Greg Minnaar's Broken Santa Cruz V10 - Val di Sole DH World Cup 2017
The Val di Sole World Cup track has a well-deserved reputation for being a ruthless, rough, and unrelenting course that punishes mistakes like no other, with the possible exception of Fort William. That's the case for mere mortals like us, but the line between distinction and disaster is impossibly narrow when you're traveling at the speed of a top World Cup racer, something that they're all too familiar with.
Santa Cruz's Greg Minnaar had an eventful practice in Italy, with reports from the side of the track saying that a massive crash sent his V10 flying through the air - without him on it - and into a post. The result, which can be seen the video above (uploaded to YouTube by Claudio Paselli), was a broken front triangle and Minnaar doing his best to get away from the cameras post haste. The Syndicate rider is known as the GOAT for a reason, though, with his mechanic, Jason Marsh, building up brand new race bike from scratch in just 45 minutes that Greg went on to qualify in second spot aboard... on his first run on the fresh bike. That's how you turn a bad morning around, folks.
 | When you hit a post at mach speed, something has to give. Honestly, we're just glad that it wasn't Greg that broke |
Santa Cruz's Greg Minnaar had an eventful practice in Italy, with reports from the side of the track saying that a massive crash sent his V10 flying through the air - without him on it - and into a post. The result, which can be seen the video above (uploaded to YouTube by Claudio Paselli), was a broken front triangle and Minnaar doing his best to get away from the cameras post haste. The Syndicate rider is known as the GOAT for a reason, though, with his mechanic, Jason Marsh, building up brand new race bike from scratch in just 45 minutes that Greg went on to qualify in second spot aboard... on his first run on the fresh bike. That's how you turn a bad morning around, folks.
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Off to the glue factory...
Or maybe the glue factory was to blame... Carbon and all...
....I'll walk myself out.
Everytime I see GOAT typed I think of the movie "Waiting.."
Yeah definitely a "plinking" sound that sounded like spokes to me. Wonder if the front wheel went gonzo over those rocks and that's what sent Greg down?
I'm just saying the pro's don't use all the same equipment we use. Suspension being the main component that is totally different to what we can buy.
To everybody talking about flex: go watch literally any slow-mo video of a strong rider on any bike and see what the wheels do. They flop around all over the place. Stick your foot on your bottom bracket and push and see if you can't deflect your frame harmlessly a few inches. Bikes flex by design SO THAT stuff like this doesn't happen more often.
Definitely cracks on impact not before. And the frame itself is travelling really fast when it hits the tree, it's been slingshot above Greg like a fking trebuchet.
Could easily be 30mph but he main thing is that all the bike momentum and a good % of greg's momentum goes straight at that tree!
I posited this elsewhere so I'll do it again here.... Perhaps a steering damper might have stopped the tuck from happening! That went from push to tuck so fast it was violent!
As a car guy... 2 Inline 5s
Blah Blah Carbon Sucks. The aluminum frame wouldn't even have a scratch.
29" suck, this is obviously why the frame split when it hit a solid wooden post going what I am assuming is around 30 MPH.
#26aintdead
Something about carbon being an expensive gimmick.
Does that about cover it?
In all seriousness though, Glad Minnaar walked away from this, the crash looked brutal.
I for one am not gonna speculate on the cause of the break. I'll wait for the post mortem.
I wonder how this will impact V10 29 vs. 27.5 frame sales, will they be evenly split?
This is what happens when you run the Maxxis Tomahawk.
Let's teach him a lesson!
This is 29ers 100% fault.
This also show why 29ers are scary for amateurs, it gives you false confident, you will carry much higher speed then you should on hard terrain and when you then crash at that increased speed you're done.
29 = less fun & more dangerous.
Big picture: Minnaar could have broken bones, etc.
Instead, it looks like he's relatively okay, and and we get to see the crazy world cup battle for the overall play out this weekend.
This is what happens when you are going for broke,
Witness the intense velocity that the top 20 riders can produce.
Then, stop feeling the need to talk shit on the internet about their bikes, wheel sizes, frame materials as they are all at a level you will never, ever achieve, even in your wildest fantasies about going fast or sending it, etc., etc., etc.
One race run = years of your best attempts at riding hard and fast.
So while I initially thought SC was BSing about the post, it would seem they are not given the distinct visual evidence his front wheel washed causing the crash.
No-Fault Replacement
Santa Cruz Bicycles will make replacement frame parts available to the original owner at a minimal charge in the event of a crash or other non-warranty situation for the life of the bike.
Also, especially since they were bought by Pon Holdings, SC has become incredibly responsive. I've gotten same day responses to emails etc.
Hell, what happened in your experience and what happens for most people are even very different things.
This applies to pretty much all manufacturers also. Furthermore "life of the bike" does not mean what it sounds like it means.
Santa Cruz will replace parts/whole frame (with a newer version if yours is discontinued) at cost price, I.e. You pay what it costs them.
Trek will replace the frame for nothing (with a newer version if yours is discontinued), and throw in a freebie for the inconvenience.
Scott will replace the frame for nothing (with a newer version if yours is discontinued) if it is a known defect.
Yeti will replace the part for nothing, with a new beefier version, as the original was obviously flawed.
Giant will keep replacing the part that broke for nothing, but it will keep on breaking. Repeat x3...
Frame by frame on cathrovision
@pulDag I believe and to pharaphrase all your media is redbulls
www.facebook.com/RedBullBike/videos/1401626809954864/?hc_ref=ARSSX5PlaFmAdhk-EZrhZl4y1lZPfqdJY9yGaI1m7XX-Znc_lIlrWqmZTMdT4onG9A4&pnref=story
Even a 5k Unno would break in that situation.
No way that that (otherwise intact) frame breaks like that from hitting that post that way. The post would have broken first.
