OP:

In terms of riding style, when you do the hill climbing...

Do you,

Rock the bike side to side while charging up the hill...

Or do you stand straight up stiff and drive your legs straight down holding the bike vertically fixed?

=8-)

I'm impressed you destroyed an Electro forged, Schwinn frame. I killed 2 (steel) hybrid bikes. Both had freewheels. Free hubs & cassettes have the bearings spaced further apart than freewheel axles. The first one I replaced the axle & noticed the rear dropout, chain stay area broken. Second bike I hit 3 cobblestone crosswalks in one block. The 3rd crosswalk broke the frame, axle & got a flat at once. Same frame spot broke. Maybe a 1980's early MTB or hybrid with a solid (nutted) axle, might survive your torture. Sorry for a long answer. Chris

A weld failure is a defect, not a design issue.

Quoted for truth. This is the best single post on the topic of frame material and longevity you're likely ever to read:

Not sure, but AFAIK you tend to drop 10-15RPM when you get up... I think it might help a bit to throw the bike side to side less; even without considering flex that has to be less efficient, simply because it moves your CG up and down.

I've noticed the benefit of a more controlled, stiffer stance when off the seat; it seems to take a bit more effort, but more than the difference makes it onto the road. These days, the only reason I have to throw a bike on an angle (aside from dodging obstacles) is to load up the wheels after building/truing.

I agree. Try to pedal standing the way you pedal seated. Keep the bike level, keep your body in one place and just move your legs. It's more efficient, easier on the bike, and you can actually spin pretty fast doing it this way.

I doubt that the steel frame made any noise prior to failure. I've broken steel frames (2 but one of them multiple times) as well as many steel parts (mostly spokes). None of them have given any notice of impending failure that I could detect but that is the nature of steel. Because it a strong, stiff material, a crack can propagate though the bulk of the material and still be strong enough to withstand forces placed on it without moving.

I would almost bet that the aluminum bike make some creaking noises that you couldn't pin down prior to failure. In your case it was probably a bottom bracket creak. I've broken 2 aluminum frames and many aluminum parts (rims mostly). Only one of them was a true "failure" of the frame while the other one was due to a large setback on the saddle that cracked the seat tube. The former cracked at the bottom bracket bridge and was a materials problem covered by warranty. However, as was the case with all the aluminum parts I've broken, the frame creaked and groaned for a long time before I noticed the cracks at the welds. The rims I've broken and the cranksets I've broken have all creaked and groaned before failure. Again, that is the nature of aluminum. Aluminum isn't nearly as stiff nor as strong and it will flex under load. A crack will open and close with the force cycle its experiencing and send out a resonance which we hear as a creaking noise.

Not counting the bikes I had as a kid, I've owned 33 bikes over the years. I've owned 16 steel bikes, 14 aluminum bikes and 2 titanium bikes. The majority of those bikes have been hard ridden mountain bikes and the majority of those mountain bikes have been aluminum frames. I've had 4 mountain bike frame failures in those 33 bikes, three of which have been due to materials problems as I stated above. Two of them have been steel and 2 have been aluminum but if I discount my mistake of using the wrong seatpost, I've only really had one failure of aluminum frame. In my experience, the steel frames have a higher failure (12.5%) rate than the aluminum bikes (7%) do. Based on that, I'd be wiser to go use aluminum frames than steel ones.

But failure, especially materials failure, is a random event and probably had more to do with construction than with the type of material used. All of my frame failures have been due to the bike and the way it was constructed than due to the way that I ride them. For example, the steel mountain bike that failed multiple times had a fork issue that was endemic to the model. I talked to a sales rep once about the bike and he asked if I had replaced the fork on my mountain bike. I told him that I had and he said "Good! All of them are failing." But they wouldn't replace it under warranty. Then the same frame cracked at the BB bridge (which they also wouldn't cover under warranty) which I had fixed. Then the drive side dropout broke, which I had fixed. And, finally, the fixed BB bridge broke again. Yes, I road the bike like a mountain bike but bike was a first generation mountain bike which was under built for the use. You probably won't find too many of Miyata Ridge Runners from 1984 around because they weren't built properly.

My aluminum frame that broke was a Specialized Stumpjumper Pro with an M2 frame. They were wonderful frames made of magical material that was light and stiff. But, unfortunately, the boron that was added to the aluminum made the material too brittle and prone to cracking at the welds...especially at the BB bridge. Again, you'll probably not find too many 1999 M2 frames still in use.

