BobG

That incident was 28 years ago KC, I don't remember the details. I spray painted the repair black to protect it for the remainder of the trip and the frame still hangs in my basement. I cleaned the paint off for a previous BF photo-op.

I took at least one subsequent trip on it through the Canadian Rockies after the TransAm. On the return, cycling home to NH from Montreal airport, I noticed a paint bubble with a rust crack growing on the top tube. I then retired the frame. The chainstay joint was still sound.

It was a hand built Reynolds 531 frame from Bill Vetter of Greensboro Bend VT with a custom rack, recently repainted by Tom Kellogg at Spectrum Cycles.

Back to statistics ... There were ten of us in that TransAm group. 10% of our frames failed on that trip. Mine!

robow

Btw, now that saddle is really a saddle. Betting Selle Anatomica

Tourist in MSN

I think so. That was four years ago, memory fads a bit on details on bikes owned by others.

He really liked that saddle, said he was going to use it on his cross country ride. I told him that he would regret it. I encouraged him to put his Brooks Pro that he had used for previous multi-month tours in a box so that when he asked his wife to ship it to him, it would be boxed and ready to go. Weeks later when I saw photos of him and his bike starting Northern Tier, his bike had the Brooks Pro on it.

I do not know if he bought it new, used, or what. And I do not recall him having a rain cover on it on the first few days of our five day tour when it was raining. I always put a rain cover on mine, even if it just threatens to rain.

GhostRider62

i broke a 531 steel frame on tour

could not get it fixed. replaced it

alan s 

Does anyone really care if a frame breaks? It is one of many things that could break, but not one of the more likely things to break. You fix it or replace it. Same thing if you get a flat or break a cable. Deal with it and move on.

robow

I understand what you're saying but a flat tire or a broken cable, I can probably fix on the side of a road in 15 minutes or less, but a broken frame (depending on the break) could be a game changer. With that said, I don't, won't and can't worry about everything that can go wrong, hence why most of my touring is on a titanium frame, as I'm definitely not getting that thing welded easily at Billy Bob's Welding shop.

staehpj1

That reminds me of a conversation I had way back in the day when I was getting ready to head off on a long trip with a beater car. My boss (who had previously had to cancel a vacation because of car trouble) commented that he didn't see how I could risk taking off on a a multiple thousand mile trip in a $300 car. What if it breaks down? You'd be stuck? Bla Bla Bla.

My reply was that if it broke down I't be way less stuck than if I had a newer car. I could hand someone the title. Buy another junker, rent a car, or hop on a bus. With a new car I'd be stuck until it was fixed. He didn't buy it. I closed with, "Well at least I never had to cancel my vacation because of my car" which shut him up but he never bought my theory.

Anyway, there is some similarity in bike touring. There is something to be said for having stuff that you can afford to lose fairly painlessly. A broken frame on a $600 Bikes Direct Windsor Touring, a converted older MTB, or any number of lower priced models would be easier to just junk the frame and replace it or even replace the whole bike. It usually isn't that hard to ship a bike or a bike frame home, but there is something to be said for having stuff that doesn't represent a huge investment and therefore is somewhat more expendable. Despite having a few fairly nice items my entire setup most likely cost less than a ti frame. I know that I feel a little more at ease in general knowing that my entire setup would be pretty painless to the wallet if I had to write a check to replace it all. This is probably more applicable to theft worries though.

There is one big hole in my theory. I tend to get emotionaly attached to some of my gear. My favorite sleeping bag and my 1990 Cannondale Crit bike would both be harder to part with than much more expensive items, but I just have to live with that.

I do lust after more expensive bikes at times and can afford one. I like the idea of a high end carbon gravel bike for touring, but really don't want the burden of worrying about one on tour. The next thing you know I'd be carrying 8 pounds of gear and 8 pounds of locks and chain and not sleeping at night

I do get the attraction to nice bikes though. I just see a plus to lower end stuff as well

pdlamb

I think we are questioning frame lifetime and quality escapes during frame manufacture.

Perhaps we need to consider what kind of "tour" we're discussion? On Tourist's point, that remote place looks like the place you'd be happy to have an extra 3-10 pounds of weight on the bike to handle the stresses without breaking. Many of the "broke a frame" accounts I've read have been people on extended tours over remote roads for months on end. And like mev's and BobG's examples, it's possible the long desired frame life is frequently met or exceeded on that kind of long trip, typically with a heavy load. Perhaps a loaded touring frame has similar lifetime to an unloaded frame that's not designed, built, and used for loaded touring, but that's just speculation. And does a loaded touring bike use up some of its lifetime if used for commuting?

Quality escapes should include those cases where process variability exceeds minimum design thresholds; e.g., ordinary statistical variation in a weld or heat treatment for a dropout will occasionally result in a weld or a dropout that will fail in normal use, and manufacturing quality should be designed and implemented to catch those cases. But, as Capt. Murphy found, it doesn't always work that way. That leaves ordinary consumers and bike tourists to guess how we should plan for, or plan to ignore, the potential for our individual frame to break.

Speaking of statistics, I'm not sure whether I should believe this guy:

Or this guy:

Either way, my gut would need a Costco size bottle of Tums to be as calm as his gut is about the likelihood of a quality escape on a given bike frame on an extended ride.

gauvins

WRT frames, we should probably make a distinction between the (ultimate) probability of failure (which will always be 1) and the hazard rate (the instantaneous probability of failure).

