I recently purchased a Sour Purple Haze frame from a third party retailer. I had my eye on it for a while because i like the relatively high stack and short reach due to being long in the leg and short in the torso. When they recently changed the geometry and lengthened the reach i finally decided to pull the trigger and got the “old” frame from the online retailer (which also meant I did not have to faff about with import duties etc. Since I don’t live in Germany).
Unfortunately, when I had the frame built up in my local bike shop, it turned out that the chainstay on the drive side is so close to the 170mm crank arm, that they had to shim it to make sure they don’t touch, see pics below. It would also be very hard to install a longer crank arm and I would not feel comfortable reselling the bike should the time come for it. This kind of soured (pun intended) my new bike day feeling..
I contacted both Sour and the retailer and Sour basically refuses to do anything which does not go through the retailer. The retailer says the frame needs to go to Sour for inspection. However, not being mechanically gifted, I would have to invest a significant amount of money to strip the whole bike and rebuild it in case the frame is being replaced or repaired. I also do not really want the new frame due to being 1cm longer in the reach because I already have a relatively short stem (80mm) and short reach handlebars to reduce my reach.
Can this even be bent back in shape? Do I just need to live with it?
If you want warranty service, I guess it needs to go back to Sour. But I’d think inspection could be done by any (willing) frame builder, who could also advise about options if they find that the frame is out of alignment etc.
The LBS can easily check alignment. They may have already. I wouldn’t go bending anything. If it’s misaligned you need to go back to the mfg and figure out if you have the correct BB axle and if it’s a mfg error they need to replace or correct.
Can you post a picture of the crankset and BB? I don’t want to cast aspersions on the shop that fitted the parts, but it’s not impossible it’s the wrong crankset or BB, or that they’ve been fitted incorrectly.
Also, have the cranks been measured from the centre line of the frame to check if they are sitting where they should be? i.e. measuring of the position of the crank end from the centreline? Tricky to do, but worth trying to check.
Try rotating each crankarm up until it is parallel to the seat tube and then measure the gap between the seat tube and the crankarm. That should tell you if the crank is centered in the bottom bracket.
This is assuming that the seat tube is on centerline, which is true for most frames. You want the pedals at the same distance from centerline for symmetry.
