Road Cycling - Aluminum bike failure poll

How many failed aluminum frames have you seen?
(Non crash and burn type of deals)

If I've seen 17 failed aluminium frames can I vote 17 times??
2x Fondriest.
5x Cannondale
2x Specialized
2X Colnago
1xPrincipia
5x Giant TCR

All bikes were raced hard, All are less than 3yrs old all cracked behind the BB at the chainstay junction or at the headtube downtube junction.
The numbers shown above are no indication of the general quality of the frames in question but rather reflect the popularity ie, the Cannondales and Giants are very common aluminium frames.
Incidentally i did own any but one of these bikes mentioned. Mine was a Cannondale MTB. The rest belonged to club mates and personal friends.

I have never seen any, but I am curious. Does anyone feel that aluminum frames are made better/stronger today then they were years ago? I know CF bikes at first had quite a few problems, I would assume with time they would get built better and stronger.

never seen any cracked, only stories... sorta like how people know about the loch ness monster :p

TimB do you work in a shop or are these just your friend's frames?

personally, I think if you ride an aluminum frame and do not race there is a much less chance of it breaking/cracking, now predicting the lifetime of one of these frames is a much different story.... :rolleyes:

I have seen aluminium, steel, carbon fiber and titanium frames fail. Point is that anything can be broken. All you have to do is ride it beyond its limits. None of the frames failed due to crashes, just lots of miles.

I've had two seperate aluminum failures. One on a mountain and one on a road bike. I am done with the material thats good for beer cans!

Hmmm...Maybe, it has something to do with 1) incorrect frame size and or using a road as a moutain. I read somewhere, that after a certain weight, AL frame is not the best choice.

I'm no expert. :-)

The mountain bike frame was a GT Zaskar, 18 inch , fit great. GT is known for a "bomb proof frame" It failed on the downtube from the head set. The road frame was a Specialized Allez, less than two years old. The same size as the Trek I had for years without a problem. Yes I should have kept the trek. The failure was an engineering flaw. The shop mech. said they had a lot of the same failures. Accept it alu is inferior to steel!

Ramona,

Did you write a formal letter to the ceo of Specialized?




Originally posted by Ramona Ryder
The mountain bike frame was a GT Zaskar, 18 inch , fit great. GT is known for a "bomb proof frame" It failed on the downtube from the head set. The road frame was a Specialized Allez, less than two years old. The same size as the Trek I had for years without a problem. Yes I should have kept the trek. The failure was an engineering flaw. The shop mech. said they had a lot of the same failures. Accept it alu is inferior to steel!

I have a friend that broke 1 Vitus, 3 Kliens and 2 Cannondales all aluminum and all in a 12 year period starting in 84. Then in 96 he bought a Gios Compact Pro (a steel frame), he still rides it today.

Vegascyclist, I worked in bike shop during my study yrs to help get myself through uni. this was ten yrs though. Thats where I saw some of the failed frames.
The majority of the failed bikes I listed I hve seen in my friends bike shop in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Cannondales and Giants were bikes owned by riders he sponsored in the local road racing series.
I have'nt included the MTB's I have seen here in th UK that have failed.

Granted, there are many factors that will cause a frame to fail. However I still feel that Aluminim has it's limitations.
By careful design the manufacturer can build an aluminium bike for the masses that will last a long time and do it cheaply. It's the more powerful riders who present the challenge. This is why teams replace their frames two or three times a season.

