Originally Posted by
sumgy
So after many years it cracked?
Yes, 1/2 vertical crack right alongside the cable stops on the downtube, parallel to the tube. Baffling place for a crack, never laid over, never crashed. The story was the original paint flaked off after about 2 years of use. Trek - who now owned Lemond, warrantied the frame and re-painted and having originally sold me this frame for $850 as a warranty replacement for a cracked Klein. A year later and the 2nd paint job was flaking off, so seemingly Trek was unaware that titanium requires some special work to keep paint on a titanium and refused to warranty a 2nd time. I then had it painted locally which lasted longer than Trek's version. Crack then developed and Trek refused to warranty as I had it painted not by Trek.
My only point is that Titanium isn't always the miracle metal people portray it. It can be flexy and have a bad initial design. My steel Soma road frame has a stiffer b-bracket. Just the way it goes.