Why my dentist loves me (Cannondale sob story)

I fix my dentist's bikes, he fixes me. He just got a sweet looking Cannondale CAD7 from ebay, and I was giving it the once over. I spotted a couple of suspicious looking blemishes (cracks?) at the bottom bracket, and then I took off the bottle cage. It was a holy fuck moment.

With the cage

Cage off

Cage off close up

Question. Have I got enough moral/safety/love points to ask for 5 carat diamond in one of my front teeth now?

You need to copy the pic location not the whole page
So that'd be
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/6987274466_e5a8296140_z.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7194/7133359761_a056eb7da3_z.jpg
and http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7130/6987277548_bfc3638fd8_z.jpg

Damn! Would those holes seriously comprimise the structure of the frame then?

so was the original bottle cage torn out and this one drilled in to cover it up?

I don't think the holes are that much of a problem, more the small cracks that are at the edges of the holes.

I have no idea how this all happened. The nasty bottlecage was held on by a wood screw of all things. Looks like some lowlife cumbucket was trying to cover it up when taking pics for ebay, probably hoping it might pass unnoticed.

O'Shane - I'm no metallurgic specialist, but this looks really fuckin dangerous to me.

O'Shane - thanks for Flickr coaching.

Fucking unbelievable.

i had similar with a guy selling a dolan (not this kind )

alu oxidises at the bottle cages really easy and then you can't remove the cage. this guy had tried, realised the screws were just spinning as the surround had come away and then sold it anyway. so get frame, try to strip of cage for re-spray and... no fucking way. only way to get it out is to yank it, thus leaving big crappy holes and cracks like above. i just sent it back out of principle, wasn't really worth fixing anyway.

/csb

Complain via ebay, get refund.
Item not as described.
Unless, of course, "fucked" was included in the description.

Only way to get it out is to yank it, thus leaving big crappy holes and cracks like above.

Err, have you never heard of a drill? I removed a few from an mtb I have than rattled the remainder out off the BB hole. Yeah, it's a faff but it leaves the frame intact and then you can put new ones in.

drill, u mad bro?

kidding. Wouldn't really have made a difference. the brazed on eyelets for the screws to go into were detached from the frame anyway as the alu and steel bolt rust had decided to have sexy times together. the holes that were left were the same as above, with cracks from aforementioned knob that sold the frame trying to get the bolts ot, and white spoogey corrosion powder around the edges.
i mostly just yanked it out so as to take nice photos for Mr Ebay so he would give me my money back. and to piss off the seller when he got frame back and couldn't try to flog it off on someone else.

if it was steel, even super light steel, I wouldn't really be bothered, only drill out end of the cracks.
But aluminium, esp old alu, with rather large holes and cracks in it? worries me just a bit. Would return just out of common sense.
Area of that tube also looks dented?

Only 'pro keep it' point would be that the mid point, esp top side of the mid point of the down tube does the least work out of all the parts of front end of a frame.

An actual cool story.

A gold tooth would be my choice.

^ at last, someone engages with the important part of the story!

Shit the bed.

Does it look like those are actual fractures at the BB? I think I'd possibly be more scared of them depending on how severe.

Brickie - when I'm flat on my back and he's poised above me with implements of torture, I don't want him thinking, "Yeah, he said that part of the frame wasn't really a big stress point, so built the bike up. And then the goddamned thing folded under me going down some Dartmoor precipice. Mebbe I can find a part of his mouth that isn't a big stress point and put a couple of fucking great big holes in it and see how he holds up".

Don't screw with your dentist's bike. It's one of the rules in Transporter 6.

I would've thought a dentist of all people would be the kind of person who exclusively buys new bikes at rrp from snooty shops.

too busy putting his tackle in other cyclists mouths?

Very green, prefers to buy his stuff second hand. He needs to aim a little bit higher though. Brilliant dentist btw.

Won't the seller just shrug"waslikethatwhenigotitmate"
Would like to know how this pans out.

Definitely should dispute. What a bastard. It even looks like he has got a bottle cage that covers up the holes, on purpose.

Furthermore, that Zefal carbon bottle cage isn't even carbon!

^ it just gets worse and worse!

And what about these? Look like frame cracks to you?

These definitely look like cracks to me:

This could be chain gouge...

Thanks for comments.