I am a happy owner of a 3T Strada for 5 years now. When I cleaned and checked my bike recently, I undid all bottle cages to clean them properly and make sure to apply fresh grease. (I have had bottle cage bolts fuse/anodize in place in the past and want to avoid that.)
When I screwed in the last bolt, it suddenly turned freely. The metal threaded insert that had been bonded to the carbon frame in the factory had failed. When I contacted my LBS they already told me that “most likely they won’t be able to fix it.”
Am I really out of luck here? Other than that, I am really happy with the frame and have zero plans to replace it. And replacing it because of a failed bottle cage thread seems excessive. There are carbon frame repair experts that seem to deal with a lot more serious things such as broken chain stays.
That sounds like a problem that could be solved with epoxy.
I’d start by contacting 3T, and maybe an independent frame repair expert.
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It most likely is a riv nut. There’s a good chance you can tighten it back in place. There’s a tool for that, but you can also do it with a bolt and some nuts if you really want to do it yourself on the cheap. A good mechanic will be able to do it for you.
If the rivnut is busted, you can drill it out and replace it fairly easily.
Here’s some hints from Park Tool…
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This is typically a straightforward repair. I did a video explaining the process some time ago.
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A superb example of the massive shared wisdom available in this community! Wonderful to be a part of it
Weird that your LBS wouldn’t handle it, i had a problem with a rivnut on a carbon MTB frame and one of my local shops handled it no problemo. Maybe try a different one?
Yeah, this doesn’t seem like a super tricky thing to me (from the outside), and having one of the experts (thanks @Raoul_Luescher!) confirm that gives me hope.
Installing a Rivnut is basically like installing a rivet with a little firmer pull.
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I had the same experience right down to the LBS being completely unhelpful, they were always great about everything else though. I don’t understand why rivnuts seem to be such a strange blind spot. After year of riding with a semi respectable solution I found out about rivnutts, bought the tool and replaced it, super easy. I’ve since used it to tighten a couple on another bike and replace another on the original culprit bike. Once you see how they work it’s understandable why they may slip. They definitely shouldn’t be installed too right on carbon.
I DIY tightended loose rivnuts on a 3T Extrema Italia using the bolt method mentioned above. I tightened just it until it would stop moving, you dont want to over do it.
The person in charge of installing the rivnuts at 3T really needs to be fired. I had to run a tap through almost all of them to fix the threads.
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