An Orrville Cycling Advantage: Warranty Service
If something unexpected happens, we do our best to make it right. Here is such a story from one of our customers.
April 2011

Bike manufacturers have done an excellent job refining their product for the best performance and durability. Even so, failures do occur. There is no way to buy a bike that is guaranteed not to fail, so it’s important to have prompt warranty service from the bike shop and manufacturer for your purchase.

Together with Trek / Gary Fisher, we were able to make Mark Jones a satisfied customer after an unfortunate problem with his mountain bike.

In Mark’s words…

Each year I circle certain mountain bike races and one of the biggest races for me is the OMBC series race at Mohican State Park. To be prepared for the race I ride the course often; I rode it about 20 times last year.

Photo by Bob Grimm

The Sunday before this past year’s race I went down to Mohican to ride a lap. I heard a creaking sound coming from the bike and I couldn’t find the source of the noise. When I got home and washed my bike I found a crack in the seat tube just above the junction with the top tube. It was a fatal crack.

Monday night I took my bike to the shop. Roger sees the crack and says the failure is covered by the manufacturer’s warranty. Jon gets the camera out and takes a couple pictures of the crack and says he will submit a warranty claim right away.

The race at Mohican was just five days away. I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I pulled out my old mountain bike and began tuning it up for the race.

Photo by Bob Grimm

Thursday night, three days after I took my bike into the shop, Jon calls me and says “Mark, your new frame is here!”. The warranty claim was submitted Tuesday morning and a new frame was at the shop by 5pm Thursday.

I went over to the shop with the parts I had pulled off the defective frame. Thankfully Trek / Gary Fisher gave me a new headset with the new frame, as the new frame is the latest model and uses a different headset. Jon helped me install the headset and I took the frame home to finish setting it up.

Sunday afternoon I was on the starting line for the race at Mohican with a new frame. It was a real nice day and I had a really great race.

Photo by Bob Grimm

The warranty service was pretty impressive. I’ve heard stories with other brands where people have missed a whole season of racing while waiting for a warranty to be honored on a broken frame.

I like to tell this story to everyone I can. Great job Orrville Cycling and Trek / Gary Fisher!

- Mark Jones