A cyclist left disfigured when the steerer tube of a bike he had bought from Halfords allegedly snapped is suing the retailer for £1 million.
Joseph Love, then aged 19, suffered severe injuries to his face in the incident in Gravesend in February 2009 which he says have “wrecked” his life, reports Metro.
Gerald Martin QC, acting for Mr Love, told the High Court that the steerer tube of Mr Love’s £250 Saracen Raw 2 bike had sustained a “sudden and catastrophic failure,” with the cyclist hitting a crash barrier head-first.
He said: “We ask the court to bear in mind that Saracen marketing literature for the Raw 2 bicycle would lead an ordinary person to assume that fairly robust riding is to be expected – as it says, 'give the trails a kicking'."
Mr Martin claimed the bike was “defective at the point of sale.”
His client, now aged 24, said that the bike had been assembled and inspected by Halfords staff, and that it had also undergone a full service at the retailer with no defect found.
James Medd, acting for Halfords, described expert evidence prepared on behalf of Mr Love as “deeply flawed.”
The case continues.
59 thoughts on “Cyclist sues Halfords for £1 million, claims steerer tube “failure” led to severe facial injuries”
Same thing happened to me but
Same thing happened to me but not a halfords bike, a £1000 bike and I went over the handlebars face first in to the road, thankfully just one scar!
My Boardman CX that was built
My Boardman CX that was built by Halfords had almost everything on it done incorrectly, to the point that the crank fell off while I was riding. Luckily, I was going slowly at the time, but it could easily have been a terrible crash.
The poor training and often a bad attitude make Halfords a dangerous place to buy a bike, and I hope that Joseph Love can get things back on track in his life after his crash.
Just picked up a 2nd hand in
Just picked up a 2nd hand in good nick Boardman Comp, the amount of 2nd hand Halfords bikes where people have been sold bikes too big for them is unreal, have a look on eBay its quite funny.
intrigued, things don’t
intrigued, things don’t usually just break, there is usually a reason. Potholes, jumping off kerbs, crashing into walls.
assuming it Is this bike or a model year variation of?
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/saracen/raw-2-2007-mountain-bike-ec014868#features
Forks won’t be brilliant, but RST aren’t that bad, would guess a steel steerer press-fitted into an Alu crown, just like most other suspension forks out there.
mrmo wrote:Forks won’t be
I’d be surprised if a steel steerer failed. I think that aluminium ones are dodgier than steel or carbon fibre, since they can fatigue, for example this incident, which the rider won compensation for.
I can’t see how lights and mudguards could damage the steerer tube!
Crank also fell off my
Crank also fell off my Halfords bike a month after buying it. Landed on the road and a bus went over it. My friend’s bike from Halfords also had his crank fall off. 😕
My mum also unfortunately bought a bike from Halfords and the thread on the freewheel wore off making it useless. 😕
3 bikes, 3 failures. Basically in my eyes it’s poor quality bikes built by underqualified staff.
Bollox re the lights and
Bollox re the lights and guards, that’s just a way of saying “anything you’ve done to it, AT ALL, voids the warranty”.
Bollox re the lights and
Bollox re the lights and guards, that’s just a way of saying “anything you’ve done to it, AT ALL, voids the warranty”.
I wonder how adding mudguards
I wonder how adding mudguards and lights could damage the bike, unless they were installed with a hammer and nails, or a blow torch
The article states that there
The article states that there was a catastrophic failure of the steerer tube not a loose bolt etc. As much as I don’t rate some of the Halfords staff, this is possibly a misuse issue as they are drawing attention to its supposed ruggedness.
Normally, if you are suing for a defective product you would go for the manufacture and not to the supplier. So one can only assume that they believe it was assembled incorrectly.
As for the mudguards and lights, this should only be mentioned if it has a direct effect to either incident or for example holes were drilled for the fitting. We should however wait for all the details.
My advice for everyone buying any bike from any retailer is to check every bolt yourself or someone you trust with your life.
Mart wrote:
Normally, if you
Not sure this is correct. IANAL but SOGA (as revised) puts the duty to supply goods of merchantable quality and fit for purpose on the vendor. The manufacturer is then pursued for redress by that vendor.
Example: I buy a Sony TV from Currys. Turns out to be a dud. I take it back to Currys and get a refund/replacement. Currys then go back to Sony and say ‘you gave us a bad product’. (In reality, supply contracts have an allowance for a certain percentage of DOA e.g. 5% and therefore the cost of the contract is discounted appropriately).
Surprised there isn’t more of
Surprised there isn’t more of this – Evans sends bikes out with pedals falling off, for example.