An aluminium bike is always going to be closer to it's material limits than a steel bike or a titanium bike.
to compensate, manufacturers have to limit the deflection of the tubes aka Cannondale and Principia (who use the largest diameter tubes in the business)

It's always going tobe easier to get more life out of steel or Ti. With Al the selction becomes more intellectual. You have to strip away the marketing hype of the material and tube shaping blah blah blah and look at the basics.
I want aluminium, whats the defelction of the frame, this one should last longer.
Also how long do you want it too last? I like to keep frames for about 10yrs ( barring any mishaps). Others may want to replace their bikes every 2-3 yrs. For these people aluminium becomes the obvious choice.
If you want a bike to last a long time nad you ride a lot then perhaps steel or titanium is the material for you.
I always look at it in $/year.

after a lot of phoning around and speakingthe frame builders, the three obvious choices for me were
1) titanium
2) steel
3) mono -moulded Carbon fibre or OCLV
4) Large diameter Aluminium with proven track record (Cannondale or Principia)

this was in order of preference.

If it were pur performance I was after with replacement in 2 -3yrs then i owuld juggle the order
to

4)
1)
3)
2)

I just don't trust glued bikes.

Originally posted by TimB
Vegascyclist, I worked in bike shop during my study yrs to help get myself through uni. this was ten yrs though.

What was the most recent aluminum frame failure?

My reasoning is I had two steel bikes, a mid 80s schwinn BMX style, and a Nishiki. The nishiki cracked at an admitedly bad brake mounting location. The Schwinn gave up at the head tube welds. This was a long time ago, and I think that quality of production has gone up on steel bikes such that it wouldn't be a worry.

My trek started making a cracking sound under pedaling.It took trek and the lbs 3 months to find it was a cracked frame/weld.

Engineering plays a huge part in how long an aluminium frame is going to last. The push for the lightest frame is going to push all these materials to there limits causing cracks and eventual breakage. Because all the stresses involved or the best manufacturing methods discovered there will be failures. The other problem is designing a bike for 150# person being ridden by a 200# person, it puts unexpected stresses on the bike.
Aluminium is superior to steel if used within its limits.

My Giant NRS-1 Mountain Bike (Al Frame) fatigue cracked the seat tube right where the shock mounts after 2 years of riding. Giant Warrantied it.

I worked in a shop during college and had seen 12-15 frames that had broke. All of them were Al, since carbon was just coming out. Only two or three I can remember from crashing (with cars).

The most suprising one was a GT Zaskar that I had help build up for a racer customer. Spent around $6k on the bike (in '95 that was good money) and brought it back after the first race with a cracked toptube. Did not crash, just broke. It was interesting to say the least.

What bike shop did you work at?

William,
if you read the first post properly you will have picked up that I said most of the failures occured recently and to bikes ridden by friends of mine and team riders of my friends bike shop.

Even though deisgn has improved and they can now get aluminim frames to work within their stress limits while still remaining light, these frames are more border line on strength than frames of 5 -10yrs ago.

Originally posted by TimB
William,
if you read the first post properly you will have picked up that I said most of the failures occured recently and to bikes ridden by friends of mine and team riders of my friends bike shop.

Even though deisgn has improved and they can now get aluminim frames to work within their stress limits while still remaining light, these frames are more border line on strength than frames of 5 -10yrs ago.

That's odd, because I read your post and it said that you worked in a bike shop 10 years ago.


Vegascyclist, I worked in bike shop during my study yrs to help get myself through uni. this was ten yrs though. Thats where I saw some of the failed frames.
The majority of the failed bikes I listed I hve seen in my friends bike shop in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Cannondales and Giants were bikes owned by riders he sponsored in the local road racing series.


Now you say that this is in South Africa, yet you say or infer that you live in the UK.


the majority of the failed bikes I listed I hve seen in my friends bike shop in Cape Town, South Africa.
I have'nt included the MTB's I have seen here in th UK that have failed.

This is confusing, and detracts from your statement, and makes your observation questionable.

Now you've made one comment that was funny. You claim that because frames fail, and that's why teams replace thier bikes year. I've done thinking on that, and wouldn't it be because they simply want to race on the newest and best? And the company can make a decent resale on used race bikes, and they do. Why do they replace carbon frames if they don't fail? Why do they replace Ti frames if they don't fail?

