Phil_gretz

Run stadium stairs


Run obstacle courses


Row a scull


Burpees


Wind sprints


Spar (but you already know this)...


None of these have anything to do with a bicycle, you'll find.

Cross Creek

I have an almost 20 year old Bianchi with aluminum frame that's as good as new. I also have a Rivendell (steel) that I expect to outlast me, unless I move to the beach (FL, not CA), in which case I'll just check it for rust more often and deal with it as needed. I'd love to have a single speed Ti, just because, but I don't think it would be magical or last forever. I just love the idea of a bone simple, bare metal street bike.

ramzilla

IMHO titanium is better.

rekmeyata

Yup

Dave Cutter

I thought you immortals were supposed to conceal your lifespan secrets from the public. Nothing lasts forever... but most bikes are built to last for decades. I wouldn't worry so much about outlasting an aluminum bike.... as much as I'd worry about someone cutting off your head. Or... stealing your bike.

All metals suffer from fatigue. I believe they call it "metal fatigue". However I wouldn't worry about metal fatigue so much as I would getting run-over by someone in a 5000 pound car. Cars can really wear-out a bike... FAST.

rekmeyata

Funny you guys talk about this fatigue issue but I recall that Sheldon Brown commuted to work on a 1918 Ranger, and he never noticed fatigue with it, and that bike was made of gas pipe from back in the day, not the far better steel we have today. My 1984 Trek 660 has over 160,000 miles on it, after my LBS mechanic took it for a ride I asked him how it felt he said he didn't notice any fatigue.

Then there was Freddie Hoffman who passed one million miles on his bike in 1996, a Schwinn Voyageur with an additional 100 pounds of gear...a short time after that a frame tube broke on that bike. After reading about him and his bike I think, though I'm not sure, I may have seen him riding through Fort Wayne on the Lincoln Hwy about 9 or 10 or so years ago while driving my car because there was a guy riding at dusk with a whole bunch of tail lights and a bunch of flashing front facing lights with one steady light which I found out was how he equipped his bike. If I had known his story better I would stopped to find if it was him.

Fatigue? Certainly, but only after an insane number of hard miles.

jfowler85

Interesting. I scored myself as a 58/91, so close to the middle but ironically it was because most of my individual scores are either a 7 or 1.


How You Make Decisions Says a Lot About How Happy You Are - WSJ

BlazingPedals

In theory, titanium should last almost forever. However in practice I've seen a lot of Ti bikes, from supposedly-knowledgeable builders, fail at the welds. Manufacturing defects, sure. But it seems the % of incidents is significant and there's no way to tell when you buy it.

llj

I tend to believe an adult cyclist probably won't really know what their ideal bike will be just after riding 1 bike, let alone starting out. Every cyclist has an opinion of their own, but everyone has different priorities about what to look for in a bike. Just ride your bike and figure out what you like and don't like about it. If you like it, then that's just great.

If you spent $700 on the bike then it's probably a decent bike that will last a long time, if you maintain it. Far more likely you get tired of it before it gets tired of you anyway.

bbbean 

In that case, the best advice I can give you is to enjoy the bike you just bought. Over the course of the next year, you'll either discover a new love for cycling, in which case, you'll ride enough to have a MUCH better idea what you like and don't like in a bike and whether your current bike fits your needs as well as you hoped it would, or you'll discover biking isn't really for you.
In either case, you'll be much better off just riding and learning for now and not getting hung up in the "should I buy better" process before you really know what better should look like for you.
Remember - the answer to almost any question is "go ride your bike some more!"

edited to add - any decent bike is going to last decades if you take care of it, regardless of material. Carbon, steel, aluminum, and titanium will stand up to anything except gross abuse and negligence.

BB

79pmooney

A serious answer from a guy who has been riding a long time. You are new to cycling. As you pile on the miles, several things are going to happen. You will get fitter, much fitter and your preferred position on the bike will change. Both your flexibility will change and your desire to become more aerodynamic if only to make upwind stretches a little more tolerable and go by a little faster. You will start tpo see what yhou are good at and what you really like to do. Some of us are mountain goats and love going uphill. Others blasting along on the flats. Some like to pile on many miles. Others sprinters who can hit 40 mph for a few seconds. For some just a nice 30 mile loop when they get a chance to get out is good. In several years, you will have a much better idea and what you are riding now probably won't be the optimum ride for you. (If you made good choices now, what you are riding may very well be an excellent "B" bike for years/decades to come.)

