Ugh - I goofed when typing the title. I tried to edit it but it doesn't appear to have changed on the main forum index. Could an admin please change the official title of this thread to Frame Rub Question, muy pleaso?

I just bought a bike this weekend at a cyclist market at a very subsidized price brand new - 2010 GT Series 3 @ 550, down from 999. Originally the owner marked it at 600 firm till I noticed a mark on the frame and handed it back to him. He called 550 last call and I bit down on it.

The mark was described as being caused during transit of the bikes to the market. He alone brought about 50 bikes (he ran a bike shop about a half hour away, along with the other 100+ vendors there) and were subsidizing prices to clear overstock, hence the 2x a year market which took place this weekend.

I'm sure to understand what I am talking about, pictures will be needed, and I'll submit one later today when I get the chance. For the sake of explaining it, it's a pretty small mark on the outside of the rear triangle, near the QR lever on the non-drive side. Judging by its looks, and having had two bikes rub on my own rack many years ago, it certainly looks similar so I'm inclined to believe that was the truth. The mark would have been bigger if it wasn't for this thick sticker in the area about some sort of warning that absorbed a lot of the rubbing, but there was still an area about the size of two eraser-heads of a No. 2 pencil that wasn't protected. I'll get a picture later.

Meanwhile, here's a question for you guys. The paint in this area is worn off, and if you run your finger across it you can feel a very slight indentation in the area, however I'm not sure if this is attributed to the actual metal being worn beyond the paint, or if it's just the difference in thickness I'm feeling from the frame being painted vs the area of the mark having no paint.

Is there an intelligent way to finish an area like this to restore it looking like new? I suppose it would just be a sandpaper job and refinish the area accordingly?

Let's take an extreme scenario for the sake of learning something new - Say you have a bike that's on a rack rubbing another bike and it begins to wear in pretty heavily because you decided to drive 1,000 miles away like this. Is there any structural fatigue associated with something like this? Or does the area have to be pretty big before the frame itself loses strength? Is there a way to restore metal to a heavily rubbed away/dented area to restore strength to it?