I don't get your comments. While they may have some fact in them, you've loosely connected them with opinions, and the opinions sound a little wankish.

Originally posted by shokhead
My trek started making a cracking sound under pedaling.It took trek and the lbs 3 months to find it was a cracked frame/weld.

What kind of Trek did u have?

A real nice ice blue 7500.They tried to replace it with a really bad bright green and i said no so i got a titanium that was ok.

That sux ... I got a 7000, well, let's see what happens. :(

I'll be honest and claim ignorance when it comes to understanding the engineering that defines stress limits of a material. Even after having taken a Strengths and Materials class in college - too many beers I guess....

My question is - aren't most current airplanes made of AL? And wouldn't we all agree that the kind of stress that's found at 30k' and a wicked jet stream to be substancially greater than anything we could place on it riding... If this is the case - why can't bike manufacturers figure our how to over come the stress issue as it appears the airline manufacturers have?

Probably a simple answer - but I's just a simply guy...

It is most likely all a matter of dollars. Doubt that there are many $100k/yr design engineers using multi-million $$ computer hardware/software systems to do finite element analysis on bicycle frame designs. Even at Trek. The bicycle business is very small compared to aerospace or automobiles or whatever. So our sport receives "trickle down" R&D. Once it is developed for something that actually pays the freight (cost of R&D) then it can be tried on bicycles. While "reasonable" engineering is used, it is most likely very cost limited.

If anyone has any numbers on total sales of bicycles/components in the U.S. on an annual basis it would be interesting to read them. My guess is that Intel or IBM or Boeing individually spends more on R&D each year than the total sales of bicycles and related components in the U.S. and very possibly the world. Our sport is pretty small potatoes when you get right down to it.

Since I'm an aircraft mechanic, I guess I'm a little qualified to answer this one.

Airplanes build a lot of redundancies into their structures. And a lot of the structures can either be repaired or replaced when damaged. Even on small airplanes from the 60s, this is true. You'd be surprised at how much punishment an airplane can take before something fails, and when it does, there's usually something that backs it up.

You should also understand, a lot of stress comes from impacts, where airplanes take only during landing and turbulence; most of the time, they're cruising very smoothly. On bikes, the frames are always subjected to stress due to the fact that they're always riding on the road or trail.

Aircraft mainly use 2000 series aluminum, which is a copper alloy. Bikes use 6000 or 7000 series aluminum, which are silicon/magnesium and zinc/magnesium alloys respectively, so there is a difference in strength and weight.

Would you say the weight issue is a greater driver than the strength? An do you know how these different AL formulations differ in price.

I appreciate the comment regarding the limited R&D budget. I quess I figured that corporate indorsements for pro racing teams would drive more $$ into development of that kind of technology and gradually it would filter down to the run of the mill rider.. as I'm sure the move away from down-tube shifters came about...

Because an aircraft uses so much metal, yes, price comes before weight. There are many parts of an aircraft that use 6061 series, but the skin is 2024-T3 while structural enforcement rivets are 2117. Larger aircraft that use more metal will definitely go for the 6000 and 7000 series for more structures, but skin will mainly be 2024, fiber glass or carbon fiber.

I'm not exactly sure how much they differ in price (coz it's hard to compare different parts with different materials) ... usually we just order stuff off a catalog, and never really worry about what material it's made of. I'll look into it, though, it's sparked my interest now.

Originally posted by William Karsten
That's odd, because I read your post and it said that you worked in a bike shop 10 years ago.

Now you say that this is in South Africa, yet you say or infer that you live in the UK.

This is confusing, and detracts from your statement, and makes your observation questionable.

Now you've made one comment that was funny. You claim that because frames fail, and that's why teams replace thier bikes year. I've done thinking on that, and wouldn't it be because they simply want to race on the newest and best? And the company can make a decent resale on used race bikes, and they do. Why do they replace carbon frames if they don't fail? Why do they replace Ti frames if they don't fail?

