JustinNY

I dont mean a frame that was cracked/damaged and replaced, I mean a frame that failed mid-ride. This goes for any other frame material.

It seems like when people talk about frame materials, everything is theoretical. Of course we've all seen frames that were damaged, but I've never heard of a frame falling apart during a ride as so many people seem to fear.

merlinextraligh

There are a number of frames that have failed mid ride cataloged in the anals of BF. Pretty sure about every CF frame that has ever failed is referenced here.

Personally, the only frame I've had fail JRA, was a steel frame that severed at the BB and seat tube junction.

Fortunately, it's very rare, and usually does not lead to a catstrophic result.

But it can happen, and with very bad outcomes, so inspect your equipment, whatever it's made of.

island rider

Haven't you heard? Carbon assplodes.

I'm going to sit back and watch the stories now and hope BF doesn't dissapoint.

HokuLoa

Sure. MTBers badly casing big landings or coming up way short on a gap resulting in a front impact with nowhere to go. Hit with enough force and somethings gotta give. Frankly this will cause sudden failure with any material. In terms of spontaneous failures under "normal" conditions... super rare. Rare enough to be a non-issue.

island rider

I'm guessing he's not referring to the former, but the latter. The "I was just riding along at 16 mph on a bowling alley smooth road and suddenly I was on the group and the bike was shrapnel" stories.

Elduderino2412

Like the Hindenberg of carbon frames?

ahsposo 

Freudian but funny...

I broke a Schwinn Continental frame when I was a tweenager. Steel frame (probably leftover plumbing pipe) cracked at the BB shell. While my mother battled with the LBS to handle the warranty repair I continued to ride it for probably a month or six weeks. The bike probably weighed more than I did.

But no, I've never known personally of a CF failure unless it was a crash with an auto.

Savagewolf

I've never seen it happen. The only issues I've ever seen are from crashes or drops where an invisible crack becomes visible during a ride. During the Monster Cookie this year in Oregon I heard of a carbon top tube (maybe, forget which section) that broke in two and the guy had to abandon the ride a few miles later.

Snydermann

All of them . . . eventually.

DropDeadFred

only if you clean it with the wrong soap

RJM

I have witnessed one. Guy was riding along and hit a decent size stick in the road, it got into the spokes and destroyed his fork (carbon). The resulting crash took out the frame (carbon) and destroyed the front wheel too (carbon); he was unconscious and went to the hospital to recover. It was not a nice crash to witness. I have no idea if the same kind of stuff would happen if different materials were involved and frankly don't care all that much. Plenty of people riding all sorts of frame/component materials and plenty of them live to ride another day.

Another guy took his brand new Madone out for a spin and got it down his driveway before the bottom bracket shell broke (heard this story from the owner). He got a new frame and no damage was done to the dude. Still rides the new frame and it has been several years.

caloso

Yes.

prathmann

I've only had failures with steel frames. One was actually of the steerer tube of the fork. It snapped just above the headset race resulting in immediate separation of the fork and front wheel from the rest of the bike. The bottom of the headtube smashed into the pavement and I suffered considerable road rash on my hands and face. The bike stayed upright and my stoker was uninjured. Examination later indicated that one of the bearing balls may have broken and started scoring the steerer tube above the bearing race. A frame maker installed a new steerer tube and fixed the head tube so the headset could be reinstalled for $25 and I still have the bike over 35 years later.

The other failure was at a weld on a seat stay. That just resulted in a flat tire when it allowed the tire to contact the frame. Needed to get a ride home, but no other consequences. The bike was shipped back to the manufacturer for repair under warranty and I had it back about a week later with a new rear triangle.

island rider

Stick gets into spokes, hits fork and kills it, resulting crash kills frame.

As I recall, you hit a curb, right?

Now, set aside whether the carbon material should have reacted the way it did, whether the resulting destruction wasd greater than would have been ordinarily expected or whether another material would have reacted differently...

Neither of these are "just riding along and it failed unexpectedly." Both were caused by an impact of some sort.

The bottom bracket shell thing I have heard of before somewhere. That's a just riding along failure, but more than likely attributable to a manufacturing defect. Wasn't there someone here who had problems with a carbon Trek and the BB? Wasn't there also an issue of fork failures at one point? Again more related to manufacturing problems than material choices.

Seattle Forrest

Nope. I've never seen it, or heard of it in the offline, face-to-face world.

tagaproject6

Personally, no. But there are always the " father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate" stories, which are always fun!

island rider

Wow, that's major suckage. No way you could have prevented it, no way you would have been aware it was happening. I suppose a complete tear-down service and re-build might have revealed it, but even then the odds are against it.

pallen

I would say any just-riding-along frame failure is a manufacturing defect. No properly designed, properly manufactured frame should just fall apart while just riding along.

caloso

Yep. You're right. Struck a curb dead on at about 17mph.

Totally, agree with you. Just demonstrating (in a semi-trollish way) that it takes a pretty substantial impact to cause a CF frame to fail. I've seen some pretty spectacular crashes in races that have busted bars, tacoed wheels, or torn off derailleurs but left the frame intact.

jrobe

This is kind of a moot point. This is like asking - has anyone seen a car frame that just desintegrated or fell apart? Of course not but some can withstand crashes and normal abuse far better than others.

If your primary goal is longevity, you want to know which frame and which frame material can withstand normal ride wear and tear (and crashes which are part of cycling) the best.

HokuLoa

I figured as well. The problem is that a lot of new cyclists see cracked carbon pics and don't know what actually went into causing that failure (not saying the OP). It helps to illustrate roughly what DOES cause failure in order to provide context to how unlikely failure is in "normal" conditions.

fishymamba

A guy I know(huge guy, not overweight just HUGE) stood up to climb up a 15% grade and one of the carbon chain stays snapped, the bike some some kind of Trek Madone.

I have also seen a guy snap a chain stay on an aluminum bike mountain bike while riding on road. But the bike was very very old and the guy riding it had not been too nice to the bike....

sdvictor

This is why constant frame inspections are pretty important, right? I mean, a lot of this stuff gives off pretty obvious warning signs before hitting that point of catastrophic failure

rubic

Thank you for this clarification. Yes, it would be rather unlikely for a CF, or any other material frame, to just, umm, 'assplode' on its own for no other reason mid ride.

CuRed

Wasn't there a thread about some dude who had an Orca fail at the head tube joint JRA a couple of years back?

You might also want to check here.