I’ve been riding an aluminium Scott CycloCross bike for a number of years as my commuting machine.

Tonight I noticed a fairly sizeable piece of the paint, on the gusset on the down tube, has come away.

The following shows a great pic of the gusset location (Not my pic, this links to someone on here selling the same bike):

The frame material underneath is not at all smooth, it feels almost powdery.

Should I be worried that the frame is about to fail spectacularly??

That’ll be the aluminium oxidising, perfectly normal for bare untreated aluminium.

As long as there is no other damage it’ll be fine. You could sand it back and touch the paint up if you like.

cool, thanks