I bought this bike recently at my local Trek store for my wife and noticed the crown race was seated crooked. Took back to the bike shop and I had my wife pick it up only for them to tell her that I was overly worried and it was normal.
Not sure if I should take it back or just fix it myself.
by yaska515
3 Comments
I vote not normal. It almost looks like the race was installed upside down. Do you feel comfortable dropping the fork and posting a picture? It’s kind of hard to install it crooked– even if it goes on a little crooked, it should end up straight once fully seated. If you do only need to seat it a bit more, you can make a very cheap race tool with an appropriate sized pvc pipe.
That’s not an upside down race like others mention. But it is definitely not seated all the way and will cause damage to the bearings as they won’t seat in alignment with the top bearings.
Show the shop this picture and have them inspect it in front of you, unless you want to attempt to disassemble the bike to get a better look, have the shop do it for you. Depending on how busy the shop is, they might not be able to do it in front of you, since that service is usually quoted at about 45-60 minutes.
A practiced technician should only take 5-10 minutes taking it apart to access the crown race. Plus another 5-10 reseating it properly and putting it all together.
There’s a chance the race didn’t seat properly because there is a manufacturing defect on the fork itself. For this possibility alone, I suggest you pressure your bike shop to honor their warranty.
That’s not normal. Crown race looks bent.