It happens. I had an aluminum American Classic seatpost fail. At the time, I weighed 215. In my case, however, the shaft didn't break, the setback at the top of the seatpost failed catastrophically.

The failure caused me to fly right off the back of the bike at around 25mph. The crash resulted in a broken left wrist and an absolutely obliterated right thumb. After four months, a couple of surgeries, and some painful rehab, my hands are now working again. Thanks American Classic!

I'm sorry. I don't mean to worry anyone unnecessarily; I'm sure your aluminum seatpost will be just fine--especially is you're using a Thomson seatpost; they're really are super nice.

Kid-Cycle, I'm glad to know that you're okay. I suspect your Bontrager failure was an anomaly. But I would definitely e-mail those photos to Trek. They need to be aware of this.