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Just wondering after a comment on so called 'hardcore hardtails' who has actually managed to break a frame and in what circumstances.
Frame name, area of snappage and circumstances please, with pics would be nice to fully appreciate the gnaarness of it all.
ps. the only thing I've ever snapped is a stem bolt 😳
specialized sirrius roadbike
center of driveside chainstay
just riding along.............on a 300km audax.
started creaking and i could see the crack opening as i pedaled.
97 Marin team DH FRS broke it in 2006 JRA but had covered over 20k miles on it - replaced by ATB sales FOC.
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2006 Wolfridge snapped the swingarm in 2008 after riding a fairly rough rock garden ATB sales supplied a replacement swingarm @ half price (as I wasn't the original owner)
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I rode over a stump on my Club Roost XC4 and heard a ping noise as the swing arm broke at the top corner. No Photo sorry. It was way out of warranty so I bought a new swing arm which interestingly had much heavier webbing in the area it had broken in.
Hairline crack in an old Cove Stiffee at the drop-outs. Riding in NZ, not sure exactly which route killed it but I'm not a big fan of big air.
Silverfish offered a half price crash replacement. I now have the newer frame with forged drop outs.
I have the best pic....will have a look for it.
Tange Prestige Hardtail, [b]snapped [u]IN [i]TWO[/u][/i][/b]
Any frame will do but interested to hear how many 'ordinary' frames have failed and if there is one material more likely to fail than another.
cracked 3 DJ hardtail frames around the headtube and flaired another from riding them how they're designed to be ridden. cracked an XC hardtail around the seatstay/seattube area. ripped all the BB threads out of another whil eriding, snapped a BB shell off one DH frame, linkage/seatstays on another. bent a few parts on a few others. smnapped a road frame JRA. I tend to break components far more than frames.
Cracked the headtube weld of an older DMR Trailstar. I was obviously being too gnar. By gnar I mean heavy and clumsy.
Here's the pic, I also have one without me inflating my own head* on flickr.
JRA in the Pentlands, but had clearly been cracking for some time, better there than in front of a no. 26.
[url= http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/5469083202_3af54b8f36.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/7693620@N05/5469083202/ ]brokenbikeandme[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/7693620@N05/ ]alan cole[/url], on Flickr
*(c) Spike Milligan.
I have cracked a couple of alloy frames around the headtube - a nice boutique Ti frame - again headtube... thats from jeycore xc duties...
paul
Marin Attack Trail - started off as a 2001 single pivot:
4 have cracked around the bottom bracket / main pivot, 3 caught as cracks , only one actually snapped on the trail.
2 cracked on the seat tube stub, at the weld below the seat clamp
1 on the swing arm between the caliper mounts.
All replaced, no quibble, under warranty. Only one took more than a week, and one took less than 24 hours.
Marin/ATB sales warranty department may be better than the R & D dept...
Pipedream Sirius snapped the chainstay.
Two Attack trail swing arms, remarkably like the ones in Snaps 2nd pics. Marin no quibble warranty and TBC in Edinburgh sorted it...
An attack trail and an airborne Lancaster.
Tsk. Some real amateur bike breakers on here. Make room for a PROFESSIONAL! 😉
Left my first bike (Raleigh Boxer) on the drive and my dad reversed over it
Snapped the stem in half on my Raleigh Grifter after that. Dad welded it back together.
'91 Kona Cindercone, bulged in downtube, replaced under warranty
Titanium Kona Hei Hei cracked at seat tube weld
Sanderson Breath, stacked into parked car, frame badly bent
On One 853 Inbred, Seriously bent mech hanger at 2 weeks old (Bent back) and driveside chainstay snapped (chainsuck) and replaced
2 Sets of forks (Crashes) on my Sarecen Helix hybrid, and a set of carbon bars
Currently got a nice big dent on the seatstay on my Pitch. It'll be fine!
EDIT
Thinking about it, that's the first 3 new bikes I ever owned all broken!
Steel sunn tox. Snapped the chainstay. Ages ago but seem to remember a crash at coad y brenin.
Global Ti 1.5 snapped the top tube about 1 cm from headtube. Replaced under warrenty even though it was several years old cos "It shouldn`t have gone there"
Heckler swingarm following a rather flat landing from rather high up.
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Samuri to the forum please, calling Samuri, thread waiting! Thank you!
Attack Trails seem to be rather popular.
Al - I don't think that was a frame problem, it was the front and rear tyres trying to distance themselves from each other!
cove handjob, two riders into one corner won't go
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/95/250706358_ca761e7abe.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocketdog/250706358/ ]frame1[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/rocketdog/ ]rOcKeTdOgUk[/url], on Flickr
pace fork brace
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those pace fork braces used to pretty much break straight out if the box, hardly owt to brag about...
