Talk about an unfortunate repair! This carbon fiber Focus Izalco came in for repair after being rear ended…on our customer’s rack! He was sitting in traffic when all of a sudden, WHAM! The rack’s holding mechanism was putting pressure on the toptube and the resulting collision left substantial impact damage. First things first, we gave the entire bike a full ultrasound scan just to ensure the overall structural integrity of the frame. As we said, the toptube damage was substantial and radiated quite far, but stayed localized to the toptube. Luckily the rest of the frame was left unscathed, so we got right into the damage removal process.
As you can see in the photo above, we had to remove several layers of carbon to ensure there were no more cracks or delaminations. A 1.5″ crack still needs sufficient repair, and without a full ultrasound scan it is hard to tell exactly how far damages spread.
As always, our next setp is the structural layup process. Since we already gave the bike a scan we were able to replicate (almost exactly) the depth of the carbon layup. You can see Joel performing the payup, and in the background you can see just how much carbon it takes to match an original layup structure.
After an incredible amount of wetsanding to ensure a smooth, classy and perfect repair, we sent the bike over to our paint and graphics guru who was fully able to replicate the very fine cardiogram and other decals on the toptube. He then had to recreate the red background, which is incredibly complex as well.
This frame came in as a whole build, and our customer really took the opportunity to make a #newbikeday, so he ordered up some new DT Swiss wheels, new white bar tape and went for it. All said and done, this frame looks better than new!