For those that had cranks come off – were these by any chance Shimano’s left arms? The ones that are positioned by a cheap plastic “screw”, held in by a thin plastic clip and then clamped with two bolts which must be tightened sequentially with a torque wrench?
My daughter fell in love with
My daughter fell in love with a kiddy-bike in Halfords (about 9 years ago). I said that I would take it home & assemble it myself, but they insisted that they should do it, & charged me £18 for the privilege.
When I got it home, I had to spend an hour taking it apart & putting together properly.
The ‘mechanic’ had regaled me with stories of his youthful rides using a 10 tooth fixed ‘cog’. Stupid, dangerous git. X(
Broken steerer aside, I’m
Broken steerer aside, I’m surprised by the accounts of cranks and pedals falling off etc. Who doesn’t check their bike over before they take it for a ride? And why the hell wouldn’t you? That’s not to say Evans / Halfords etc aren’t in the wrong for being incapable of even doing the basics correctly but if you don’t check your bike over yourself you’re mad.
ajmarshal1 wrote:Who doesn’t
Beginners, those who just want to go for a nice ride once in a while, and even many commuters. Many people don’t know this from that on a bike, and perhaps don’t want to know. They trust their local shop and the brand name on the downtube. Not everybody is interested in turning a wrench and fussing with gizmos.
I have had the odd MTB in the
I have had the odd MTB in the end of year sale from Halfrauds over the years as there are bargains if you know your stuff but I have never ever let them set up a bike for me. You don’t have to let them do it, the warranty still applies on the parts and material faults. What you wont have come back on is stuff that should have been done before it was put on display – ie the crank bolts. Having said that I have never known the likes of Evans send bikes in a box with the pedals fitted so I am not sure how they would “fall” off…
Recently bought a Boardman
Recently bought a Boardman Hybrid for the wife as she fell in love with it from Halfords against my better judgement. No surprise that all the gears were set up wrong so within in two weeks of buying it went into Hargroves to have the gears done properly.
Re: the gears not working on
Re: the gears not working on a Halfords bike. I’m not defending them but cables stretch on new bikes, so the gears will go off on any non-Di2 bike.
Not a fan of Halfords,
Not a fan of Halfords, however;
According to Metro, the bike was bought in May 2008 and the crash happened in Feb 2009. That means the six month service would have been in Nov 2008 and the 12 month service not due until May 2009. So it had been used for quite a while and was in between services.
It also states that the steerer failed then he hit the barrier, or maybe he hit the barier resulting in the forks snapping? Why was he riding towards a barrier and what kind of barrier?
What does “a sudden and catestrophic failure” of the steerer tube actually mean. The stem bolts came loose, the steerer tube itself snapped, the crown seperated? How did the failure occur, forks splayed out or forks fold into the frame?
I took my Carrera Vulcan
I took my Carrera Vulcan V-Spec into Halfords, Milton Keynes for a full service. I did and m-check prior to a ride and the handlebars where loose where they meet the stem. The gears were also noisier and hadn’t been adjusted properly.
It always surprises me that Chris Boardman sells his bike through Halfords when they have such a bad reputation.
I bought a Boardman XC Pro HT
I bought a Boardman XC Pro HT MTB from Guildford Halfords a few years ago. It was fine. I rode it home off-road 25 odd miles. It was fine. A week later I rode the entire SDW on it. It was fine. I’ve ridden it up and down mountains in Austria. It was fine. Spain. It was fine. France. It was fine. I’d done the Trans-Cambria on it. It was fine. I’ve hit the Surrey Hills and various trail centres countless times. It was fine. I’ve raced it. it was fine. I “bombed it” down the local woods last Saturday morning. It is still fine.
Now if you want another boring story I could tell you about rather different tale of the Spesh Rockhopper I got from an LBS.
Bad service is everywhere. you don’t have to look far to find it. It isn’t the exclusive reserve of Halfords.
I think it’s wise to check
I think it’s wise to check any new/serviced bike over before riding.
We bought a bmx for my son from Halfords.
Having waited a few days for it to be ordered and built by the shop and
been told it had been checked over by them, on getting it home brake pads had to be adjusted to hit the rims.
Fairly fundamental stuff.
Needless to say I checked the whole bike with spanners after that.
When my crank came off (an
When my crank came off (an FSA Gossamer, not Shimano) I was pretty new to cycling, hence the fact I bought a bike from Halfords…
It’s not brilliantly helpful to say that “Anyone who doesn’t check a bike before they ride it is mad” in this context. It’s unlikely that someone who is buying a £250 MTB from Halfords in the case above, is going to be have the tools/knowledge to do that.
