Posted by: T-mack
Heres my Pole story:
So I buy an Evolink 140. Love the bike, sure it's not super fancy but the geo is bang on. Ride it for a while and when I go to service the shock, I notice the forward eyelets wont line up upon reinstall. The 2 triangular tabs that are hanging from the top tube to mount the shock to are bent to the left. So I post up on the Facebook page asking if anyone else's is like this or if its bent. People reply saying theirs is straight, ok fine start the warranty process. I send pics to Pole (after I delete the Facebook thread because I'm not out to shame any brand) and get told I bottomed out hard. I disagree and say it's a weak spot etc. Back and forth this goes for a while. Meanwhile I get 2 other guys in the S2S who also have the same bike to check theirs, sure enough bent the exact same way so clearly a design flaw. I forward these pics to Pole to build my case and they still disagree and make me ship my frame back to them for inspection. Now considering Pole was all high and mighty about not using carbon because of the environment, it seems funny to burn all of that fuel to ship a wrecked a frame to Finland, but anyway. They eventually crash replaced my frame with a 158 frame and EXT shock which still cost me $1500 on top of the $300 to ship my bent one back. I'm still riding the bike but I think I've cracked the rear triangle, which I wont bother getting a warranty for. Probably end up selling the shock or reconfiguring it for whatever bike I get next but it wont be a Pole.
The real shame is that the actual bikes work really well. I'm totally at home on mine and honestly cant imagine any bike being better but the time will eventually come to move on. I feel like if Pole just stuck with the Evolink and tried to constantly improve it with better hardware, cleaner lines or whatever it would have done them wonders, as well as far better service. The problem is Leo's arrogance that his bikes can't possibly be flawed and just lays blame to everyone around him. His arrogance is what stemmed the CNC bikes and now hes paying for it.
I got a taste of this when my Evolink was just a few week old and I had killed my Monarch for the third time. "Excessive side loading of the shock's Internal and external parts" Is what Fluid Function said. The Evolink frame flexes a lot and when you look at how the rear end is constructed It's not surprising; It's put together like a bike from 2002. I was hoping the Evolink would be the test case that proved the value of the Machine, to which I would eventually upgrade. Expecting the Evolink to be a little more raw and less refined, but indicative of the quality I could expect. Well I guess that turned out to be true.
I could see the writing on the wall and proceeded to get the shock rebuilt and sold the bike while It looked new. It sounds like my fears weren't unfounded.