I don't get your comments. While they may have some fact in them, you've loosely connected them with opinions, and the opinions sound a little w*****h.

I live and work in the UK but I'm from SA. I go home regularly on business and on holidays. When I'm there i visit the bike shop and go for training rides with my now ex training buddies who are racing for the shop. Not very difficult to understand but since you're a w****r I can see why it was difficult and would retract, in your opinion, from my statement.

{Oh i also lived in Den Haag in The Netherlands for a yr, 2001-2002 **

Most of the cracked/failed bikes which I mentioned come through the shop, have been in the last 4 yrs. I've only been in the UK for a 1yr and the Netherlands for a yr before that, So i think 2yrs of close up, in your face, cracked bike confirmation qualifies my statement of having "seen".
Also I travel to SA every 2-3 months on business and each time I have been there i have seen another newly cracked frame, Usually Cannondale and Al Treks because thats what they deal in mostly(Cannondale, Giant, Scott, and until two months ago Trek).

Now if in your judgement fact laced with opinion is unacceptable then I suggest you pack up you PC, shut and stop posting because that is in fact what everyone on this forum posts. Facts (hopefully, if not always complete) presented from their point of view, which qualifies everything around here as opinion.

In addition, Just this weekend I was in Alf Jones Cycles in Wrexham (thats north wales for you) who are also a Cannondale dealer and low and behold, there in their workshop hung two recently failed CAAD4 MTB's and one failed CAAD3 road bike.

The only point i am tryingto make is that by observation, it seems to hold credit to the opinions of those in the bike industry who feel that Aluminuim bikes live closer to the edge than Steel or Titanium frames and are more susceptible to failure.

Now the word susceptible does not infer WILL FAIL or SHALL FAIL. It merely means that given the same loading and if subjected to the same level of design, the AL bike will MORE THAN LIKELY FAIL before the steel or Titanium frames.
And these are the OPINIONS of EXPERTS within the bike industry.

So your snide little comments don't put my off. You have your opinion ( blinkered by marketing hype it may be) and I have mine and I stick to it.
Goodday Mr W****r aka William Karsten, I'm not really a w****r

As far as $$ going into the racing development and then filtering down, I think this is a true statement. Nothing I can think of that they are racing that isn't available very quickly to the consumer. Lance rides the '04 Dura Ace and Bontrager wheels this year. We get next year.

The flip side is that there is nothing revolutionary that I can think of in bicycling. Friction shifting gave way to index shifting gave way to integrated shifting. Only in the past few years have suspension forks been worth a s**t. Disk brakes are just now a viable option. How long have suspensions and disk brakes been around before they made it onto bicycles. 100 years for suspensions and more than 50 for disk brakes. Etc., etc., etc.

Nothing like, say, electronics, which has revolutionized about everything we can think of. It is the primary driver of the new materials that are used in bicycles. Without computers the cost of designing and then building aluminum and graphite composite frames would be prohibitive. Computers allow for good design and then run automated fabrication. Not just to weld a frame together, but to control the alloy formulations, shape the tubes, design the molds, run the winding machines and autoclaves, etc.

As I worked for 25 years in semiconductor manufacturing it has been something to behold. Going from "digipots" (turning thumbwheels) and hand set dials for setting time and temperature with some level of PID control to CPU based control with "real-time" feeback and control. And my engineers in Europe could download new recipes into our reactors via a secure connection over a fast phoneline, as we could for theirs. A true revolution in manufacturing.

But this all costs lots of money. Our newest plant cost more than one hundred million dollars to build. No bicycle plant in the world cost anything near this. So what we get is all driven by economics. And our sport just doesn't have the dollars to support large R&D. Everything is evolutionary. And this is just fine with me. I like my bicycles and any changes I make are small. Just like the bicycle industry as a whole. Works for me. Enjoy!!