That said, I agree completely! The forces that destroyed this frame came from a direction the bike wasn't designed to operate in. It could be argued however that one would still want the frame strong enough to take these kind of hits simply as a matter of investment protection.
Which takes us right to the conversation and comments in the story about Cesar Rojo's Unno bikes. In particular, fiber direction and weave.
I'll add that I wonder if a steering damper (like on a motorcycle) might have slowed down the rate at which he went from push to tuck and wound up on the ground.
1) I prefer ally due to it's failure mode
2) I'm OK with carbon frames because to be frank I'm not likely to hammering on at the rate these guys are
But since this isn't about my choices or ally vs carbon, I'll try to reiterate the main points from my last point more clearly.
1) We are guessing that the frame was primarily designed to deal with longitudinal forces. That's why a sharp and brutal perpendicular hit destroyed the frame. It could be made to deal with these kinds of hits, but at what cost? Does the weight go up? Does the production time increase? Do the kinds of strikes we saw in this video happen enough to warrant it?
2) My second "assertion" was that perhaps a steering damper might have stopped the front wheel from tucking and maybe given him a chance to slap down his left foot and arrest the pushing front wheel.
The bike industry should end all warranty outside of manufacturing defects, and stop using it as a sales tool when 99.9% of broken stuff is the rider's fault/stupidity. Who do you think pays in the end for "lifetime warranties"?
Lifetime frame warranty in the bike industry is a joke that riders ultimately pay a lot of money for, and it leads to people believing that one's bike should withstand any sort of abuse, including hitting a post at 30mph. It was invented to create the false belief that brand A is stronger/better than brand B, and the whole industry followed suit so as to not be outsold. Once you add in the discretionary nature of "warranty" you're pretty much paying extra for nothing.
Well,if you want to be angry fo spending too much on overheads of frame producer, preach for minimizing their marketing expenditure
Regardless, "Lifetime Warranty" means almost nothing. Buying a frame with these two words, in whole or in part, is a guarantee of nothing. You are paying upfront for the privilege of paying even more deductable when you f- up and smash your bike into an unusable chunk of plastic or metal. The cost of frame swap labour and parts is even more of a shock, and is covered by no shop unless you're their most beloved customer of all time (aka preferential treatment). Shops generally hate dealing with trashed frames with "warranty", unless the product rep has free reign to say "yes" to all claims. This rarely happens, and even when it does, the owner can still tell everyone, "Yeah, my stupid bike just broke on a small jump, and it took 4 weeks to get it fixed, Company X sucks, Shop Y sucks." etc. Then they flip the frame. Nobody wins, including the manufacturer. But they have to do it because the other guy does it too.
The purchaser is duped with the piece of mind that they can crumple the frame and get a new one for free, but only when the glow of new-bike ownership is brightest. It wears off as the bike get a thrashed, and new-toy lust comes along.
I'd like to see evidence that lifetime warranty makes a single bike better, safer, or a better value.
IF you look at 0:37" Greg's legs are on one side of the pole, while his body is on the other. The bike's rear end is pushing the frame against the force of the front end until the frame snaps. It's all the rear end weight and his legs pinning the front end down. I guess bikes are not made to with stand sideways force. Other material would have bent. Glad he is ok.
Maybe they did get the shots. Maybe Sven is texting the SC pits that Greg just had a huge crash and is worried about his safety. These videos don't cover every vantage point of everyone that was there...
It's not like Vital and PB didn't post about this or tried to hide it.
Good job it was his bike that snapped and not him.
Wooden posts shouldn't be allowed on a DH course, there's enough trees to hit already let alone using solid posts to mark the track.
Rider safety should be paramount. Stop using wooden posts when marking out a course.
Option 1 :femur
Option 2: Knee
Option 3: pole
Option 4 .tibia & friend
Option 5:pole and tree
The bike acelerates a lot with his rotational movement,if someone takes near with the bike and not the pole maybe other things had cracked.
Test lab (goo.gl/3VqKFm) are different with real world. Hater will always be hater, they easily laugh at everyone mistake. Keep positive, get out and ride your bike!!
"I was just riding along and my bike snapped in half!"
Go full screen in slomo... you can clearly see it wrap around the post and break. The wash-out was nothing. The wheel or handlebar would have broke from that before the frame did.
cheers,
Don't go back to those places
It seems Mr. Minnaar doesn't need that bike anymore.
I would gladly take care of that broken bike.
Broken bike > Broken rider
Are we sure the bike broke in the crash?
Or did the crash happen because the bike broke?
I'd bet on the latter.
Me and my friends wear out fancy lightweight carbon frames in three months and it's not because we're hacks it's because we ride a lot.
Stop asking for all this shit that we're trusting our safety on to be lighter and start asking for it to be stronger.
And you wear out carbon frames in three months? What does that even mean? Carbon does not have a fatigue like metal. Is your leg rubbing on the frame and wearing through it? Is the frame just cracking as you just ride along? Or are you smashing it on rocks or posts, like greg?
Lol jokes, love SC, just can't pass on a pun.
NO WAY MAN! THAT WAS A KONA! ONLY KONAS BREAK THAT EASILY, PINKBIKE TOLD ME SO!
I must be a pound lighter than an Al frame or it looses sex apeal.
At a cost of making a light but disposable frame.
Warranties used to be five years or lfe time.
BTW would an aluminum frame snap in two from that impact?
I think not.
I think that is pushing the limits of how little material you can make a frame with.
No doubt the frame would be killed from getting thrown into a post like that.
But it snaped like a twig on two tubes.
The frame would probably hold up fine for Dh for about two years.
Thats the parameters the engineers give to the frame.
After two years if it starts to crack.
Two bad warranty is over.
This is now accepted in the bike industry.