Our continued research into the tikit stem issue has shown that we have documented instances where cracks in the stem show potential for the stem to break.
A review of our service warranty records since 2007 show that about 2.5 % of the nearly 4,000 tikits we have sold have experienced stem issues. We are in the process of contacting as many of them as we can.
Our interviews with those Bike Friday owners that we have been able to reach tells us that most of them experienced a play or loosening of the stem, which led them to have their stem checked. Most instances have been after long periods of extended use. The two breaks in the stem were after 2 years of heavy usage.
Again, at this point, Bike Friday strongly recommends at you do not ride your tikit.
If you have not already done so, we ask that your register as a tikit owner [fill out the registration form if you haven't already] so we can keep you informed on this serious situation.
To help us conduct further research into this issue, we will ask that all tikit owners inspect their tikit or have thier tikit inspected.
Our research into the issue has shown that failure of the stem should be visible to anyone inspecting the stem, and Bike Friday will create a video and step-by-step instructions to help you inspect your stem. We plan to have that information to you on Monday.
If you feel that you cannot perform this inspection by yourself, Bike Friday will pay to have someone qualified look at your stem and determine its safety risk.
At this time our engineers and designers have been able to replicate the problem, and we have begun working on solutions. We have suspended production and delivery of tikits until we can come to conclusions on this issue. We are working to redesign the stem.
This safety warning only affects Bike Friday 16-inch wheel tikits, It does not affect any of our 20-inch Pocket Bike Fridays.
More information at http://www.bikefriday.com/momentum/tikit_stem" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Andrew