Because an aircraft uses so much metal, yes, price comes before weight. There are many parts of an aircraft that use 6061 series, but the skin is 2024-T3 while structural enforcement rivets are 2117. Larger aircraft that use more metal will definitely go for the 6000 and 7000 series for more structures, but skin will mainly be 2024, fiber glass or carbon fiber.
I see 2024-T3 almost excusively for aluminium skins. 2024-T3 and 7075-T6 for internal structure. 6061 is very rare except for milled parts. Magnesium for castings but they have bad corrosion problems.

Whats a w****r? It sounds cool.

Airplanes build a lot of redundancies into their structures.
They also are overhauled every 5 or six years and are built to be repairable. Welded aiplanes are going to be a real pain to repair.

Don't forget that airplanes actually expand and retract during flights. Remember the incident in Hawaii several years back where 1/3 of the jumbo jet's roof blew off? This was a perfect example of metal fatigue. That plane was at it's 30 year limit (just shy of mandatory retirement for a commercial aircraft) and had no business carrying passengers. So, planes fail and so do bikes. Will this threat keep me from riding aluminium? No. Will I still fly? Definitely. Will I buy a bike from South Africa? No way! :D

Steve

There is no mandatory retirement for commercial aircraft.

Originally posted by TimB
Now if in your judgement fact laced with opinion is unacceptable then I suggest you pack up you PC, shut and stop posting because that is in fact what everyone on this forum posts.


Yes, that's true. That's what we all post. However, you came across as your opinion was fact, based upon everything you'd seen.

Now that you've cleared up your complicated travels, your story makes sense.

Thanks for the suggestion, but your country as is mine is free, and we will continue to agree, or disagree, and that's a beautiful think. The moderators will decide who can no longer post.

I've enjoyed this lively, fact opening discussion. You're the one of only a few who have (claimed, though I'd give your statement credibility) to seen the broken frames. So, you're one of the few factually inferences that I can believe.


Goodday Mr W****r aka William Karsten, I'm not really a w****r [/B]

You can surely call me better names than that, can you not? :D

I guess I could but I did'nt want to be too nice.:-)

as for providing you with phone numbers I see no need for that. If you're really interested in finding out if aluminum bikes fail take a trip down to your LBS. They're bound to ahve a few in for warranty sooner or later.

I can only quote what I have seen at the LBS's I frequent and I also understand the confidentiality they place in my hands when they show me broken frames which they would rather the other customers don't see.

I'm afraid those shops names will remain anonymous for now. You'llhave to do your own research.

Personally I don't have a problem with owning aluminium bikes, I own 3! A road bike and 2 MTB's. None have been owned for more than 24months so I won't comment on their longevity. All have been designed well and have no stress risers in the welding area. All should last a while. However I don't think the Al road bike is going to be going strong in 10yrs time like my Bianchi RC SL or the (which will be 20yrs then). Also I doubt the CAAD3 And CAAD4 hardtails are going to be in one piece. If they are, I will post here and tell you that you were absolutley right Al bikes can last.

Of course they fail,i had a trek that did but they wouldnt tell me where,or a weld or not,it was and still is a secret.I think about 1000 into the bike when it started. Oh i forgot to add how much i like that word,w****r.I have to start using it,it sounds very cool.

Originally posted by TimB
I guess I could but I did'nt want to be too nice.:-)

Well, I've found your point. I meant to type "weakish", and instead spelled w*****h. Apparently, w*****h means something to South African British Bicyclist that a Californian knows nothing off.


as for providing you with phone numbers I see no need for that. If you're really interested in finding out if aluminum bikes fail take a trip down to your LBS. They're bound to ahve a few in for warranty sooner or later.


Been to the LBS. Spoke to 8 in San Diego (except Nitro). No cases present. None to speak of.

Just wondering if your bike stores (exist in the first place) had found a series of bad bikes (bad run of frames) or not.

Thanks for the, uh, help.

I would suggest, if name calling or tit for tat is going to continue, we take this off line. Or not. Thanks.