It's a gospel that is incorrect. The wheels of a bike take more of a beating than the frame does. Do you suggest that Clydes use steel rims as well? Steel cranks? Steel handlebars? All of those aluminum parts have a thinner cross-section and are weaker than the frame due to lack of triangulation but they are never suggested to Clydes because they might fail.

Standing straight up while out of the saddle is the least efficient way to climb hills. I had a steel touring bike that I had to climb out of the saddle that way. If I tried to throw the bike from side to side with a touring load, the bike would wander all over the road. My aluminum touring bike is stiffer and allows me to stand and throw the bike from side to side as I climb and it is much more efficient when climbing. I've had the same (frustrating) experience with tandems and find it an extremely inefficient way to climb out of the saddle. If standing straight up and pedaling out of the saddle were more efficient, that's the way the pros would do it.

vega2614's problem isn't with his climbing style or his usage but was a material and construction problem...mostly construction. Keep riding aluminum, vega2614. You don't have to be consigned to the steel ghetto.

perhaps he is referring to the gospel as i understand it

a story that is not actually true
but is repeated and chanted so often
that people are brainwashed into believing it

I've got to true the wheels on my trek. Any suggestions on that? I have a truing stand but I've never done it.

There's a world of difference between a break of a weld, and a break at a weld. All structures have a service life, and a break at a weld is the most likely mode when welded structures reach the end of their life expectancy.

I can't accept the notion of a defect when a product has survived many years of service.

I have significantly more knowledge of welding and metallurgy than a layman, "at a weld" is within the heat affected zone and subject to a number of factors that can adversely affect fatigue life. I'll concede that it could be a defect in the design if there is no reasonable way to get a good weld do to material selection thickness and joint design; it could also be a point that suffers the bulk of the strain from frame flex, which would also be a defect in design. I forgot to as Vega if the crack propagated vertically or horizontally, flex fatigue can't really happen in the vertical direction on a standard rear triangle frame.

In addition, aluminum's crystal structure changes in a post forming process known as aging, and it can be artificially aged at elevated temperatures so that it doesn't change later on. This is not the same as tempering steel, though both are heat treatments.

As for that heat affected zone;

• Crystal structure changes
• Hydrogen or oxygen can dissolve into it, some alloys are sensitive to this.
• If the wrong filler is used alloying elements will migrate to and from the immediate area, and low boiling-point alloying agents will actually partially burn out, essentially making a different final alloy, possibly one that is weaker, more fatigue prone, or more corrosion prone.
• The heat and angle of the welding could have been off, causing thinning of the base metal immediately next to the weld.
• Porosity and micro fracture can be points of increased corrosion or concentrate local stress and strain decreasing fatigue life.

Can you put this into layman's terms?

Unfortunatly I don't have enough time for the full shebang, any specific part that you want more than the others?

You just say you're not a layman and you go into a big long explanation about welding and faults - but none of it makes it clear whether welds breaking would be a defect or to be expected I guess.

All those variables in welding are a big reason why many frames used lugged construction back in the day. Lugs not only reliably connect the parts but they doubles the thickness and thus reduces strain on the areas within about an inch of where a weld would have been.

Ah well, I was explaining to FBinNY why he may be mistaken about the weld not being at fault.

Defects, aka mistakes and anomalies, are to be expected as a statistical percentage, but they are still defects. Welds breaking should not be par for the course.

I don't disagree with you about the hows and whys of weld and tube failure. It's just that I don't believe all such failures are defects, either of design or execution, -- unless the service life is much less that designed for.

Chain stays will fail at welds for the same reason that spokes break at elbows. The areas are near the fulcrum of bending moments. Even a perfectly welded chainstay will break at the base, where the weld just happens to be. Add that to the change in section, and the result is predictable.

Of course, great amounts of engineering can be done to address this, but the use doesn't warrant it. If a particular bike is suffering an unusually high rate of failures, then I'd agree that it's a defect, or underbuilt area. But bikes are built to tight weight and cost constraints, and we get what we get.

If you scroll back and look at the OP's weight, terrain, riding habits, and the fact that he's towing a trailer, you might agree with me that this is more a case "using a sports car to haul cement" than a defect. Calling it a defect is comparable to towing a trailer in a car without the towing package, then claiming the burnt tranny was a defect.

Fair enough, there will always be a weak link.

Really? How do you get around a corner? Cornering at anything over walking speed puts more stress on the wheels than standing and peddling out of the saddle does.

AFAIK clydes don't have a problem breaking rims, cranks or bars.

But it's more to do with the realities of living on the edge of a bell curve. Not so much about the mechanical properties inherent to any particular material, more so about your chances of finding it in beefy or custom form.

