literature for the Saracen Raw 2 bicycle would lead an ordinary person to assume that fairly robust riding is to be expected – as it says, 'give the trails a kicking'."

I have always wondered about how many so called mountain bikes are being described incorrectly in order to boost sales.
I am not one for supporting the blame and sue culture, but I would like to see some of the less honest marketing bull being reigned in.

A lot of people are talking about misuse and servicing. My forks/steerer were carbon. The road bike was never misused and 4 months old and had been checked over by a shop 2 days before. I was accelerating at a roundabout stood up and it just snapped! I went over the bars and was led in the road at a busy roundabout.

£1m seems a lot though unless he was a model and his face was his money maker!

When my crank came off (an FSA Gossamer, not Shimano) I was pretty new to cycling, hence the fact I bought a bike from Halfords...

It's not brilliantly helpful to say that "Anyone who doesn't check a bike before they ride it is mad" in this context. It's unlikely that someone who is buying a £250 MTB from Halfords in the case above, is going to be have the tools/knowledge to do that.

Why would they expect to know better than the professional bike builders at a big and trusted company? To people who spend less time and energy than us thinking about bikes, Halfords are trusted to do the job.

The fact that their standards and training are so low is a big, big problem for cycling in the UK, particularly when they are endorsed by people like Chris Boardman and British Cycling.

I think it's wise to check any new/serviced bike over before riding.
We bought a bmx for my son from Halfords.
Having waited a few days for it to be ordered and built by the shop and
been told it had been checked over by them, on getting it home brake pads had to be adjusted to hit the rims.
Fairly fundamental stuff.
Needless to say I checked the whole bike with spanners after that.

I bought a Boardman XC Pro HT MTB from Guildford Halfords a few years ago. It was fine. I rode it home off-road 25 odd miles. It was fine. A week later I rode the entire SDW on it. It was fine. I've ridden it up and down mountains in Austria. It was fine. Spain. It was fine. France. It was fine. I'd done the Trans-Cambria on it. It was fine. I've hit the Surrey Hills and various trail centres countless times. It was fine. I've raced it. it was fine. I "bombed it" down the local woods last Saturday morning. It is still fine.

Now if you want another boring story I could tell you about rather different tale of the Spesh Rockhopper I got from an LBS.

Bad service is everywhere. you don't have to look far to find it. It isn't the exclusive reserve of Halfords.

I took my Carrera Vulcan V-Spec into Halfords, Milton Keynes for a full service. I did and m-check prior to a ride and the handlebars where loose where they meet the stem. The gears were also noisier and hadn't been adjusted properly.

It always surprises me that Chris Boardman sells his bike through Halfords when they have such a bad reputation.

Recently bought a Boardman Hybrid for the wife as she fell in love with it from Halfords against my better judgement. No surprise that all the gears were set up wrong so within in two weeks of buying it went into Hargroves to have the gears done properly.

Not a fan of Halfords, however;

According to Metro, the bike was bought in May 2008 and the crash happened in Feb 2009. That means the six month service would have been in Nov 2008 and the 12 month service not due until May 2009. So it had been used for quite a while and was in between services.

It also states that the steerer failed then he hit the barrier, or maybe he hit the barier resulting in the forks snapping? Why was he riding towards a barrier and what kind of barrier?

What does "a sudden and catestrophic failure" of the steerer tube actually mean. The stem bolts came loose, the steerer tube itself snapped, the crown seperated? How did the failure occur, forks splayed out or forks fold into the frame?

I have had the odd MTB in the end of year sale from Halfrauds over the years as there are bargains if you know your stuff but I have never ever let them set up a bike for me. You don't have to let them do it, the warranty still applies on the parts and material faults. What you wont have come back on is stuff that should have been done before it was put on display - ie the crank bolts. Having said that I have never known the likes of Evans send bikes in a box with the pedals fitted so I am not sure how they would "fall" off...

Broken steerer aside, I'm surprised by the accounts of cranks and pedals falling off etc. Who doesn't check their bike over before they take it for a ride? And why the hell wouldn't you? That's not to say Evans / Halfords etc aren't in the wrong for being incapable of even doing the basics correctly but if you don't check your bike over yourself you're mad.

My daughter fell in love with a kiddy-bike in Halfords (about 9 years ago). I said that I would take it home & assemble it myself, but they insisted that they should do it, & charged me £18 for the privilege.

When I got it home, I had to spend an hour taking it apart & putting together properly.

The 'mechanic' had regaled me with stories of his youthful rides using a 10 tooth fixed 'cog'. Stupid, dangerous git.

Surprised there isn't more of this - Evans sends bikes out with pedals falling off, for example.

For those that had cranks come off - were these by any chance Shimano's left arms? The ones that are positioned by a cheap plastic "screw", held in by a thin plastic clip and then clamped with two bolts which must be tightened sequentially with a torque wrench?

The article states that there was a catastrophic failure of the steerer tube not a loose bolt etc. As much as I don't rate some of the Halfords staff, this is possibly a misuse issue as they are drawing attention to its supposed ruggedness.
Normally, if you are suing for a defective product you would go for the manufacture and not to the supplier. So one can only assume that they believe it was assembled incorrectly.
As for the mudguards and lights, this should only be mentioned if it has a direct effect to either incident or for example holes were drilled for the fitting. We should however wait for all the details.
My advice for everyone buying any bike from any retailer is to check every bolt yourself or someone you trust with your life.

I wonder how adding mudguards and lights could damage the bike, unless they were installed with a hammer and nails, or a blow torch

Bollox re the lights and guards, that's just a way of saying "anything you've done to it, AT ALL, voids the warranty".

Bollox re the lights and guards, that's just a way of saying "anything you've done to it, AT ALL, voids the warranty".

intrigued, things don't usually just break, there is usually a reason. Potholes, jumping off kerbs, crashing into walls.

assuming it Is this bike or a model year variation of?

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/saracen/raw-2-2007-mountain-bike-ec0...

Forks won't be brilliant, but RST aren't that bad, would guess a steel steerer press-fitted into an Alu crown, just like most other suspension forks out there.

Crank also fell off my Halfords bike a month after buying it. Landed on the road and a bus went over it. My friend's bike from Halfords also had his crank fall off.

My mum also unfortunately bought a bike from Halfords and the thread on the freewheel wore off making it useless.

3 bikes, 3 failures. Basically in my eyes it's poor quality bikes built by underqualified staff.

Just picked up a 2nd hand in good nick Boardman Comp, the amount of 2nd hand Halfords bikes where people have been sold bikes too big for them is unreal, have a look on eBay its quite funny.

My Boardman CX that was built by Halfords had almost everything on it done incorrectly, to the point that the crank fell off while I was riding. Luckily, I was going slowly at the time, but it could easily have been a terrible crash.

The poor training and often a bad attitude make Halfords a dangerous place to buy a bike, and I hope that Joseph Love can get things back on track in his life after his crash.

Same thing happened to me but not a halfords bike, a £1000 bike and I went over the handlebars face first in to the road, thankfully just one scar!