Why would they expect to know better than the professional bike builders at a big and trusted company? To people who spend less time and energy than us thinking about bikes, Halfords are trusted to do the job.
The fact that their standards and training are so low is a big, big problem for cycling in the UK, particularly when they are endorsed by people like Chris Boardman and British Cycling.
A lot of people are talking
A lot of people are talking about misuse and servicing. My forks/steerer were carbon. The road bike was never misused and 4 months old and had been checked over by a shop 2 days before. I was accelerating at a roundabout stood up and it just snapped! I went over the bars and was led in the road at a busy roundabout.
£1m seems a lot though unless he was a model and his face was his money maker!
spence129 wrote:£1m seems a
I thought that too, but with a name like Joseph Love it does sound like he would be well suited to a certain line of work.
bollandinho wrote:
Quote:A
bollandinho wrote:
Did you find put why “it just snapped”?
The handlebars on my bike (built by Halfords) where fitted to the carbon fork/steerer using a star-fangled nut which cut into the carbon resulting in carbon debris in the steerer tube and Halfords getting a replacement fork/steerer for me to take to my LBS to fit with the correct parts.
Star-fangled nuts are only for use with metal steerers.
I think the outcome of this
I think the outcome of this could be quite interesting based on the marketing pitch of
I have always wondered about how many so called mountain bikes are being described incorrectly in order to boost sales.
I am not one for supporting the blame and sue culture, but I would like to see some of the less honest marketing bull being reigned in.
You wouldn’t check your cam
You wouldn’t check your cam belt was properly installed after taking your car in for a service, why would you want to on a bike? May as well do it all yourself if you plan on checking every bolt and cable when you get it back.
Isn’t it interesting that
Isn’t it interesting that people who are always propagating the urban myth of the so-called “cheap Chinese carbon crap” spontaneously combusting mid-ride, how they always conveniently neglect to bring up the fact that we hear way more often factual accounts — like this one — about cheap British crap failing in real life?
velonista wrote:Isn’t it
you’re reading this because somebody suing halfords for £1m is newsworthy. if your chinarello fails and you land on your face, who you gonna sue?
velonista wrote:Isn’t it
I’d be very surprised if there’s anything very British about this bike other than that it’s sold in a British shop. So I don’t really get your point here.
Something doesn’t sound
Something doesn’t sound right.
No retailer is going to void a warrantee because of the fitting of standard accessories surely.
Define “fairly robust riding”. Don’t forget this is a £250 bike.
Did the steerer tube fail in the impact or before it?
What does “severe facial injuries” that have “wrecked his life” mean?
Why wait five years?
Sorry, everything is too vague and doesn’t add up!
ANY new bike from a major
ANY new bike from a major retailer needs checking.
Had a new “parent helper” turn up at the kid’s MTB club I coach at. While the kids went through their M checks as they do every week, I checked hers, a brand new B’twin hybrid. Old school type quill stem – top bolt was so loose bars could easily be turned independent of wheel. ~X(
5 miles after I picked up my
5 miles after I picked up my boardman the saddle gave way.
It hadn’t been tightened properly.
:”(
I don’t have a million though…..
I regularly see kids turning
I regularly see kids turning up at the BMX track for a few laps with the forks on the wrong way round. Quite often the parents are nearby and I’ll point out that the bike has been assembled incorrectly, only to be told “It’s brand new, I just bought it from Halfords.”
I’ve sorted out a few of these bikes in the past but I don’t do that any more as I’m concerned there will be something else wrong with them that could go wrong and I could then be blamed. Instead, I now simply tell the parent that the bike’s not safe to use and shouldn’t be ridden until it’s sorted properly, but that I don’t have any tools with me.
I can corroborate other
I can corroborate other stories on here about shoddy bike building at Halfords.
I’ll mention no names but a friend of my son had a weekend job at Halfords. He saw several incidents of just plain dangerous building. In one circumstance the bike was built with the forks round the wrong way.
Now you and I would just laugh and get them fix it. But Halfords customers are not the Velominati. So they accept what they get from the “expert”.
The fact is at Halfords your bike is being built and serviced by someone that may not actually know that much about bikes.
Love my Boardman, but when I
Love my Boardman, but when I first took it out I noticed loads of play in the FSA headset. I tried tightening the main hex on top, but this didn’t make any difference – after Googling the problem, I discovered that there’s effectively a larger hex inside that needs tightening first and Halfords had clearly missed it. Additionally, the handlebars weren’t tightened sufficiently and the gears’ indexing was out.
