rumrunn6

lots of "maybes" in that

my Trek FX 7.0 Alpha is about 16 years old. guess maybe I'm scr*wed ...

or maybe just partly scr*wed?FrameFX Alpha Silver Aluminum, DuoTrap S compatible, rack & fender mountsForkHigh-tensile steel w/lowrider mounts; CLIX dropouts

maybe, how about they make bikes that last longer ...?

Wildwood 

"Does Trek make good bikes?"
The ultimate uber-newbie question! (or,...maybe not....)

ofajen

Aluminum doesn’t exhibit a fatigue limit the way steel and titanium do. So even very small stresses continue to initiate and expand cracks.

Perhaps the manufacturers could adopt an up front safe life policy and say, expect X riding hours or X years of service life from this frame.

Though at this point, the market is designed around constant change and a component service life of just a few years. So if the derailleurs will be obsolete and not supported in five years, why bother about a frame that is probably good for 20 years of solid riding?

Otto

balindamood

If I do not ride a specific bike for 10 years, do I still have to check it?

blacknbluebikes 

Note on this subject.. in 2020, mid covid (if there's a mid), I decided to wash my wife's Spesh Allez Elite while I was doing the two black bikes (always need wife points). She'd been riding that aluminum frame for over ten years at that point, quite happy with it. Hmmm, lookie there... a crack in the head tube, about 8mm long coming up from the bottom edge. Wow.
Tiny, but real. Called up the LBS where I bought it, they said "bring it in, we'll look." Lo & behold, after a look at the pics, Spesh covered bike on 'original owner lifetime warranty.' Credit for original purchase price, applied to ... yep, another Spesh Allez Elite, right outta the box. Amazed they had one, but it was a just as the shortages got serious. So, yeah, aluminum does have a fatigue life and engineers have to think about that. All I'm saying is "yep, it's real and it's nature of the beast." Also, a good LBS and a good warranty are valuable; in this case, it was about $80/year.

tkamd73 

Big fan of Treks early offerings, but the newest one I ride is an 88, so not too worried. However, I rebuilt my mom’s old Carbon 2120 for my wife to use. That 2120 has been all over Europe, and mis-handled by baggage smashers everywhere.
My mother was seriously into bike touring, she booked bike tours all over Europe, through the travel agency she owned, and was on many of them. My sister got her Waterford, and I got the Trek, anyway, guess I’ll have to keep an eye on the aluminum head tube, stays, and fork, on that bike.
Tim

squirtdad

The only bikes i have dealt with with cracks personally have been aluminum frames, both in the head tube, an electra cruiser (wife's) and a neighbors cheapo can't remember the name.

No aluminum for me....just a personal choice

merziac

I think they do and they are good for the masses that don't, can't, won't and don't want to geek out on them per se.

And they of course do have a plenty strong fanboy base that has drank lots of Kool-Aid as well.

They're place and stature in the marketplace is well deserved and entrenched for the target buyer.

They're ethos and attitude are the suspect part, especially from a C+V perspective IMO.

merziac

Yes and no, same disdain and less tolerance for Sinyard the tyrant and his litigation embattlement strategy that he seems to have tamped down.

Still a big fan of the early Merz, DiNucci, Neenan, Bainbridge and others driven history making accomplishments.

So no, not likely to ever buy a new one but like Trek, they fill a big market need for those that can afford and pursue cycling by full bore retail means.

merziac

They may have censored it, with their attitude its not likely they will tolerate any negative feedback.

gugie 

Ditto on the CYA aspect.

But to be "real", there is some truth behind what Trek is saying. I believe airplanes are inspected at regular intervals based on age of plane, hours flying, etc. for cracks. I strip down my bikes to the bare frame if they have a lot of miles on them (1000-1500 miles?), refresh bearings, grease, etc. as needed, clean and wax the fame, put on new consumeables, etc. During this process it's natural to check the frame for cracks, hubs, cranks, brakes and rims for the same. This is regardless of the frame material, but mine are all steel. I'm not interested in purchasing a used aluminum or CF frame, mostly because one can't really know where in it's fatigue lifetime it's at.

As for doing maintenance every 25 hours of riding, that actually sounds about right, on average. I just finished riding 220 miles over 4 days on our recent TdMIL trip. As a round number for touring, I estimate averaging 10mph, so that's 22 hours of riding. The bike could use some maintenance. Earlier in September we rode Touroica down the California coast, somewhere around 300 miles over 7 days, so let's say 30 hours of riding. The bike needed some maintenance afterwards. 25 hours sounds about right. If you're riding a lot, you'd better learn how to do some basic maintenance or else your bike is going to be in the shop a lot.

I did some wheel truing, replaced brake shoes once (probably every 500 miles?) centered brakes, rotated tires, pulled seatpost and stem to regrease before one of those rides...roughly every 250 miles.

YMMV.

merziac

This was a big part of my point in regards to LBS, they are the ones that can negate the negative sides of this except the price for the most part when they want to, many do by nature having been steeped in history and tradition if they have been around long.

And still choosing to support their heritage, this is a big part of it, many don't value it, cast it aside as cumbersome and fall into modern obscurity.

Bike Gallery was more chain store like in the beginning even with only one store for Trek's reach, then became a chain of its own, now taken over and really a spartan, chain store, factory omnipresence.

I am glad they are there, they fill a need to get more on a bike, just wish they valued the history that allowed them to end up here more.