As far as lifetime warranties on frames - ti and steel frames can go virtually forever IF they are not pushing the boundaries for light weight and the workmanship, design and sourced materials are good; steel and very good; ti. Aluminum frames can go a very long time if substantially overbuilt and again, do not have flaws from workmanship, design or materials. Aluminum frames built to less than substantial overbuild will break eventually. This is is the nature of aluminum and virtually all metals, steel and titanium being some of the few exceptions. Steel and titanium have the characteristic that you can stress the material up to but not past a certain level and they will last virtually forever. All other metals "age" and eventually break, even from small stresses after they have seen enough. (These are the "fatigue limits" and failure through fatigue that metallurgy texts talk about.)

Design and workmanship play directly into this. Both can ensure that the frame, as built does not have "stress risers", ie places where there are sharp corners or not enough material to let the stress "flow" evenly. Flaws in workmanship can do the same thing as sharp corners. So can flaws in the materials themselves.

Fuji is a manufacturer/supplier that has always done its homework to make reliable, affordable, decent performing bikes. It is a balancing act. Their aluminum bikes have in general, few flaws. are moderately stiff, but not overly so. As such, their frames should last a long time, but likely not forever. They are not brick ****house stiff and overbuilt like the early Kleins and Cannondales which will last near forever because they use so much material the stresses never get high. The Motobecane ti bikes are also built for a price. Ti welding and machining is far more difficult than either steel of aluminum so lifetime is only a maybe if that frame did not get the best attention.

My history: I started on a cheap Peugeot, far inferior to your bike. Then a Lambert which was a breakthrough for me performance-wise but a poor fit, though I had no idea of that at the time. Then I raced a Fuji Pro with unusual geometry that fit me like a custom. (I bought it with about 50,000 miles on my legs.) That bike has been the basis for my bike fit ever since. I have had most of a dozen bikes since. The stock bikes have gotten the longest stems I could find and several custom super-long ones. I have had 3 custom bikes built, the last two ti and expensive. They are the lifetime bikes you are talking about. But getting them 45 years ago when I was in your shoes (if they had existed then) would have had me just being the fool flying some really big bill paper airplanes out the window. There is no way I or anyone else could have known what this body would find to be ultimately comfortable, the all day bike, the joy climbing mountains every time I get on it now, almost 200,000 miles later.

Back to what you should be looking at now. Ride what you got! It's a good ride and it will serve you well. In time, you will get a feeling for what could be better and what doesn't work so well for you on this bike but only time in the saddle will tell you that.

Ben

ColonelSanders

How long do your stems tend to be?

1989Pre 

There was a Moser Leader Ti frame in awesome shape on my favorite online auction house website recently for about 200.00 plus shipping, so don't sweat it. You'll probably love the Fuji. Give the magic a chance to work.

79pmooney

I am riding now 120, 130, 135 and 155 on my customs and 140 and 175 on my stock bikes,, I have a retired 180 and another 180 that will probably see use in the future. (The first three stems, the 120, 130 and 135 are on customs designed to keep the stem lengths reasonable. The 155 is on my first custom when I didn't know yet what really works for me.)

Ben

vinfix

^ This. Bicycling is really not the best supplementary exercise if your primary thing is jujitsu or other martial arts. Running is a better simulation of the cardio needed for sparring, and you'll save a lot of time & money.

Most of the responses here, naturally, are suggesting you will ride more & more as you get into it, and grow out of the bike. Unless you have a lot of free time, or give up martial arts, I don't think that will happen.

Dave Cutter

There was a Ti bike list on CL this spring. I finally broke down and confessed my obsession with it to my wife. She forgave me (well.... she thought I was crazy... same thing). I felt better afterwards. But it can be hard to walk away from titanium. I do understand.

Gweedo1

That modern Fuji Roubaix frame is hydrofomed, so in fact it's probably stronger than older Al frames as well as lighter as the thickness of the tubes is optimised. Ti cannot be hydroformed.

