A small number of Rockgeist brackets from its BarJam Harness have cracked, resulting in a large-scale recall.
Less than 1 percent of the brackets have a design flaw that leads to breaking during use, the company announced in August. While Rockgeist is unaware of any injuries caused by the problem, “we don’t want to take any chances,” founder Greg Hardy wrote.
That’s why Rockgeist has asked all owners of the BarJam Harness to stop using the brackets immediately.
“Your safety is a priority for us and we stand behind our commitment to provide high quality bikepacking equipment that stands up to the rigors of singletrack bikepacking with heavily loaded bikes,” the company said.
The recall includes all BarJam bracket components of sizes 31.8 mm or 35 mm purchased from Sept. 12, 2021 through Aug. 4, 2022.
Brackets include the “Rockgeist” label in white lettering, as seen in the photo below.
Rockgeist revises brackets, requests shipping addresses
Rockgeist has already stopped making the BarJam Harnesses with the affected brackets.
The Asheville, N.C.-based company redesigned the bracket to fix the problem by changing a bolt location and leaving more metal in the arm to increase its overall strength. It will now replace faulty brackets with the improved ones — free of charge.
The company has emailed customers with the faulty brackets and asked for a shipping address to send the new ones. Rockgeist expected to start shipping the redesigned brackets in late September or early October.
“We are also working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to follow federal guidelines to correct this issue,” Rockgeist said. “We don’t anticipate any hangups to occur from the redesign, but if they do we will keep you in the loop.”
The BarJam Harness offers bikepackers a carbon fiber bar and aluminum brackets for protecting cables while ripping descents, the company says on its website. It costs between $185 and $205 MSRP.
What about the old brackets?
Rockgeist will not email customers return shipping labels for the old brackets because of high shipping costs. It would cost $3,500 to get every affected bracket back, the company said.
If you still want to send yours back instead of disposing of them, the company “will attempt recycling all brackets mailed back to our workshop.”
The company address is: Rockgeist Bikepack USA, 2000 Riverside Dr. Unit 33. Asheville, North Carolina, USA.
If this recall affects you, email greg@rockgeist.com with your updated shipping address, if you haven’t already. He will also try to answer any additional questions as soon as possible.
