OK – so what frames have failed on you then?

Fundamentally, having seen Trailquestgraham’s post about his broken Lynskey and seen various others on here, and in the spirit of sharing the heartache (having a Lynskey myself) I want to know who else has had what frames fail on them.

So bring out your dead.

For me:
1998 GT Zaskar – Frame replaced under warranty
2000 ish Airborne Lucky Strike – I bought it second hand.
Various Cove Paint Failures (too many to mention) – 3 frames replaced and 1 respray under warranty.

Paint failures? Was it load-bearing?

iron horse flag staff
speciaized hardrock
Marin B17
Dmr Trailstar
Mr Big ST10

Only one that has failed rather than been killed by accident damage. That was an Airborne Valyrie road bike,crack at seatstay/seattube junction. Was relplaced under warranty.

Marin Nail Trail
CRC Alloy frame
numerous DMR Trailstars

Although the DMR’s were good fun to ride.

1992 Kona Cindercone (Downtube buckled, don’t know why)
1996 Kona Hei Hei – Seat tube cracked
On One Inbred 853 – Chainstay gave out to chainsuck, reapired and still in use.

And I’ve snapped a Sanderson as well, and a couple of sets of forks

1. Peugeot Road bike – both dropouts snapped (pretty sure the second when the first one broke
2. 1995 Kona Kilauea – snapped RH dropout (since repaired and still in use)
3. GT Edge road frame – seat tube snapped just above the BB weld
4. Dolan Road frame – RH dropout snapped
5. Scott G-Zero – cracked at the seat ‘tube’
6. Pace RC303 – cracked at the top of the seat tube/top tube gusset weld (Pace replaced under warranty)
7. Rocky Mountain Element – broke at the dropout
8. Giant NRS – Grrr… pretty sure it was already cracked when I bought it second hand off here…

Hmmm I’ve broken a few dropouts, haven’t I…

2002 transition preston (after 5 years)
2007 transition preston fr (after 5 rides)
2007 transition preston fr (after 2 rides)

The first one i was fine with, the latter 2 got warranteed really quickly and the 4th frame was a different design.

(having a Lynskey myself)

Are you worried mate?

Raleigh 501 road frame – head tube cracked
Sirius 653 cross frame – down tube snapped (during a race)
Cannondale 2.8 road frame – seatstay snapped
Kinesis ally road frame – b/b shell came away from frame (during a race)
Raleigh Ti road frame – chainstay cracked
Kinesis Evo ally/carbon cross frame – chainstay cracked
Ambrosio carbon road frame – seat tube cracked
Van Tuyl Ti cross frame – chainstay cracked

I think that’s it 😳

Cracked a Prometheus crashing (fixed it too!); also did this:

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brokenbike2[/url] by alan cole[/url], on Flickr

Pace RC300 head tube cracked

2000 Marin Mount Vision (4 years old) – BB fell off
2004 Marin Mount Vision (a year or two old) – cracked just above the BB on the underside of the down tube.

ATB replaced it asap
(kinda annoyed I didn’t manage to break it again & get a ‘new’ shape MV 😉 )

Raleigh Tuff Burner around 1986, seat tube cracked at the bottom bracket.

Trek Fuel ex 9 broke at brake mount after 4 weeks..
Scott Spark, only seat stays on frame are original..lol 3 years old
Older trek ex9 fuel frame, ovalized head tube…but my fault for running 8 inch disks on it.

Rocky Mountain ETSX70 after many years but it was just poor design

Specialized epic
Specialized Big hit

plus have seen alot of stuff that really shouldn’t have broken but have 😉

Alpinestars Al Mega (raised chain stay),8 months almost every weld cracked.
Specialized Sirrus Pro, chain stay cracked after years of use.
Tomac 98 Special, top tube/head tube weld cracks.

1993 Rocky Mountain Blizzard – bottom bracket stretched – warranty
1993 Rocky Mountain Blizzard – Rear brake boss bent from factory – warranty
1995 Rocky Mountain Blizzard – seatstays cracked – warranty
1995 Trek 9900 OCLV Team Issue – brake boss snapped off – warranty
1995 Trek 9900 OCLV Team Issue – bottom bracket fell out – warranty
1997 Kona Explosif – dropout cracked after 11 years – welded up as my singlespeed
1999 Intense Uzzi SL. Seatmast snapped, 2 x chainstay cracked, 2 x seatstays cracked – I ran this for 6 years
2004 Balfa Minuteman – seat-tube cracked
2010 Whyte 19 steel – cracked dropout – warranty

I tend to keep my bikes for a few years… I’ve only owned two frames that I’ve not broken. The Nicolai Nucleon I just sold and the Nicolai Helius AM which I’ve only had for a year. There is one other frame I didn’t break which is a Trek 8900 from 2002 but I wore it out – the threads in the bottom bracket seemed fine but bottom brackets always got loose in it even with PTFE tape or threadlock etc.

I’m on the lookout for a new hardtail… certain Ti frames are off my list :o)

Cotic Soda. 3 smallish cracks on bottom of downtube propagated from creased dents (rock strikes).

I large crack across seat tube/top tube junction which I didn’t notice, attributing the creaking noises to the cracks I knew about. I gave the frame to a mate to have a go at welding the downtube cracks and he spotted the big one straight away.

?? Emmelle californian ridden into a parked car, warranty replacement(!)
94 kona lava dome, drive side drop out cracked/split was over 10years old by then tho
97 GF montare, cracked top tube warranty replaced with…
00 GF supercaliber, cracked seat tube in 09, probably still under warranty I found out just after I binned it 🙁
?? Kinesis xc>120 cracked chainstay

Scott Tigua – chainstay snapped (reapired using some rods and to hell with what it did to heat treating) and top of seat tube snapped off

Scoot G-Zero – Crack in shock mount on swing arm. Replaced swingarm.

