sleepy

In your experience, which has been the most durable aluminum cross bike? Something that took its sweet time denting or cracking or preferably not at all.

Tim_Iowa

I haven't owned one, but I see tons of beat-up Redline Conquests at 'cross races. It's an entry-level 'cross frame, and they're often beat to hell, then passed down to someone else who beats it to hell, repeat cycle.

Wilfred Laurier

Denting is one thing - a sharp blow that dents one aluminum frame is very likely to dent most or all aluminum frames. About cracking, though, I would think you would have a better time finding frames that regularly do crack than ones that don't - people generally don't report uncracked frames like they do cracked ones. If you pick a common bike and can't find reports of it cracking, it is likely that it seldom cracks.

Ronsonic 

My Redline was retired a couple of months ago with a cracked headtube. Small crack right at the upper edge by the headset cup. I don't know exactly what year it was, but it had a 1" steerer, a downtube routed front der cable and came to me with a D/A 7410 crankset. It was OLD. I bought it over ten years ago from John Verheul who had flogged it for many seasons himself. It lasted a good 20 years including many, many races, lots of podiums and the training miles to get there.

Safe bet.

CliffordK

My Tricross seems to be reasonably good, although I don't get it out on the trail very frequently.