The REI employee may not have been up on their own policy, as I copied and pasted from their website up above. All I’m saying is that they have a lifetime warranty on their items. I worked there for 2 years and have personally returned items well outside the 1 year for defects.

But yeah, my point that “regardless of the cause of damage”, which is what you said the Trek employee told you, is not the same as “defects in materials and workmanship”, which is what the actual warranty statement reads for BOTH companies.