Any frame will break with certainty if ridden for eternity. (somewhat like death, or taxes...) But no one cares about this. What we care about is the hazard rate, i.e. the probability of failure at a point in time. Note that in the toss of a coin example, events are presumed to be independent, meaning that every time you toss the coin, the probability of head = the probability of tail = 0.5. Not so with frames because of material fatigue, such that we expect that the hazard rate increases over time, and this rate depends on very many other circumstances, both associated with the frame itself (material, geometry and such) and the environment (load, type of road, weather, etc.). The problem is that because failures are rare, and because of a self-selection bias, it can be very difficult to come up with answers. [self-selection bias : most tourers planning for a difficult/remote trip will ride on a steel frame rather than, say, carbon or bamboo. If the type of riding has an impact on the hazard rate (which is very likely), we shouldn't be surprised to find more anecdotes of frame failure involving a steel frame.]

Hmmmm... many are probably familiar with the UCI rule stipulating a minimum weight for bikes (6.8kg) used in competition. Interestingly, as technology has improved, several production bikes ridden by Sunday amateurs weigh less than the regulation weight... Touring being are marginal sport, we do not have such guidelines. Yet it would be an interesting development.

cyccommute 

You seem to be assuming that there is a defined lifetime for a bicycle frame. What would you estimate is that “lifetime”? I have tracked mileage on my bicycles since 1989. I have yet to see a mileage that defines what a “lifetime” for all bicycles might be. Some individual bikes have had short lifetimes and others have yet to find the failure point. Of the bikes that have failed me…I won’t include the one where I caused the break…the Miyata Ridge Runner (1983) I finally trashed after it had an estimated 3000 miles on it. The Rock Combo failed after 3800 miles. Both of those are steel. The (supposedly) inferior aluminum Specialized Stumpjumper lasted 6600 miles. I have a T800 (retired right now but still very rideable) that has 9800 loaded touring miles on it. I also have a Salsa Las Cruces (also retired but rideable) that has 22000 miles on it with the original carbon fork. Based on my experience with broken frames, I should have less trust in the supposedly stronger steel frames.

To be fair, I did have a steel Specialized Rockhopper that replaced the Rock Combo that had 9800 hard off-road miles on it.

I don’t currently have any steel bikes. That’s not because I think they are weak but I do think that they are heavy. Aluminum has served me very well…as have some of my steel bikes. Aluminum is strong enough for my weight, size, and loads I carry on tour. I don’t need the extra weight of steel to avoid any breakage.

You keep making mountains out of mole hills. Quality control in our age is far superior to what it was 40 years ago. Frame breakage from frames that have escaped quality control is still a very rare event. Frame breakage in general is a very rare event.

Both of those statements are in agreement. They both address the rarity of events. Tossing 50 heads in a row would be a rare event. Breaking a frame is a rare event. Your 1% failure rate would mean that between 150,000 and 200,000 bicycles break per year (15 to 20 million bikes are sold each year). There would be far more reports of broken frames on the Bike Forums than there are. My 0.0001% failure rate is only 20 bikes fail per year. Mine estimate is probably too low but I would be very surprised if frame breakage per year topped 1000 across the world per year.

If you are that worried about frame breakage, perhaps you should just stay home. Even with 4 frame failures under my belt, I’m not concerned enough about frame breakage to even give it a passing thought while on tour…even while riding an aspoloding aluminum bike.

pdlamb

One problem is that we calculate reliability on populations, but we experience failures on units. As @gauvins noted, every frame will fail eventually if it remains in service. As you note, some fail more quickly than others. I suppose that it would be possible to determine the lifetime for a single bicycle frame if we had knowledge and capability do quantum calculations on a bike frame. Of course, developing that knowledge for a frame would cost a large multiple of the frame price; so in practice, as we do with SUVs and hard drives, we estimate MTBF, run them, and cuss a lot if they fail "early."

Quality control costs money. Bike brands negotiate QC along with prices. If every bicycle frame were built with six sigma process and quality control, you'd expect three or four failures per million frames. Isn't it interesting that the major bike brands seem to have developed policies for frame warranty? Why do you think they went to that trouble? Why do you think so many brands warranty their frames for 3-5 years, instead of the old lifetime warranty?

Quote:

Breaking a frame is a rare event. Your 1% failure rate would mean that between 150,000 and 200,000 bicycles break per year (15 to 20 million bikes are sold each year). There would be far more reports of broken frames on the Bike Forums than there are. My 0.0001% failure rate is only 20 bikes fail per year. Mine estimate is probably too low but I would be very surprised if frame breakage per year topped 1000 across the world per year.

That 1% number was a "ferinstance" to illustrate how and why you might want to plan for the event of a frame failure. Let me guess at your observed failure rate:
Years riding: 60
Rides per year: 200
Total rides: 12,000
Observed failures: 4
Average failure rate: 1 in 3,000 rides

Since I'm just guessing at those numbers, feel free to update with better numbers.

For comparison, my best estimate is about 1 in 2,500 rides for my personal bikes (I only reported the frame the broke on tour).

I wonder how many bicycles have been ridden more than even 1,000 times?

tombc

I work in a shop that servicesthe hardest working bikes imaginable. They rarely break frames and are but are heavy entry or mid level bikes with atrocious maintenance schedules.. on the flip side I rode a 1983 Trek for 8 years until recently. Broke the frame 3 times and fixed it twice. Why did it break? Well I was asking a lot of it: loaded touring, blue MTB trails, commuting virtually every day, groceries, whatever. So I wasn't so bummed when the head tube developed a crack, would rather have been riding a light bike that whole time and then break it than a heavy bike that kept ticking. But most people wouldn't enjoy or understand that, and they buy appropriately heavy bikes, and the frames don't break.