Great bike once I got these bits sorted, but if I’d have just gone out and bombed it down a hill at forty I’d hate to think what damage it could have caused.
dafyddp wrote:Love my
I’ve found this headset problem with my Boardman as well. And there is a problem with the front mech and the rear brake and the brake lever and the cables ….
Frame is good.
edit – we’ve removed the
edit – we’ve removed the reference to lights and mudguards from the story as we believe that’s a misunderstanding on the part of Metro
I find it interesting that on
I find it interesting that on one hand Halfords aren’t worth shit, then on the other, they are seen as the experts… I do not know a single person, bike or no, that woul describe halfords as an expert.
But that’s by the by.
I think this lad is going to struggle to win his claim on this occasion. For a start, unless other Saracen Raw’s suffer the same issue, how is this anything other than a freak one off incident… and how, in that case could Halfords have done more to stop it happening?
Catastrophic failure does not sound like human error, that sounds like a dodgy part, so we can almost take the Halfords name out of the equation.
I wonder if we did so and replaced it with LBS, would attitudes to the success/failure of this action be different.
I know those Saracen Raw’s from my bike industry days… they are well over-engineered, designed to survive the stupidity of youth riding… I am surprised to learn of one that simply ‘let go’.
Bought from a Halfords. Bits
Bought from a Halfords. Bits fell off. Not put together properly – I build my own bikes normally. Emailed Halfords to complain and Boardman whose bike it was. No reply.
In summary, not surprised by this story.
Halfords are sh*t.
End of.
Since when does an pre
Since when does an pre delivery check look at the steerer tube joint to the fork? If it was loose, and even if the shop missed it, surely the rider would be straight back?
It’s also, according to this, 6 months since they last seen it.
Surely a case of product liability for the manufacturer, who possibly may want to look into if it was damaged or not….driven into a garage roof for example…..
It’s a horrible accident, I feel for the young man, but his legal guys have taken the wrong path I fear.
I’ve never used a Halfords workshop, or bought a bike there, it’s not my kind of place.
Edit… I checked up and Saracen as a brand changed ownership around this time, leaving the only recourse to the retailer
It was only a matter of time
It was only a matter of time this happened. Might make Halfords realise some of their employees are badly trained eejets.
Shocked…..
Shocked…..
Oh well Halfords that’ll
Oh well Halfords that’ll teach ya for supporting ‘ Think bike ‘
Oh well Halfords that’ll
Oh well Halfords that’ll teach ya for supporting ‘ Think bike ‘
Shocked…..
Shocked…..
Shocked…..
Shocked…..
Oh well Halfords that’ll
Oh well Halfords that’ll teach ya for supporting ‘ Think bike ‘
Oh well Halfords that’ll
Oh well Halfords that’ll teach ya for supporting ‘ Think bike ‘
There are far safer and more
There are far safer and more effective ways of reducing obesity than cycling. OK cycling buffs do it, but really don’t expect most of the nation to adopt it as a lifestyle or travel option. May as well expect the whole country to go jogging.
Cycling safety is a no brainer. The less that do it the less killed and injured. Simples 🙂
Hilarious. Active transport
Hilarious. Active transport involving cycling and walking is pretty much the ‘only’ proven, effective way to reduce obesity.
If it wasn’t then you’d have to wonder why driving a car has a 98% correlation with obesity.
This statement seems
This statement seems deliberately ambiguous.
“Gerald Martin QC, acting for Mr Love, told the High Court that the steerer tube of Mr Love’s £250 Saracen Raw 2 bike had sustained a “sudden and catastrophic failure,” with the cyclist hitting a crash barrier head-first.”
“He said: “We ask the court to bear in mind that Saracen marketing literature for the Raw 2 bicycle would lead an ordinary person to assume that fairly robust riding is to be expected – as it says, ‘give the trails a kicking’.””
What we know:
#1 – It was the steerer, not the head tube weld that failed.
#2 – the cyclist hit the crash barrier head first.
What we don’t know:
#1 – did the steerer fail at the crown or at the shaft?
#2 – did the steerer fail to CAUSE the accident or as a RESULT of hitting something?
It looks like dodgy wording to mask the fact that it was the RESULT of “robust riding”. In other words, he beat the crap out of the bike, thinking that hitting things like crash barriers was within acceptable limits for the bike.
A 19 year old who rides a $400 bike who puts due diligence into making sure his bike is always in good condition and he rides within the limits of what a bike at that price point can likely handle? Almost as rare as Magrathean Condors.
If the judge has a brain in his head, Halford’s million is safe as can be.
I would imagine that rather
I would imagine that rather than ‘Halfords’ it’s probably their insurers that are fighting the case.
