Gnarly FGG Action
 

did anyone else see this jacked-up frame?

http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2005/mar/Cb.htm


Steel is Real!

Aluminum breaks. It has a finite fatigue life. It gets weaker and weaker throughout its life the more fatigue cycles it goes through and then it breaks. So you have to overbuild it to begin with to compensate for it getting weaker later on. That is the tradeoff for its light weight and reatively affordable nature.

If you want a frame that won't fail catastrophically, you'd better go with steel, titanium, or carbon.

I think the problem was beacuse, as the owner wrote, that it broke in the exact spot where a bolt was. The frame material being aluminum probably didn't help either....

yeah holes through your downtube can't help with stuctural integrity....

I edited it so its better now...

You're an idiot. More to the point, you're an idiot whose knowledge about frame materials would fit in a thimble.

But you're probably super cool on your fixie.

Yes, a hole in your ALUMINUM frame would definitely reduce the fatigue stregth of the frame and increase the likelyhood of such a catastrophic failure. He is lucky he wasn't injured or killed.

i agree al. has a finite fatigue life, and in theory in can break catastophically. Empriically, my al. frame has been ridden daily for over 16 years. On road and off. Gathousands of miles annually. No failures and I have full confidence in the frame. Likewise, must of us dont sweat the 'finite fatigue life' of our handlebars, which take a beating.

now, if i had throughbolted the downtube and the seattube, I may not have such confidence.

Certainly a well constructed aluminum frame could last a lifetime. Or longer.

That is a problem with pretty much all frames not just alu.
Steel frames can fatigue and break suddenly. Build a steel frame so it won't and it will be too heavy.

but I think the point is that aluminum's progressive metal fatigure malleability is a lot less than steel. Steel (And other metals) can be bent back and forth a lot before they progressively get weak enough to snap. Aluminum has a lot less elasticity before breakage. Thats the point.