ksryder

I mean, my handling skills are crap so that probably plays into it.

wipekitty

This puzzle is part of the reason why I will never have the funds to replace a bicycle simply because it is old.

I've certainly 'retired' bicycle frames due to structural issues, rust in bad places, and so forth. In my local cycling community, what usually happens is somebody buys a bike, rides the snot out of it, upgrades, and sells the old bike to somebody who proceeds to ride the snot out of it. Racers are the exception as they tend to destroy their stuff.

billyymc

So it seems like based on the mileage alone there isn't really any reason to be concerned about the possibility of frame failure being significantly higher than when the bike was new. That's pretty much where my head was at, but was curious how others would feel.

But - having had the bike 10 years I do sort of have an urge for a change or an upgrade. I have a friend who wants to road ride a bit (we MTB together) - he's a lot lighter than me but about the same height. If I do go ahead and upgrade I'd probably just give the Tricross to him so it doesn't sit in a corner.

billyymc

Good point Koyote. If I stuck to smoother less hilly terrain I wouldn't have even thought about it. There's almost no ride I do where I'm not descending a number of hills at 45+ mph, so I was thinking more in terms of consequences of a frame/fork failure and not in terms of probability of one happening.

jimincalif

I have 2008 Specialized Roubaix Comp Compact (carbon) with about 31,000 miles that I've put on it since buying used in 2013. I have no idea the mileage from the prior owner. I was about 218# when I bought it, I'm down around 204# now. Prior owner was probably about 160#. I've replaced the wheels, front derailleur, saddle, seatpost and crankset (along with normal wear items). I just recently inspected the frame and fork carefully both visually with a bright light and running my hands over it, so far so good.

The carbon seatpost did break right at the clamp - but the clamp slot was lined up with the seat tube slot instead of being 180 degrees out, so I figure that was user error.

Koyote

I would think the most likely point of failure would be a carbon fiber steerer tube, if your bike has that. Might be a good idea to pull the fork each year and have a look at it… Or have a shop do it. Any other problems should be easily spotted when cleaning and maintaining your bike.

Carbon fiber is probably damaged 10x as often through over-torquing bolts than through crashes or normal wear and tear. If you have a good torque wrench you’ll probably have no issues.

cyccommute 

Aluminum breakage...frames, components, wheels, etc....creak and groan before breakage. This is because the material cracks and tears rather than fractures. Most people who broken an aluminum frame...or crank or wheel or whatever... have heard those sounds and have probably ignored them. I certainly have and I’ve broken a lot of aluminum (two frames, a crank arm and lots of rims). Only afterwards did the sounds they made prior to breakage make sense. However, at no point did the material just ‘break into pieces’. The fracture is a slow process.

I haven’t broken any carbon fiber (yet) including a 12 year old carbon fork on my commuter bike that has 25,000 miles on it. But carbon fiber shouldn’t break in any manner that is all that different from aluminum. It will crack but the crack shouldn’t propagate rapidly due to the nature of the material. Carbon fiber is a cloth that laid up with different layers of material running in different directions. Cracks won’t propagate because the fiber stops the propagation.

Compare that with steel. I’ve broken two steel frames (one of them multiple times), pedal axles, hub axles, fork steer tubes and more spokes than I can shake a stick at. The fork steer tube was the only one that didn’t do what most people seem to think carbon and aluminum do. It didn’t just break into two pieces but elongated slightly which messed up the steering. All of them other breakages have just snapped in two like aluminum is supposed to break. One of the frames even broke at the dropout when an axle broke. Neither breakage was preceded by any kind of evidence that it would break. Spokes just go “ping!” and they are broken. The pedal axle was attached to the crank on minute and wasn’t the next. Hub axles (all of them freewheel hubs) often break and you don’t even realize it until you happen to take the rear wheel off and find two pieces of axle when there should only be one.

cyccommute 

I would agree. The frames I’ve broken (two steel and two aluminum) were fairly long ago. The steel mountain bike was an early mountain bike and probably under-designed for the task at hand. I was even told by the sales rep that it was good that I had replaced mine because they were breaking often. He didn’t offer to cover the cost of the replacement nor did they cover the broken frame (cracked at the bottom bracket bridge), however. Nor did I even ask when the dropout broke since I’d already had the frame repaired.

The other steel one was another mountain(ish) bike...a Specialized Rock Combo...which may not have been up to the punishment but at least Specialized gave me a new frame.

One of the aluminum bikes was a Specialized Stumpjumper Pro with an M2 boron/aluminum frame. Most of those are gone since the boron/aluminum composite was too brittle. Again, replaced without question.

