As I was riding to work the other day, my trusty converted single speed Bianchi Volpe turned over 7,000 miles on the odometer. I've had this bike for about a year and a half, so it's really pretty new still. It got me to thinking that some of you long-time long distance riders must have favorite bikes with many thousands of miles on them. I'd be interested in hearing about some of your super high mileage bikes. Anybody have more than 100,000 miles on a bike?

For the sake of this discussion, let's just say as long as it's the same frame and fork, we'll consider it to be the same bike.

We are tandem riders.
Highest mileageur Assenmacher tandem was 64,000 miles.
Colin Laing tandem 56,000 miles.
Co-Motion tandem 57,000 miles.
Our current Zona carbon fiber tandem is barely broken in at 23,000 miles.
Quality lasts.

Wow! That's what I'm talking about.

My Surly has around 7,000 miles but I just bought it at the start of '08.

My Trek and Schwinn are both dumpster rescues, so who knows how many miles they had before I got them... Although, since they were in the trash, I reckon somebody didn't ride 'em very much!

I just added up the kilometers I have ridden on my Marinoni Ciclo "Machak" in the past 6 years. Machak just celebrated his 6th birthday.

I was guessing 40,000 ... but when I added it all up, it came to roughly 57,000 km.



(EDIT: I don't have an exact total because I have ridden other bicycles occasionally over the past 6 years too, so I estimated approx. how many km would have been on those bicycles and subtracted it from the total.)

About 85 kmiles on my Cannondale and the original owner was estimated to have put on 20 kmiles so I think it's over 100 kmiles overall. Of course not all the parts are still original. In addition to the usual wear items (tires/tubes, chains, cassettes, brake pads, bar tape, and cables), the large chainring was replaced recently and the front rim has been replaced twice. I also replaced the rear derailer with a wider range one but the original is still in use on my Bike Friday.

More than once, I've heard people bad mouth Cannondale with respect to longevity. Seems like you're proving them wrong.

I wish that I knew how many miles I have on my Trek 520... I bought it new in 1983. But it has never had a computer mounted on it. I bought a nice Sigma wireless for it about two months ago, but I haven't put it on yet.

I do know that it's not even close to 100K miles though! I didn't start cranking out 3000 mile years until the last few years... after life got easier and less hectic for me.

My Felt F-80
15,700 miles 13 months

About 4,800 miles on my Worksman. I had to replace the speedometer battery at around 600 miles, and lost the settings then, so I don't have an exact count.

5,200 miles so far on my Cannondale CAAD8 since I started riding early Feb 08'. Pedal Hard!

I had detailed logs of bicycles starting in 1981, but due to several moves, have lost some of them. I haven't had good luck, I've broken several bicycles for different reasons.

The two best bikes I ever had have lasted over 30,000 miles each. From what I can remember, and 15+ years of logs, I've probably ridden 200,000 miles, almost 50% of that between 1981 and 1989 and one of those old "steel" bikes was still being used until last month, but it's frame was failing. (oh and by the way - that's like 4 "groupo-s")

10 Wheels: How many times have you replaced the chain? The cassette? I'm only at 4300 miles on my 4-month-old Roubaix, but am wondering when I need to start watching such wear items. I think our riding styles are similar. Thanks!

My Trek 660 has roughly 155,000 miles give or take a 2,000 miles. And I still ride it as my main bike. The Mercian has only about 600 miles on it, but this one I'm saving for tours; and the Giant has roughly 18,000 miles, 8,000 of those miles are on the trainer. All 3 bikes were purchased new.

By the way, the older Trek chain is the older style wide chain not your newer narrower chain, these wider chains typically last about 13,000 to 18,000 miles.

As far as a steel frame "failing" thats mostly crap! Sheldon Brown rode on an old 1916 Mead Ranger gas pipe frame bicycle a lot to work. I have a friend (205 pounds) who has well over 300,000 miles of mostly loaded touring on his steel touring bike and it's still going strong. Another friend who got involved in touring about 8 years ago, another big fellow at 225, has a Rivendell with now over 80,000 miles. Another friend with a 85 LeTour that he has ridden everyday (he can't drive) and he's estimated his mileage to be about 425,000 miles. There was a guy in the Parade mag some years back with documented miles of over 1 million miles! In otherwords a steel frame failing from just wearing out after only 30,000 miles is obsurd.

I bought my custom steel Tanguy frame in 1976. I have no idea what the actual total is on that frame (it's got all new components- except the Campy brakes- that are off of a Bottechia Pro I bought in 1971) The brakes must have almost 200,000 miles at this point. The frame about 125,000-150,000 miles.

I have more than 40,000 miles on my Litespeed classic frame. I changed the fork early in its life, so perhaps 35,000+ on the frame/fork.

Get a chain wear tool. It's a good idea to replace the chain before it gets too worn, otherwise the other parts of the drive train will get worn out faster.

Put a new one on last night at 4700 miles; it was showing 12-1/16 per the Sheldon check. Was feeling like a dry chain on a couple of links, like it was popping. LBS used the Park tool and it showed it was in the early part of the red zone.

Reported chain mileage is all over the map since we all ride differently. I'm guessing older LD types don't hammer a lot, spin more, and are good about maintenance, so I was looking for comparative data to benchmark my own against.

HEY!! In my mind I'm hammering...

Thanks for the photo shots. I love riding thru the desert. As long as it is not in the heat of summer. West Texas I assume. Nice bike...So. You do credit card tours, or what.
... As to the bike I put the most miles on. I bought a Giant 520.. I kept it over 8 years. I figure, it had a minimum of 75,000 miles on it. I commuted to work on it.. I finally traded in the components for a new Surly .. The frame was slightly warped and it no longer shifted perfectly.

5466 miles on my bike so far. I probably account for 1000 miles for that, the other miles were made by my late father from whom i inherited the bike. I own the bike for almost a year now.

Over 42000 miles on my 1995 Bianchi Eros and counting. The Bianchi replaced my 1990 Trek 1100 with just over 20000 miles. I got the Trek after I got into a head-on crash with a wrong-way bicycle on my 1979 Peugeot, just short of 10000!

Just over 81,000 on my Curtlo before it became a secondary bike. When I quit racing I got rid of all my cyclocomputers so I have no idea what has happened after that. I will put one on my new (old) touring bike when I finish the build. I'd like to get 100k on it before I'm done.

Mileage since 9/9/00.

Rambouillet 6617
Gunnar Sport 4816
Trek 400 4575
Burley Duet 4306
Cannondale 5210
Gran Fondo 21933
Miscellaneous 830

Gran Fondo frame cracked, terminally (but without causing an accident) early in 2007 . The combined 16000 miles on the Ram, Gunnar, and Trek is all since then.

Im 15 years old, I just bought my first speed bike in october. Since it was october I wasnt able to do much riding (winters in utah suck). Bought my first computer in late feb. I only have 102 miles on it, buy am planning on a lot more this summer! By the way I bought a 97 or 98 Specialized Allez Epic for 125.00$. Good deal? Thanks