A week or two ago I received an email from BicycleR Evolution, they’re the company that produces the trailer portion of the Bike Friday Travel System.
The email was a notification that there was a problem with the axles that could lead to failure on a trip. Luckily I have no trips planned immediately. Here’s the text of the notice:
BicycleR Evolution is the company that manufactures the trailer frames that convert the suitcase to a trailer. We have been experiencing a problem with some of our trailer axles. In these instances the solid center rod has come loose from the the axle tube. This results in the axle (with wheel attached) falling off. The failure is due to faulty bonding materials.
Bike Friday and BicycleR Evolution have devised a test to check your trailer axles before heading out on your next trip. If you purchased your trailer between November 08 and June 09 then we would advise doing the following test as demonstrated in this You Tube video.
I performed the test and lo and behold I had a problem…
As you can see, one of the axles came apart.
Well today I spoke to BicycleR Evolution and was very impressed by how well they are handling the situation. I’ll be receiving new axles pretty quickly. As I said I don’t have a trip planned so I declined speedy shipping, allowing that USPS is plenty quick enough for me.
Indeed I was impressed enough that I ordered a hitch to use the system on my other bike. I have a couple of plans along those lines.
First off I’d like to use two bikes to get to the airport. Currently I’d have to pack my Bike Friday NWT at the airport if I were to use the trailer system. The airport isn’t very far from home and I could easily bike it in under and hour, but I’d hate to add the time to pack the bike up too. So…
I figure I can pack the bike at home and use my other bike to tow it all to the airport. For short flights it would be easy enough as I wouldn’t need a lot of other luggage and I have racks and such for all of that.
My other idea is to use the trailer for shopping with either bike.
In any case I’m very, very pleased with how BicycleR Evolution is handling everything. Sure I wish things were perfect from the get go, but they have a long track record of good stuff, this seems to be a tiny blip on the radar and they’ve handled it just right so far.
Aloha!