The other aluminum bike was one that I was using a seatpost with a huge setback. It just leveraged the frame too much and cracked it right at the top tube weld.

But I haven’t broken another frame since about 2000 and don’t expect to. The metallurgy on metal frames is a lot better as is the quality control.

Litespud

I have a 20 year old bike with >50,000 miles on it. I garage doored it ~6 years ago, which prompted replacement of the carbon fork. Wheels are ~15 years old. Fastest descent IIRC was ~48 mph, and I would have no hesitation repeating it if I could find an adequate hill

Daniel4

I think I changed my bearings quite a bit. I'm still riding my 40 year old bike.

Camilo

Common? Seriously, you think that aluminum or carbonfiber frames fail commonly? No frame material fails commonly. Frame failures are very rare, no matter what the material. By the way, I'm not claiming any material is superior to any other. I have aluminum, titanium, carbonfiber and steel and am happy and confident in durability for all of them.

dahoneezz

Riding mountain bikes, I think you'll break all kinds of stuff and all types of materials. Steel, carbon fiber, aluminium, bones. I'am too old for that shiet.

mstateglfr 

That isn't what he said.
He said that the common way in which those frame materials fail is sudden in nature(versus slowly).

mstateglfr 

Ok, so rambling about steel components breaking has 0 to do with the discussion. Steel spokes breaking isn't applicable here. Steel freewheel hubs breaking isn't applicable here.
Similarly, if anyone rambled on about aluminum handlebars or trims breaking- that wouldn't be applicable here.

Components breaking is not the same as frames breaking and does not reveal anything as it pertains to frame material reliability


As for your steel frames breaking- blah blah, yadda yadda we get it. You view steel as inferior.
I don't view it as inferior or superior to other materials- I view it as perfectly good for specific situations, just like the other materials.

Once again- if nobody can tell a frame is breaking until it suddenly fails, then for all intents and purposes that frame is one which fails suddenly.

cyccommute 

The reason I brought up how components break is because it is indicative of how the various materials fail. I don’t see steel as being inferior but I do see it as being something that breaks in ways that people don’t understand...the same way that they don’t understand how aluminum or carbon breaks. Aluminum and carbon don’t “fail suddenly”. Steel does.

Litespud

"common" to two or more things is that it is a characteristic shared by those things - like when things have a characteristic in common - in this context, sudden failure, as opposed to slow failure, is a characteristic shared by CF and Al - it doesn't pertain to frequency, prevalence, etc

base2 

20190319_163928 by Richard Mozzarella, on Flickr

Digger Goreman

Bought my 1995 Trek 800 Sport at a GoodWill in Dec. 2013. No telling how many miles were on it. Four to Five Thousand miles later... no intention to retire it. Someone said this model is built like a tank, in other words, just right for me!

Digger Goreman

Annnnnddd, the Frankentrek rolls on! Last night someone on Craigslist posted a newish shimano altus (yes, I know it is low end) crankset and front derailleur for 20 usd. LBS is taking care of the details

Camilo

Thanks for the clarification. I obviously misunderstood the statement. I thought he was saying that sudden failure happens commonly to aluminum and carbon fiber frames. Now I understand what he was saying and can't disagree or agree because I've never had a failure of either frame material so don't know if it happens suddenly without warning and is indeed common to those two materials.

cyccommute 

It bears stating again: Aluminum does not “fail suddenly”. On the other hand, steel does. I’ve broken both...twice.

Although I haven’t broken anything that is carbon fiber, I would say that given the way in which carbon fiber is used, it would be difficult for the material to propagate a crack across the various layers of fabric. It would tear rather than fracture and a tear is a much slower failure.

Arthur Peabody

No. I've always ridden my bikes until I broke the frames. My current frame, an Alú bought from Nashbar 20+ years ago for $200, has >100K miles on it. I've replaced everything else but the handlebar, its stem, and the seat post - and the Blackburn, all inherited from the previous frame. (bent by an angry would-be thief)

Chatwithyou

I have many times.

billyymc

So the result of today's ride (mostly paved road with a couple gravel stretches, one which was a seasonal use forest road):



That makes five rear wheels I've gone through on this bike in 24,000 miles. I should have put some wider tires on for today, but didn't realize just how rough the one road was until I was on it. I had 700x38 GP 4 Seasons at about 90 psi - that couldn't have helped. These wheels (Campy Zonda) have about 8-9 k miles on them I think.

cyccommute 

For theses wheels, your problem isn’t related to tires or inflation. It’s related to low spoke count concentrating too much stress in one area. More spokes would spread the load around more evenly.