I snapped the headtube off a 2000 Marin Nail Trail
Cracked the downtube halfway through on a "brand x" alloy hardtail
Cracked headtube weld on a DMR Trailstar
Cracked wishbone on another DMR Trailstar
This is all listed on my CV.
snapped top tube on my kona muni mula trying to land a big set of doubles
Snapped the toptube on a DMR, but that one had a hard life, so it was expected. A bit gutting at the time though...
Scott G Zero my first full sus landed a small jump and heard a crack, cracked on the drive side of the swing arm around one of the welds. 😀
Another Attack Trail, 06 model, ovalised the head tube (bottom headset cup pushed in by hand).
Again very quick, no quibble ATB/Marin replacement with an 09 Wolf Ridge frame (including new shock).
twohats - Member
those pace fork braces used to pretty much break straight out if the box, hardly owt to brag about
when you ride with the finesse i do it's worth bragging 😉
1x 1985 Raleigh ultra burner (five milk crates and a builders plank ramp to flat grass does not work!)
1x 2001 specialized enduro (common fault on the early ones, it cracked around the shock mount)
1x 2002 specialized enduro (warranty replacement for above!!) JRA at CYB and went over bars, cracked seat tube, frame was replaced under warranty again
1x ti456 (rear brake mount fell off whilst jra)
1x 29er (downtube cracked)
1x old Raleigh steel road frame knockabout roadbike (rear dropout dropped out)
1x pair of kona p2 forks (cracked at crown along seam of tubing)
Having a quiet spell at the moment, hopefully won't be breaking anything soon as quite like the current bike lineup I have....
96 Diamond Back Apex. What a machine! LX groupset and nice tubeset. Still miss it. Remember when "long travel" forks first came out? Gotta watch out for them as you'll rip the headtube straight off!!!!! Well, no they won't. Not straight off anyway. A couple of years of general hacking and a season of DH (7th in the SAMS Southern Championships Junior I'll have you know!) didn't manage to finish it off, but a week in Les Gets did. Headtube came away from the top tube. Luckily a local car garage managed to braze it up and I finished the holiday on it. Try doing that on your carbon frame!
Anyhow, when I got back to the UK, I got a local welder to put the mother off all headtube gussets on, think spooky metal head on steroids. I ran it like that for a while until the driveside chainstay parted company from the BB. That was duly welded up and it was then relegated to the shed when I got my LTS. Another bike I miss but I digress.
When I started work full time, the Diamond Back was dug out again and built up singlespeed with some Z1's for general commuting and hacking duties. One day whilst riding to work, something felt a bit weird with the bike. A couple more days and the problem got worse. On closer inspection I noticed the downtube had a crack all the way round but the split hadn't met up. Back into the shed it went again where it still lives. Think I'll get it welded up one of these days!
Damn I miss that bike...
Aluminium and Ti but no carbon yet! 😀
snapped a cannondale gemini swing arm but that's not really much of a surprise, I hear quite a few of the earlier ones went.
Pace RC303, cracked at the join between the seat tube and the seat tube/top tube gusset. Discovered after thinking "my saddle's creaking more than usual" on a ride at Glentress. It seems like a lot of large RC303s suffered from this.
[url= http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2126/1794960205_b80ec9e5f3.jp g" target="_blank">
Gary Fisher HooKooEKoo, snapped top of seat tube while riding an exceptionally tame piece of singletrack. Replaced under warranty with the next model up!
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My P7 after an evening pootle round Llandegla black. 🙄
Hairline crack on 3 CDales in same place - driveside seatstay weld to bb. 2 ridden as SS and one scalpel. Cracked one other through driving the granny into the bb shell after losing 2 crankbolts. All were warrantied no probs, even the last one which was clearly my fault.
Can't complain at all. 3 - 4 years out of a lightweight Alu frame under 16stone of man seems reasonable to me, especially when you get a new frame to replace the busted one.
Zaskar LE - JRA - however it was being used a a jump bike
Spooky Metalhead - hit a parked car
both headtube off jobs
Great pic Al. Here's one you've seen before of one you broke earlier.
Icracked my '88 Stumpjumper on the downtube just behind the headtube in exactly te same place as Kevin Dangerous did the week before. Well chuffed to be as rad as Dangerous. Specialized gave me an '89 replacement. I still have it.
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Verses, looks like you had a crack on the front of that tube emanating from the hole in like with the top tube for a while.
We could be here a while...
1990 Trek 8900 bonded alluminium - tore the rear mach hanger off
1991 Rocky Mountain Blizzard - bottom bracket shell stretched
1991 Rocky Mountain Blizzard - bent rear brake boss
1992 Rocky Mountain Blizzard - cracked wishbone seatstay
1993 Trek 9900 Pro Issue OCLV Carbon - snapped rear brake boss
1993 Trek 9900 Pro Issue OCLV Carbon - bottom bracket shell fell out
1994 Kona Explosive - cracked the diveside chainstay - Welded locally and now my SS
1998 Intense Uzzi SL - snapped seat mast - snapped chainstays x 2- snapped seatstays x2 (I had this for seven years)
Been riding Nicolai's since 2005 and not broken one of them - loads of components though...
