sbskates

I have an aluminum pro level frame that is 8 yrs old. I am second owner. The prev owner used it mainly for training rides. i have the same at about 4500 miles during the season per year. And some races maybe 8 a year on it. I do not see any cracks on the frame and I am a light to mid weight rider. Just wondering how many miles , years anyone elses has got from a top line frame.
I have another frame i just really like this one and am not ready to stop riding it yet.
thanks

DiabloScott

I know people who have 50,000 miles on 20 year old aluminum frames.

Unless you crash it or it has some manufacturing defect (which would have been apparent by now), yours will likely last forever.

sbskates

wow thats amazing, everyone always says 7 and they fatigue etc.

cat4ever

Just be glad it's not carbon as it will explode.

Homebrew01

"everyone" ?? Or those wanting to sell you a new frame ?

yonderboy

Older frames used to fail, hence Cannondale's misnomer "Crack-and-fail". Probably about 10-years ago, materials and processes improved, so you don't see the level of failure you used to (ie: BBs falling out, cracked headtubes, etc.).

zzzwillzzz

my cannondale 3.0 lasted about 13 years. it only died because we got run over a couple of times by cars and trucks. otherwise it would probably still be going strong

ElJamoquio

People are idiots.

JayhawKen

Forget the bike - how did you come out in that encounter?

JOEPIPPAS

I had a 91' c'dale 3.0 that I rode for about 15 years...... Pretty much every day. race and training. I hated selling it... toooo many memories. but it went to a good home. It looked like the day I bought it..

mollusk

It isn't a "Pro" frame, but I have a 1986 C'dale "Crit" frame that has way more than 50K miles on it that I use as my daily commuter. It isn't a fair comparison though because that frame was so overbuilt that the number of cycles to failure probably will cause an overflow error on almost any computer.

That frame has the personality and ride of a brick.

Trakhak

The level of failure you're talking about has always been far more characteristic of steel frames - especially high-end lightweight steel frames, which are built much closer to the limit of the strength of the tubing than lightweight aluminum frames are.

In fact, the "Crack-and-fail" reputation for aluminum frames developed because in U.S. shops with a bike-racer clientele, bike mechanics were Europhiles - the best noncustom racing bikes were by definition European, and European bikes were steel, therefore American aluminum bikes must be inferior. Flawless logic, right?

This "steel frames good"/"aluminum frames bad" attitude was (and still is) based on a biased sampling method, according to which aluminum frames failed because of the frame material but steel frames failed despite the material. The other mechanics in the shop I worked in back in the late '80s and early '90s persisted in this prejudice even after the Trek sales rep mentioned to us that Trek's incidence of frame warranty claims had gone way down when they switched production from mostly steel frames to mostly aluminum frames.

2wheeled

Still riding my cad 8 from 04. No problems.

zzzwillzzz

in the second crash that bent the frame, i was trying to pass a truck on a steep and twisty downhill. the truck was real wide in a right hand turn and i was going past. the truck started coming in to the apex real fast and i had to ride off he road into the dirt. my front wheel washed out and i went underneath the truck fortunately behind the read wheel. my left foot caught the truck somehow as it sheared off the bottom bracket axle and took the shoe off of my foot. it messed up my heel as i still have part of my heel that has no feeling in it.

Homebrew01

Logic & Reason !! OMG