Does this look like a crack to you?

I’m not 100% convinced…

Anyway..fixed it now..

DrP

RIP Tripster…

Double bugger!

Looks like 2 now

Oof, not cool 🙁

Looks cracked to me… 😥

Yikes. That’s awful.

Word of warning – it’s not always your bottom bracket making an awful “shearing titanium creaking” sound when you pedal.
Sometimes it’s other things..

DrP

It’s the shame of being put away without being cleaned.

I’d check that Chromag too.

Structural mud innit…

DrP

That’ll buff out

Is that 2 Tripsters you’ve broken?
Have you been wearing a fox hoody?

a good reason to never buy titanium.

owned 2 ti frames in the past, both cracked within a year of purchase.

Ouch, that’s crap 🙁

Do Ti bikes have a higher failure rate than other materials? Everyone I know that’s had one (of various brands), it’s snapped (confirmation bias?).

I thought Ti was supposed to be really strong? Hence using it to make spaceships and other cutting edge stuff?

I thought Ti was supposed to be really strong?

depends how you use it….

Oooof, that’s not good. Brilliant repair, you should patent that!

Presumably it can be replaced under warranty? Still a pain though

Do Ti bikes have a higher failure rate than other materials? Everyone I know that’s had one (of various brands), it’s snapped (confirmation bias?).

I think – possibly yes. I’ve broken a couple. Could be people who buy Ti frames keep them longer, or ride them harder, or even that Ti frames are more likely to be designed with low weight in mind.
Either way, it took a long conversation with Dan @ Stanton before I laid down my money for a Ti Slackline. So far, 2 years later and lots of drops / jumps and it’s holding up great. So I think, like most things, it comes down to design.

Do Ti bikes have a higher failure rate than other materials?

in 30 some years I have never snapped or cracked a steel frame.
so I would say yes for me.

Nasty. It’s threads like this which put me off buying a Ti bike/frame*. I have no idea if Ti is more susceptible to cracking like this, than other materials, but Ti frames tend to cost a bit more, so you want to have the reassurance it’ll be good.

“a good reason to never buy titanium.”

You’d better tell the entire space/aerospace industry then, they use quite a lot of the stuff…

*I’m sure Ti is a perfectly good material, I’m more concerned with the quality of materials and manufacture involved in making bicycle frames. There’s probably a world of difference between the manufacture of safety critical aerospace components, and bicycle frames.

Surprise not, titanium cracking who’d have thought.

Titanium is hard to weld and prone to fatigue failures.

“Titanium is … prone to fatigue failures.”

Blimey. I hope nobody makes springs out of the stuff then. 😯

That is not repaired, I can see neither gaffer tape nor zip ties.

White tape with blue barrel adjusters? 🙄
Standards DrP, standards are slipping.

Is that 2 Tripsters you’ve broken?

Nope..this is the first.

It was a scandal frame I broke last time.

and a commencal meta before that.

So Alu 2 : Ti 1 at half time….

DrP

Jubilee Clip ftw, Shirley?

Do Ti bikes have a higher failure rate than other materials?

I suspect people are more likely to post about a failure as it tends to be costlier and less expected.

People tend to talk about Ti as ‘a bike for life’ because it is corrosion resistant and is pretty resilient and will generally take the rest of their life to pay for it!. However as well as ‘ever-lasting’ people also expect a Ti bike to be light. I expect cracks are more a result of building down to a low weight than any particular fatigue-prone quality if the metal itself. But if a Ti bike was built primarily to be strong and as a result weighed almost as much as steel one then nobody would pay the 10x extra to buy one.

Do Ti bikes have a higher failure rate than other materials? Everyone I know that’s had one (of various brands), it’s snapped (confirmation bias?).

as a former professional metallurgist and a bit of a Ti fanboi, I’d say yes. I reckon Ti has the highest failure rate of any material used in frames. It might not corrode, and have a (pseudo) infinite fatigue life but it is so prone to oxygen contamination in welding that those benefits are moot.

I was idly looking at a Tripster frame as my insurance pay-out N+1, but my general thoughts around Ti, Kinesis’ short warranty and the fact Tripsters are failing kiboshed that. Half price Niner RLT Steel, hmmmm

I design my own titanium frames and have them built in China – between my current three and a number for mates, none have yet broken. Having had 30+ years of fabrication and ti experience. Having seen countless broken frames, particularly branded ones, my design philosophy is keep it simple, strong and avoid big changes in material section. This means cowled not plate drop-outs and non-shaped headtubes as these are the most stress-prone areas. Machined and tapered headtubes might look good, but they’re heavier and more expensive than a 50mm OD/44mm ID piece of tubing that provides a nice even shape to weld to.

just finished servicing an Enigma Ti road bike for a customer

this is his second frame (first lasted a year), the first developed a crack all around the down tube / head tube weld, which the customer was convinced was a creaking BB, until I pointed it out

despite my concern, he rode home on it 🙁

despite my concern, he rode home on it

I had the second half of my CX ride to finish on the above crack!
Needless to say, it was completed with less gusto than the first half…!

DrP

“a good reason to never buy titanium.”

You’d better tell the entire space/aerospace industry then, they use quite a lot of the stuff…

but reading through this post, we can safely say that my opening comment was correct, for a 20 stone bike rider commenting on Ti bikes failing.

It’s a sticker, you can see much more clearly in the 2nd photo.

The only bike I’ve ever killed was ti, split top and bottom along the nds chainstay.

Do titanium frames get stress relieved after they are welded? Most cracks seam to appear next to the welds. I wonder if the higher temps for welding Ti are causing localised stress points on the frames.

the thing with aerospace and titanium is they are very careful when welding the stuff, electron beam welding and vacuum chambers[/url] are common place. IIRC the wing box for the Tornado had to be sent to Grumman in the states to be welded because there wasn’t the facility here to do it.

might just be the paint 😉

DrP is about one quarter of ton’s weight… So have you contacted the warranty people DrP?

My winter road bike search is now stepping up a level..!

Warranty job, so all OK…
Upgrade will sort it 🙂

DrP

EDIT:

DrP is about one quarter of ton’s weight.

Just over half, actually 😉

I know that 😆

Good about the warranty 🙂 Maybe the creak isn’t my saddle… and I fell off last week…. oh gawd…

Just over half, actually

So you weigh just over half a Ton. No wonder it broke 😉

This is like a maths question at school…

If DrP weighs just over half a ton, and Ton weighs 20 stone, where is DezB’s frame cracked??

DrP