Classic & Vintage - Bonded Alum Vitus, any issues???

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poopncow
08-28-05, 12:08 AM
Folks,
I'm interested in buying a used but very beautiful Vitus aluminum road frame. This is a model that have very "flowing" lines, the joints at the BB and head tube flair and "butter/fillet" in profile like that of a carbon frame. The big issue is that it is bonded aluminum vice welded. So the big question is whether the bonds will hold up or are the rumors of failure true??? Note: this is not (like) the NOS frames being sold by nashbar which have "straight" joints.
Thanks for your help
Pcow :)

luker
08-28-05, 08:57 AM
992's, I think? the 979 is the straight one - I haven't heard of any joint separations - I ride a 979 regularly, and have one of the oldest ones that I have ever seen. I would guess that they fail about as often as bonded Treks - really close to never. There is an outfit in England that can repair Vitus aluminum:

http://users.uniserve.com/~peterguy/vitus.html

so if it falls apart you can get it fixed ;)
jacksbike
08-28-05, 07:08 PM
My wife has what I believe to be a 979 Vitus with the aluminum tubes bonded into oversized silver aluminum lugs. She has had it for more than 15 years with no problems. However, some years ago I did hear some info that there were frames recalled and destroyed by the manufacturer because they were coming apart at the lugs. Never saw this in print, so do not know how true it was. On the other hand, I was active in the bike industry at the time of this info and I believed the source to be good. Based on our experience, which has been positive, i think that you would be OK with this frame, nonwithstanding.