Al is much easier to work with, reducing the chances for defects.

Here is an interesting article on Ti vs Al in a comparable, as in 90% comparable, application...ultralight wheelchairs. It offers an informative and balanced and very relevant view:

https://mobilitymgmt.com/Articles/20...um.aspx?Page=1

Camilo

I don't get this "lifetime" thing. How would you possibly know what kind, size, geometry, etc. of bike you'd want for the rest of your life? And why would you think you'd want any bike for a lifetime?

Just buy a bike you like, ride it a lot and go from there. You're way overthinking a first bike purchase.

Phil_gretz

You can ride for fun. But if you want cardio training for fighting, the more traditional methods are far better: Jumping Rope, Running, and Sparring.

Watch the Rocky series for tips!

rekmeyata

failure rate with any type of frame material is always possible and has been observed.

Having said what you said, ORA, Asia's largest TI builder has had a very high degree of success, and the Motobecane has had no road bike failure, but did have some TI mountain bike failures which is why they're no longer selling it. Which is odd that ORA has had that sort of success with their road frames but all American made TI builders have had their share of failures, so maybe I can't find any ORA failures when there has been?

Camilo

Yea, I agree. I'd do long (30-60 minute) circuit training type of stuff.

I love bicycling above all endurance / fitness things I do, but it doesn't give you good fitness for much else, and is definitely not good for the spine, shoulder and hip flexibility that you need to even be strong in an upright / standing position.

If I need to get into hiking shape, I need to do some hill walking. If I want to get into xc skiing shape, I need to do ski-walking, roller skiing, or best, skiing. I've done cross-fit-ish (can't handle real Crossfit tm) circuit training type of stuff and it is great for all around fitness and flexibility, much better than bicycling for that.

rekmeyata

This is true, but running is hard on the joints, however with running you can't really run 70 miles or more in one day, in fact all you could do distance wise would be to run 26.2 miles which would be difficult to do once or more a week. Some people are blessed with extraordinary genes and joints, take Charlene Aldridge who runs the Pikes Peak Marathon (which starts at 6,000 foot level and goes up to 14,110 feet with half of it over 10,200 feet) for the last 30 straight years? And this run does not take place on the paved section either! Yes, and at 68 years old she still runs that race, and she practices by running up and down flight of stairs in a skyscraper! She is known and recognized as the Pikes Peak Iron Woman. My knees started to have issues when I was only 28 with nowhere near the pounding Charlene knees take so I had to stop and concentrate on biking instead.

Jump roping is also good but again tough on knees.

Sparring is great, I use to be involved in martial arts, several disciplines if the truth was ever told, but I had to stop after about 45 years about 5 years ago due to my joints in my arms and shoulders were pretty much trashed from all the fighting, and then an accident with a drunk driver gave me a fusion treatment in my lower back, so I resigned from the activity to protect my body especially the back.

likewater

Thanks for all the replies you guys. Lots of good info.

rickpaulos

Most "lifetime warranties" are not your lifetime. Most are defined in the fine print as "useful lifespan" of the bike as determined by the company. Trek won't replace your beloved bike after a few years with an exact duplicate because they probably don't have one as models change, some are discontinued, etc. They may give you a credit towards a new bike at a Trek dealer. Seems like a catch situation when your bike is covered for it's life and when it breaks, it's life is over and not covered. Most companies have backed off the Lifetime and gone with 5 years or less which should cover manufacturing defects but not failures due to extensive use. And no company should be expected to warranty damage once it leaves the shop.

rekmeyata

A lifetime warranty isn't worth the paper is printed on. I had a Ridley Scandium that had a lifetime warranty and they didn't even honor it 2 years after purchase when the headtube developed a crack in which first was blamed on an accident I never had then later after the LBS said that was ridiculous so Ridley said it was fatigue case closed. I have a Trek 660 that has a lifetime warranty, so just how the heck would they warranty a frame they no longer build? Oh, give me credit towards a cheap arse frame! I will say that Trek and Specialized, and maybe a couple of others are really good about warranty issues from what I've heard, but most will try to weasel out of paying you anything except maybe getting a new frame at some sort of discount.