Big ol' Brian Rourke 953

What a nightmare.

Props to Rourke though for diligence. A failure could have been even worse.

Whilst it is incredibly frustrating that it's not all that I thought it was I do like having it on my wall. People pay a lot more than I did for the frame for "art", the craftsmanship, paint job, materials are all incredible and up till now I've enjoyed having it up as essentially a piece of art.

The money was spent a significant amount of time ago so I can almost treat it as water under a bridge.

I was thinking of getting a serious touring frame made, at the moment I am just sending emails to makers which I like and if I went with Rourke I could take it for Jason to have a look at at. From my brief experience of him he is very helpful and you never know he might say it's fine!

I was enjoying having a current project!

Fucking hell! I'd be tracking down the seller and exacting revenge....

Absolutely gutted Jonathan, such a horrible story and a cautionary tale for many of us who buy and sell second hand. Have some rep for a mature response.

I have his name, phone number, email address, now all I need are some shady mates to do the business.

Post a wanted thread? (;

This is who you get when you put his name into google.

looks fearsome... you can see where the profits have gone!

It's no wander the frame didn't look like it had been built up

Trying to figure what happened to the headtube's top cup?

lunch

I have no idea to be honest, to my eyes it doesn't look like it have been cut off as there would be visible stainless steel, and if it had been heated to remove it wouldn't there be signs of paint damage.

Perhaps I am mis-understanding or being naive here, but surely the right thing to do is to send the frame back to Rourke to be looked at closely?

Why rely on Jason's memory here. Surely a hands-on opinion is more valuable.

(Not intended to be an inflammatory comment, and if there's a reason why the damage couldn't be detected visually or using some kind of high-tech wizardry, I'd be interested to know).

After a disgruntled email to the guy who sold it to me, another couple of emails with Jason I think I have got to the bottom of it.

Rourke did indeed scrap the frame as there was an identical one made as a warranty replacement, the rear stays were crushed, testing was done on the head tube to see if it could be bent and the upper headset ring was removed to study the brazing.

After the frame was scrapped the guy who sold it to me had the rear stays repaired, on close inspection you can see there are slight imperfections in the filing of the weld which do not match the rest of the workmanship on the frame. The painting has also been redone by the seller. You can tell this because there is paint over the top of the head tube showing that it was done after the integrated headset ring was removed. I cant imagine Rourke would of done that!

Once again I'd like to say how helpful Jason has been in getting this sorted over the last couple of days.

does that mean it's usable?

Will you get a refund?

Jason says it's not usable.

I'm not holding out for one. The guy is still claiming he hasn't done anything to it and it is ready to ride. Along with a whole load of other contradictions to what Jason Rourke is saying.

That's a shocker. vul Jon. I'd be fuming.

So this is back on eBay...

What did the story turn out to be???

P.S. qualified apologies for the dredge

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it does seem like they're trying to pass this off as rideable.

Maybe there's more that's happened since the last update on here, but the eBay listing omits the fact that the framebuilder has explicitly said not to ride the bike. Soooooo...

Ah not trying to hide anything, all I had remembered was the stuff about crushing the dropouts together. I had forgotten a lot of what was said by Jason, it was a long time ago. I'll update the listing

The eBay advert also doesn’t mention the chain stays being crushed, then replaced.

"This frame is sold as scrap."

edit: just seen ther's been an update

I was told this happened, then told it didn't happen but should have happened