The poll is illuminating, isn't it?

I dont know whats the big deal,frames fail.I would think not as often as they use to and would think less likly road frames.Can we all say yes to that?

Our shop is up to 6 carbon frames and 1 AL failed in the past 6 months or so, for what that's worth. No steel and no ti failures.

Originally posted by Waldo
Our shop is up to 6 carbon frames and 1 AL failed in the past 6 months or so, for what that's worth. No steel and no ti failures. Out of interest, what are the ratios of what is being sold from your shop over the last few years?

Originally posted by ParamountScapin
It is most likely all a matter of dollars. Doubt that there are many $100k/yr design engineers using multi-million $$ computer hardware/software systems to do finite element analysis on bicycle frame designs.
Actually, I know Specialized to be one company using FEA. Cannondale as well.

The vast majority is aluminum. I'd say a rough estimate would be 75% AL, 15% Ti, and 10% steel. We do not sell carbon bikes, the failures we've found were on repair bikes. That's just at our shop; I know our other shop has had some cracked carbon frames as well but wouldn't want to speculate as to how many. I'm not aware of any aluminum failures there but again, that's not to say that there haven't been any.

Originally posted by Waldo
The vast majority is aluminum. I'd say a rough estimate would be 75% AL, 15% Ti, and 10% steel. We do not sell carbon bikes, though we've had four Treks and two Kestrels in for repairs that we found cracks in. That's just at our shop; I know our other shop has had some cracked carbon frames as well but wouldn't want to speculate as to how many. Then on average, there isn't a really high failure rate on the aluminium. It seems that carbon is the big problem.

That's been our experience, but that's certainly not a universal truth. As I said in the other thread on this topic, my studies in mechanical engineering and materials engineering give me no reason for concern. There's no way my scrawny butt is going to put enough stress on a frame to cause it to crack, and this is likely the case for the majority of riders. There's far too many variables in fabrication and processing of the materials to really apply a blanket statement of suitability for any material, IMHO.
As for the carbon failures, one was on a chainstay unrelated to chainsuck, two were issues with owners not stopping chainsuck in time to prevent a hole from being worn in the stay, and the rest were in the bottom bracket area. The issue there is with an AL sleeve around the BB, there will be no flex there, while the carbon flexes around that sleeve. Bad combo.
Media, can you PM me some info about sponsoring you?

Originally posted by Bobatin
There is no mandatory retirement for commercial aircraft.

A UPS pilot-friend of mine mentioned that the planes he flies cargo with are physically too old to be permitted to fly passengers (they did carry passengers at one point). UPS bought the planes, removed the seats and started shipping their cargo. That sounded like mandatory retirement to me (of commercial use). And shame on the commercial carriers that do use crappy old planes. Remember the Hawaii incident (blew its top). That plane had no business being in service.

The Hawaii Aloha Airlines flight had nothing to do with Al fatigue, there was a problem in how Boeing was attaching panels to the airframe, the epoxy used wouldn't adhere very well therefore it left only the rivets to hold the skin on the plane.

Andrew

The cracks in the Hawiian Airlines plane would have been detected if the inspections had been done correctly. The planes used to fly cargo are subject to the same rules and regulations as the passenger airplanes. The cracks were fatigue cracks caused by the high number of pressurization cycles on this particular aircraft due to the short duration high number of take offs on there flight routes.

If my CAAD 5 frame fails it fails, I would get another. It fits me the best and does not flex. The ride is not harsh at all. Why are people so against certain materials? After riding about a million bikes this one is best for me, case closed

The question is not that we are against any one material the question is how long do you want to keep your bike? I do not go out and buy a bike every 5 years or my wife would hand me my head stuck to the head tube! But when a professional biking industry magazine (VeloNews Buyers Guide 2003; page 42) comes out and says that AL is not the best long term frame material, than that should give me reason to pause and ponder my naval on the wisdom of AL.