Both were quite old at time of death

tomac eli cracks on nearly every weld possible
litespeed unicoe bottom bracket failure

ibis mojo paint problems replaced even though over 3 years old
really good service from ibis themselves as shop over here left me out in the cold pre 2pure

Can’t believe it’s taken this long…..

2009 Commencal Meta 5 frame – seat tube/top tube weld

The only one in recent years was a Cannondale Prophet MX which cracked and failed after around 15 minutes of owning it.

orange sub zero
snapped frame above the seat tube/crossbar joint.
asked orange to weld me a gussett onto the frame to stop it happening again.
they refused.
then brought out the sub zero with the gussett where i wanted mine about 4 month later.

Cove handjob

Intense Tracer (twice)

Ritchey P22 – fell to bits after 12 months. Light though
Marin Pine Mountain Full sus. Pivot failure
Early Yeti 575 – Carbon flex joint cracked
Santa Cruz Heckler – Swingarm split at disc tab
Specialized Enduro – seat tower cracked.
Ti 465 – Yes
Orange Vit-T – Shame that.

Best warranty? Specialized. They couldn’t have been better. Worst? Santa Cruz. If you have a Blue frame, you don’t want a red swingarm.

Specialized Big hit

That’s good going!

My old one felt indestructable.

ribble reynolds steel road bike – snapped top tube
kona stab primo 2002 – cracked shock mount
kona stab primo 2003 – bent the downtube in a crash
crc alloy xc frame – crack seat tube/top tube weld

2006 Trek Top Fuel 110- cracked at alloy BB/carbon seat tube junction after 18 months- warranty frame replacement was:
2008 Trek Fuel 9.8- cracked at carbon suspension mount/down tube junction after 38 miles – warranty frame replacement was:
2009 Trek Top Fuel 9.9SSL – cracked at rocker pivot on seat tube after 4 months- warranty replacement was:
2009 Trek EX9 whole bike for frame replacement ( didn’t want the replacement carbon frame they offered, very good of them to give credit towards whole new bike)- all the bits left over are now on my hardtail

All I can say is I was unlucky with carbon frames and that Trek UK were brilliant in sorting it all out (thanks Colin) and I am still very happy with the EX9 two years on

1983 raleigh burner seat stay crack
1983 mongoose californian chainstay snapped
1984 haro master headtube crack
1989 diamond back topanga u brake mount weld come away
1993 alpinestars al mega dx seat stay crack
1999 GT sts d/h crack bottom bracket shell (4 days old )!!!

must be more ! cant believe not snapped a bike in 12 years !

Trek 930, cracked at the chainstay/bottom bracket weld, replaced under warrenty
Trek 920, same as above, also replaced under warrenty
Old Peugeout race, cracked at the top of the seatstay, binned as it was old and dead and racers are designed to jump…

I’ve never broken a MTB frame. Must try harder.
Late 80s Raleigh 501 steel road bike, snapped at downtube/head tube junction in approx 1993. Replaced under Warranty. Bought first mountain bike 1994.
Numerous steel road frames broken doing jumps n stuff when I was in my early teens- replaced by skip scavenging.

What I’ve done (surprised because I don’t break bikes):

Gary Fisher Big Sur (new frame after crack left BB hanging off almost!)
On One Ti 456 (still no answer after emailing and calling all day so don’t know yet)

What I’ve maybe contributed to (bikes I’ve ridden as little as once in some cases):

Cube Fritzz (chainstay broken right through)
Yeti ASR-5 (chainstay broken after a few rides by the customer)

1997 Zaskar – crack slowly spreading round seat tube (still riding tho!)
2003 Blur – clean through seat tube. One of the dodgy weld batch. 2006 Blur XC as replacement – had to pay for swingarm tho 🙁 – still, kudos to Jungle for sorting me out as it was just out of warranty.

Must be something about my riding style that busts seat tubes?!?!

2 x Kona Muni-Mula Ally Frames, Seat tube to Top Tube Junction
1 x Kona explisif Steel Frame, Seat tube to Top Tube Junction
1 x Cannondale Super V Rear Triangle

Anyone keeping tabs on this – looking like Kona’s are pretty crap scanning this list?

Broke my Hemlock at the chainstays… Known issue of course so I wasn’t that surprised, especially considering the use the bike gets put to… what did surprise me was that Cotic couriered me a free set of the upgraded chainstays, even though I told them I’m the second owner so no warranty. Had it built back up 3 days after it broke. Never has a broken frame made a man so happy

Whyte PRST-1 in 2003. The disc bake calipers were mounted onto cheap cast plates which attached to the frame and forks. Riding down a single track road braked to move out of he road of a wee 7.5 ton tipper. Bridging plate on front forks failed jamming caliper into the wheel, snapping it clean off just above the caliper and folding then snapping away to the right closer to the headtube on the right hand fork leg. Proper face plant! Nice bloke in the tipper stuck the bike on the back and took me home. ATB were gonna replace the forks but Chris at J.E James in Sheffield where i bought the bike said to them “you wanna see the state of his face, I think you might want to make some kind of goodwill gesture”. Few weeks later they’d put all the parts off the PRST-1 onto a PRST-4 which is still going strong. Luckily that’s all that’s screwed up on me…

Ragley Ti – cracked headtube.

Amazing service, replaced frame before Id even sent back faulty one!