Originally Posted by cyclezealot
I love the smooth ride of my aluminum Klein frame. My fear, can the thin tubes fatique unannounced? I check the welds frequently. Seems ok. No visible signs. Recall once, a Cannondale aluminum frame had a castrophic failure for some member of a local club. Totally unexpected. Luckily, they said, he got off ok.
I also cracked my Specialized aluminum frame last month. The chain stay cracked cleanly in half right in front of the drop out. I was climbing a small hill and snap!...suddenly my rear wheel was fishtailing all over the place. I checked the frame over carefully the week before and it looked OK. It was sudden and with no warning. The steel frames that I have broken (see above post and also tons of steel BMX frames) all developed small cracks that I recognized long before catastrophic failure.