BFisher

They have to speak to the average consumer. Most folks on this subforum, if not all, would not fall into that category.

I stood and listened to a shop owner explain a flat tire on a customer's bike, which was caused by a small pin or staple of some sort. The customer had no idea that such a thing could cause a flat. Totally oblivious. Surprised, even.

It's like online reviews, or the comments section on a Youtube video. For example, I just removed the three-bolt cleat plate from inside of a pair of Northwave Core Plus road shoes. If I had gone by some of the comments on the video I found, one would think the task was a monumental undertaking. It took me eight minutes to remove the plates. Sheeps foot blade and a small, screwdriver-sized pry tool.

Wildwood 

Obsoleting an entire class of bicycles can't hurt new sales.
Handlebars should be more suspect. (I mean,.....who rides aluminum handlebars produced before 2010???)
And a whole category of components.

a little beyond CYA. Somebody tracks failures, I bet after 10, 12, 15years the failure rate increases (often due to excessive 'little' spills, abuse, outside storage, neglect). Corporate insurance and lawyers seek a limited liability statement from corporations to absolve. Lifetime warranties from the past could be a quagmire. We are an insurance driven and litigatious society. I agree corporations need protection from frivolous and unwarranted litigation.


My 1991 Fisher SuperCaliber is so overbuilt as to last forever the way I ride it now, as a light offroad hybrid type. Aluminum rigid fork is most worthy of regular inspection as it was raced by my son in a couple of dozen races. He was a lightweight kid luckily. And honestly, it has always had pretty big tires on it for a cross country, not downhill, 'mountain' bike.

clubman 

My respect for alu bikes is 99% biased toward American Cannondales. I had a Trek 1200 briefly but it went to a fundraising auction before I could get used to it. I've toured on T-1000's, commuted on early 90's 'speed bikes' and bounced about on a the rigid. Given the high numbers available in NA, is it reasonable to assume their production was better than the rest? Leave their shock systems out of it.
Yes, rear canti drops failed and some of the gear/shifter/cable mounts were meh but I haven't seen or heard any real anecdotal evidence that these frames fail even after 2 or 3 decades.

Chombi1 

Yup,..... I wouldn't be surprised if Trek's marketing department had a hand in this suggestion to replace their old Al bikes.....with new Treks?...
There are lots and lots of older aluminum bikes still on the roads every day that proves this is mostly bunk.
Heck!, even the ones that were considered marginal for long life reliability from their inception, like the Vitus 979s are mostly still going strong under many riders around the world.....

Bianchi84

My 1985 SM 600 that I built myself back then is still as solid as ever!

Chuck M 

I didn't read the blog post but I think I get the gist of it from the comments in this thread.

Trek's website states that their lifetime warranty doesn't cover normal wear and tear or improper maintenance which can be considered pretty broad statements. Maybe Trek is trying to add width to the coverage of their asses, or at least some wiggle room.

sloppy12

50-100K miles on a aluminum trek seems about right to me for a lifespan.
Seemed like there were several words surrounding the 10 year comment that will lead a reasonable person to say that its more about time and use case than actual years.

Mr. Spadoni 

[QUOTE=merziac;22360822]According to Trek "if your aluminum bike is over ten years old, you should think about whether its time to replace it."

I think Trek forgot two words in that sentence: FOR and US. In other words it should read “ ….you should think about whether it is time for us to replace it.”

Why ? Trek has a lifetime warranty on all bikes they’ve ever made. Metal fatigue is not excluded. By saying that a bike might have a limited life span due to the materials used means they expect it to fail at some point. A lifetime warranty means that the failure is the maker’s not the user’s responsibility. State laws vary, but if unless an exclusion is called out, it’s the maker’s problem .

Somebody at Trek ought to pull that sentence before Trek winds up in court for deceptive advertising along with a couple of other issues they’ve exposed themselves to by saying this.

merziac

Fast and loose, welcome to modern day corporate America.

pastorbobnlnh 

Now we should all stay awake at night worrying about the 7 astronauts/cosmonauts on the International Space Station. Parts of that aluminum contraption has been orbiting earth for 20+ years and traveling approximately 17,000 mph and about 148,920,000 miles per year.

Russ Roth

This summer I did 180miles of gravel touring so probably only about 10mph as well, changed out the tires, and rode some more than reloaded the bike for another couple hundred miles of touring with the kids. Between the two tours I probably have close to 40 hours of riding with little of it paved. Took the bike to VA and did a longer ride that was another 4 hours and a 3hr mtb ride on it. That doesn't include the rides I did to just have some miles on the bike for comfort purposes. I'll look the bike over in Feb for the first time, pull it apart, cleaning and greasing it but probably have close to 1000 miles on it which is at least 80hours overall. Never had a problem, never anything to look at. Most bikes never need more than annual maintenance till closer to 2500-3000 miles in my experience. Do agree, consumables should be done at the same time, new tape makes a bike feel fresh. Finally pulled apart my road bike which got new cables after 3 years to go with the annual overhaul. I think some people overdo it.

I do. I just tossed my daughter's track bars which bent I'm sure from the bike being dropped. But if they aren't bent or noticeably damaged from a crash, aluminum tends to give warning and I've never seen it as an issue.

Wildwood 

Where was that sarcasm emoji when I needed it?!?

Drillium Dude 

The cool kids use this: /s

DD