Hence steel, or maybe Ti, for clydes. If off-the-rack gear isn't built strong enough, you need something made special. Ally requires heat-treating and carbon is a bit of a production too... not so many custom builders in those materials.

Or if custom's too pricey, lugged steel. Lugs, as they're done in steel, are bloody great. Much of that stuff should last, and if it doesn't, being steel it's easily repairable.

On an angle relative to my body, like in this context right here, where we're talking about throwing the bike from side to side under oneself when off the seat.

For crying out loud...


...I suppose another circumstance where I might apply lateral load to my wheels is cornering in the wet, where I might hang off the inside of a bike held more upright, but I'm not sure that helps anyway.

Read about wheelbuilding, disassemble the wheels and ensure the rims are straight and round, rebuild.

Or just read about truing rims and do that.

If it was me, I'd be tempted to at least de-tension the wheels, and re-tension from the baseline of all the nipples being level with the start of the threads; that's the best way to achieve even tension. And if it turns out you can't get the rim true with even tension, you know it's bent. Starting from an unknown distribution of tension, you could be chasing your tail and not know it. If you give the wheel a spin and make something tap the spokes as they go by, and they mostly sound around the same pitch with one or two loose ones, then it's likely a basically good wheel and you just need to tighten a couple of spokes... but if they're all over the place, you're best off to re-tension.

If a rim is bent, it's often possible to tweak it straight again (you'll sometimes need to disassemble wheel). It's even (and high) tension that gives a wheel strength.

I have the nicer park tool truing stand and the dish gauge they make too and have been doing a ton of reading. It's only a little out of true but I was considering taking the tire and tube off and treating it like I would building a new wheel.

It is the rear so I imagine I would tension the drive side spokes for roundness then the left side for lateral runout and then fine tune it all. Not sure if I should lube the threads with a light oil or use some weak loctite which would add some lubrication until it set then it would help resist loosening via vibration.

I'll be careful not to twist the spokes but will de-stress it just to be sure. I have a spoke tension meter just so I can get a number for comparison but I should be ok just from their sounds I think.

More research to do! At least it's my "beater" bike that I can have down for a few days and replacement parts are fairly cheap. Better I learn on this than my Mavic wheels (lower end Mavics but still way ahead of the cheapies on the trek).

Sounds like you're good to go. Start by looking for loose spokes, if you find a couple it should be easy.

Rims, cranks and bars can all break for smaller riders. They can break for larger riders as well. If you are going to consign clydes to the ghetto of steel frames, you should be equally concerned about aluminum parts.

Let's look at this realistically. vega2614 says that he has broken a Schwinn Continental. I'm not sure if you've had any experience with the old Schwinn Continentals but they were a steel frame from the 60s that seems to be carved whole from WWII surplus battleship armor plating. Never having seen a broken one, I can't say for sure that they have a wall thickness because the frame "tubes" aren't tubes. I didn't even know you could break one short of throwing 18" artillery shells at it.

He's also broken an aluminum frame. Yet you steel guys are wigging out over the aluminum. I, as stated above, have also broken steel and aluminum frames. Based on my experience, I should be more concerned about about steel than about aluminum. But I'm not really worried about either failing.

The "easy" repairability of steel is as much of a fallacy as saying that heavy riders should only ride steel. I've had a steel frame repaired by a master machinist/welder. He was surprised at how thin the steel was and how easy it would be to burn through the steel. And, after I had the frame repaired, it broke at exactly the same spot.

It a similar force and the bike has less of lean angle than most cornering situations. A high speed corner has a lean angle that close to 45 degrees from the ground. Out of the saddle riding has an angle closer to 80 degrees.

You don't "hang off the inside of a bike" on a corner. If you do, the tires are going to slide out from under you. Watch a rider going around a corner on a bicycle and you'll see that riders hang their bodies more to the outside of a corner. Our center of gravity is too high to do otherwise.

Truly. For crying out loud but not in the way that you mean it. These discussions about the delicacy of aluminum frames has been going on since Gary Klein kick-stated the age of fat tubed aluminum bikes in the 70s. Those bikes and the Cannondale bikes that followed them weren't delicate nor were they bikes that heavy riders couldn't use. And the metallurgy and frames have improved since then. You have to hunt far and wide to find a steel framed mountain bike. The vast majority of them are aluminum. You even have to hunt far and wide to find a production steel bike of good quality. You can get crappy steel bikes at Helmart but Clydes shouldn't be relegated to that level of bikes.