high quality, expensive bikes are usually designed to withstand a good amount of physical abuse and dynamic loads under a 90kg rider. i wonder what kind of damage they sustained. bent spokes? brake/shift levers?
A lightweight frame is extremely strong under the loads for which it is designed (weight on the seat and bars transferred down through the wheels), but often exceedingly weak in other types of stress (E.g. an impact to the side of a tube). Especially carbon fiber.
My last bike came damaged. The box with the steel frame suffered a minor hit I didn't even notice it until after my shop reported the damage. Bent the right rear dropout less than two millimeters, dropouts are where the wheel axle connects to the frame. This prevented the rear tire from inserting and had bent the location of the rear derailleur mount.
Repairing wouldn't necessarily be safe and would definitely invalidate the warranty, luckily the company I bought it from sent me a new frame after I gave them proof of shipping damage.
This kind of thing weirds me out to be honest. I've had this kind of conversation with serious cyclists before where I've been told that it's impossible for cyclists to ride on the footpath in places because the uneven cement slabs would damage {some part of the bike I don't remember or care}. You're here telling me that a 2mm twist in part of the frame is a serious problem for attaching the rear wheel, and that it would be "unsafe" to have a skilled technician fix it (presumably by just twisting it back?).
What kind of piss-poor engineering is going into high end bikes? $400 bikes don't have this problem. I've legit thrown (albeit cautiously to make sure it doesn't bounce) my bike over a 1m drop on it's side several times and it's fine other than the kickstand being a little bent.
I'd never spend $1500+ on a bike that can't handle a 2mm deviation in the rear fork. Over the lifespan of the bike it's /definitely/ gonna have some part of it deviated by 2mm through normal wear and tear, so if that's gonna break it beyond safe repair then that's a pretty useless bike. Am I the crazy one here?
Isn't that something that could be solved by shipping it with a 50c piece of metal between the bars during shipping as a surrogate for the wheel axle? Given the list prices, seems like they could stretch to that, and it'd be more reliable than hoping the delivery man will be more gentle because he thinks it's a TV box.