As horrible and tragic as this is for the guy, I just don’t think the legal case made is very good, no mention of even a consulting engineer as an expert witness or failure analysis, I know this costs money, but it’s more or less essential.
I do know of another case, which was successful, where the QC put the defence expert witness down by listening then asking….when was the last time you assembled, serviced or indeed rode a bicycle…….answer was never, never and when I was at school…
While I certainly don’t beat
While I certainly don’t beat the drum for Halfords, this is a bum rap. No service or pre delivery inspection is going to find a crack in the steerer tube, especially if it is under the bearing cup. That would require a complete strip and aircraft level crack detection.
So while Halfords may be, as everyone here seems to think, rubbish, this time it isn’t their fault.
As a bike mechanic, I get a lot of work from Halfords, when people take their bike to them to be fixed, then they bring it to me to be fixed properly. Last year, I had three or four customers with bikes purchased from Halfords, with the front brake cable wrapped around the headtube, so that when you turned a corner, the cable tightened up and applied the brake. I think that particular Halfords employee must be looking for a new job though, as I haven’t seen it again since.
Sedgepeat wrote:There are far
This is either sarcasm or trolling in its purest form! I can’t tell which! Though either way I have no clue why its posted on this particular thread (which is about some, frankly rather dull, legal case that none of us have enough information to say anything useful about!).
Incorporating physical activity into everyday life, as something functional, is by far-and-away the best way to improve health. If you have to go out to a gym or something to make a special effort to ‘get exercise’ (like jogging) you are far less likely to stick to it than if its just what you do to get to wherever you are going (or if its part of your job).
I find it interesting that two occupational groups with some of the highest incidence of heart disease are (a) lorry drivers and (b) taxi drivers. Though that probably has a lot to do with the kind of food they, for reasons of culture and habit, tend to eat in their respective cafes as much as it is to do with the driving. The job-enforced physical inactivity can’t help though.
And as for reducing the killed and injured – I think you’ll find its the fewer people who drive the fewer people who will be killed and injured on the roads.
Also, the bad punctuation in your signature is irritating. Punctuation and spelling errors in posts are not worth complaining about, but when one is repeated over-and-over again in someone’s sig it doesn’t help their credibility.
This case seems to be a shot
This case seems to be a shot in the dark. The gap between him receiving the bike and the failure seems far too long for it to be a build issue….and if it wasn’t then he should have taken it back to Halfords earlier.
The exception is where he has barely ridden the bike for a long period of time….but something the defence is going to exploit.
Halfords have a bad rep on bikes, and it is because of the way they mix bike parts and car parts, with their mass scale retail approach. They don’t look tend to deal with the top end stuff and so when someone with a real interest turns up they cannot really deal with the product needs.
I don’t use them for servicing my bike and I don’t use them to purchase my bike parts. But having had my bike serviced by them on the RAB, I can attest that at least some of their guys know what they are doing. I suspect that if more cyclists came to them looking for decent bike parts/clothes they would start to stock it.
The result of the case is more crucial as opposed to the fact that a law suit has been filed.
I was out on my road bike
I was out on my road bike this morning, a steel framed machine built for me over thirty years ago, and I realised that I’ve not actually taken a spanner to the (Campag Record) headset once in all those years, because it has never needed adjustment over the intervening 100,000 miles or so. Perhaps I should have done but, rightly or wrongly, I’m only human and I guess I’ve been subconciously relying on the fact that I’ve never heard of a steel fork and column combination suffering from catastrophic failure.
The thing is, we’re all placing our trust in one or more other people, whether they be component designers, manufacturers, mechanics, the frame builder, or the previous owner if purchased 2nd hand, because, like me, most people have neither the skill, nor the facilities to scientifically check each component on a regular basis. And yet component failure seems to be becoming much more common, despite inprovements in scientific knowledge.
I’d like to see an industry funded central reference, easily available to everyone, that documents every component failure, encouraging everyone to focus much more on safety, and rather less on manufacturing (or indeed assembly and servicing) economy.
Although I’m not in favour of “compensation culture”, I hope this chap wins his case.
Just to add my experience to
Just to add my experience to the Halfords saga……..Observed a Halfords’ assistant trying to prevent the bars from rotating by levering the star nut on an Aheadset with a large spanner. When challenged, it became clear he was only a Saturday morning lad and trying to be helpful to the customer. No supervision, no training and no idea. He hadn’t been told the limit of his responsibility.
Halfords aim their business at the Average Joe who are not bike mechanics. The reason laws are enacted (in this case Sale of Goods) is because traders generally cannot be relied upon to do a professsional job.
If I go to a LBS and buy a new machine I expect the shop to check it over before release regardless of how knowledgeable the customer appears.