2010 Whyte 19 steel - cracked dropouts
Don't start me on forks and other stuff.
My Trek Y3 - the bolt holding the frame and the swingarm snapped as I waited at traffic lights.
Use Ti post - snapped when I stood up riding over a sleeping policeman.
I've never snapped one, killed my inbred though, the chainstay was bent.
Can't beleive Samuri's not been on here yet
A mate and myself bought 'cheap' Klein's I think just about the time they were bought by Trek.
Mine failed and was replaced FOC with a rather nice Attitude Race frame. Rang my mate to advise him to check his and it had snapped too, both in exactly the same place on the chainstay not far from where it joins the seat tube.
This was back in the day so we just called it riding a bike whether it was on the flat, uphill or downhill. God knows what that type of riding would be called now.. Trail/AM/Enduro/DH light ... WTF?
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/poll-the-one-fs-bike-what-frame-would-you-go-for 🙂
If we are including bending frames... I've got a road bike with a bent rear triangle from using in a cheap nasty turbo trainer many years ago.
...and then a mate bent said nice Klein hardtail above when he put it on his roof rack. He over tightened the down tube clamp so the tube now is concave at one point... numpty.
1995 Kona Kilauea - snapped driveside dropout - twice (eg repaired twice in 1998 and 2003)
1995 Peugeot road bike - snapped both dropouts in 1996
1999 GT edge road bike - snapped seat tube in 2001
1999 Scott G-Zero - snapped seat tube/shock mount in 2006
2003 Rocky Mountain - snapped dropout in 2010
2003 Giant NRS - snapped seat tube in 2010 (though I suspect that it was already broken when the guy on the classifieds sold it to me... 😈
2006 Dolan road bike - snapped driveside dropout in 2007
2007 Pace RC303 - snapped seat tube in 2007
Ooops
2x Orange Sub 5s. JRA - both failed at the stub axle weld.
That was the end of my relationship with orange after being accused of jumping them (I can't jump, even now)
1x 5spot chainstay across the CNC yoke. It was 5 years old though. Saved by Khani of this forum who had a spare and its still going strong.
So terribly sorry I'm late.
Frames only or should I include all bike bits?
Early 70's, I broke my tracker jumping over about 6 kids off a ramp when the handlebar grip came off.
My next tracker got driven over by a car.
I think the next breakage was my very first crank snap. I was riding up Union Road in New Mills and the crank snapped in half, I shot sideways into a car and put a samuri sized dint in the door.
Then a raleigh road bike of some description, headtube cracked.
Then my eddy merckx (I loved that bike) snapped one of the stays clean off the seat tube. The Merckx used to eat rear spindles, I suspect it was misaligned.
Bit of a gap then while I didn't ride bikes a lot.
Then in the mid nineties I got my first official mountain bike, a Scott Bandera. I snapped the forks in about 3 months after I tried a massive jump.
New forks and another three months, another jump, crimped the downtube.
Which meant I could get a new bike, a Scott Race Comp. Great bike. Still going strong now, I see the guy who bought it off the guy who nicked it riding around town sometimes.
Next bike was a Mk1 Idrive. Now while I didn't snap that bike, I did break the idrive. idrive spares? don't be silly.
inbred. This lasted a long time but it did see off a number of cranks, we're into photographs now.
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/39/90157869_58ca47bd49.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/90157869/ ]Snapped Crank[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
Then the inbred snapped at the chainstay bridge, I was very, very sad.
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Gimp next I think. I didn't snap this bike, sold it.
Pompino now. This is still going well but again, it saw off a number of components, everything I think. Here's one of the cranks it killed.
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/52/132536392_0b677a845f.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/132536392/ ]P1010498[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
Chameleon has seen off two sets of cranks now
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/207/441827584_040601efdf.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/441827584/ ]snapped-deore2[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
Litespeed, that didn't last long.
[url= http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2684/4389733269_ecd966546c.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/4389733269/ ]crack[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
Lemond, that didn't last long
[url= http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3391/3237647300_6245a68395.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/3237647300/ ]lemond-crack[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
Roly, he didn't last long
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4546460988_519725397b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/4546460988/ ]roly snappage[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
New Pompino, he didn't last long
[url= http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5209/5300603414_fb85c9070b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/5300603414/ ]snapped pompino[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
White Industries cranks, they didn't last long
[url= http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/5454600810_8dc31cd2d8.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/5454600810/ ]crack[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
Cogs? Should I include those too?
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/500790956_7e978e137b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/500790956/ ]cog[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/203/506635041_12eb30caeb.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/506635041/ ]cog[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
How about handlebars?
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/122/264038810_618a6d53ae.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/264038810/ ]bars1[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
I'm sure I've missed some stuff off.....