I'll been thinking about this broken DO eyelet, which is highly annoying, as the new Bates frame, despite being maybe 7 years old, was only beginning to see any significant use.
I was riding by the post office on the way in to work on a Saturday morning when the failure occured. As usual on the way to work, I had a large laptop in its case with extra battery pack, etc. in the Gilles Berthoud shopper pannier on the rear rack. This is a laptop with a 17" screen, so with case and all it is a pretty good load on one side of the rear rack. However, I've been commuting to work every day since June with this same load. I usually rotate bikes about every 3 to four weeks, so this is the 7th or 8th bike I've used,and Ive had no such failure on any other bike.
The one thing different about the Bates is that the rear rack attaches to the Weinmann stainless steel rear mudguard, whereas the rear racks on all the other bikes ridden are either secured by the rear brake bolts (usually the excellent and amazingly cheap Wald chromed steel rack) or in the case of the Caygill and Assenmacher, to brazeons on the seatstay. Clearly, securing the top of the rack to the mudguard is going to place some of the load in the pannier on the mudguard and that load is going to be transmitted through the mudguard stay to the DO eyelet. I recall I hit a downhill bump at pretty good speed on the way to the post office and felt a pretty good jolt. This may have been the intial incident that dammaged the eyelet. It is also significant that the eyelet failed on the same side that the laptop was carried in the pannier.
So my thought is that maybe securing the rear rack to the mudguard is not such a good idea if you intend to carry a fairly heavy load in the rear panniers. It is possible the the load transmitted through the mudguard stays can break a DO eyelet where the mudguard stay is attached. Anyone else think this is possible? Anyone else have an eyelet fail on a bike on which the rear rack was partly supported by the mudguard?
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, texas , USA
> From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] Help!!!! Broken DO eyelet
\r?\n> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org, "'Doug Fattic'" <fatticbicycles@qtm.net>
\r?\n> Date: Saturday, January 17, 2009, 10:59 AM
\r?\n> Anyone know a repair for a broken eyelet, short of rebrazing
\r?\n> the eyelet or even replacing the DO? Returning from the
\r?\n> post office just now on my new Bates, I heard a snap at the
\r?\n> back of the bike and discovered one of the two eyelets on
\r?\n> the rear drive side DO had broken off from the DO. This
\r?\n> eyelet secured the fender stay for the rather hefty Weinmann
\r?\n> rear mudguard.
\r?\n> This is rather disappointing, as the frame, despite three
\r?\n> years in storage, was nearly new in terms of having seen few
\r?\n> miles.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Doug Fattic had commented to me in the past that additional
\r?\n> eyelets brazed onto a DO are sometimes of rather marginal
\r?\n> strength. Is it common for two-eyelet DO's to have the
\r?\n> second eyelet just brazed on, rather than forged as part of
\r?\n> the DO?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Aside from the cost of having the eyelet rebraised or the
\r?\n> DO replaced, it would be a royal pain to have to disassemble
\r?\n> a fully configured touring bike like this then build it up
\r?\n> again after the frame repair. And the DO is chromed, so the
\r?\n> repair or replacement would have to be chromed. Is there
\r?\n> any sort of adhesive available that might have a decent
\r?\n> chance of reattaching the eyelet to avoid sending the frame
\r?\n> off for repair?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Regards,
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Jerry Moos
\r?\n> Big Spring, Texas, USA