So I need to replace my frame. It's old, it's aluminum, I'm a big guy, I like to stand up on hills and work it, and I can see cracks forming.

I don't want to get a whole new bike because I like this one, I've nursed it back to health from being pretty far gone, and even though I will eventually have replaced everything, I still want to think of it as the same bike, the one I know every nut and bolt on.

I'll talk to the maker but I don't think they sell bare frames. If that's the case, who else sells frames? Is there the equivalent of bikesdirect.com for frames only? (I'll be looking at steel too, as well as aluminum.)

I'll be checking craigslist but ours isn't very good here, we don't have much of a bike culture (yet -- give it five years). Right now I'm stuck riding in my driveway and up and down my little street. If I run out of patience I'll just buy a new frame somewhere, and that's what I'm asking about.

I just saw the crack a couple days ago. The paint flaked off along the edge of it, which is why I noticed it. I went back and looked at old pictures and it definitely wasn't visible last year. I scraped some more paint off across that area and then buffed it with scotchbrite to get a clean surface. It's hard to see it even under magnification, but there is a thin line crossing the exposed area, it's a crack. Darn it. The bike has been creaking for a while, maybe this is why.