Sorting my SS out for a ‘race’ this weekend (well, when I say ‘race’ I really mean a big ride I’m paying to suffer through ha ha!) An hour or so of fettling/fiddling later and the bike is all sorted and feeling sweet, all good to go… unfortunately whilst putting it away I spotted this…

Crack by ten_sim, on Flickr

Those of you who’ve been on the forum for a while (like 3+ years) may remember this frame; I bought it secondhand off the classifieds (seller may well be on here still?) with the repair in place, I’ve ridden it a fair bit since then (mainly set up as a sweet SS) so have had good value from it definitely 🙂 , guess my luck just finally ran out on this one 😥 .

As a matter of interest, would any of you still ride this in a 75km ‘race’ as a last hurrah, or do you reckon it’ll all end in tears with a completely snapped frame and a DNF?

How much seatpost do you have in the frame? If the answer is ‘a lot’, then I’d give it one last ride and perhaps check on it every so often. Mark it at either end with a pen or some tape, so you can see if it’s growing during the ride.

Find the extreme ends of the crack and drill holes with a 1mm drill or smaller this should stop the crack growing anymore, has to be at the end or it will continue cracking..

looks like a sticker to me………. 🙂

stumpy01 +1

Thought it was gonna be the Bow Ti! Although isn’t it a Mojo?

As Grey has said.

You need to stop drill the crack to ensure if wont travel any further.

After that providing there’s plenty of post in the seat tube it will be perfectly useable.

No, WTF would you?

What material is it?

‘are you prepared to abandon the ride if it snaps/gets too bad?’ would be what I was askign myself.

IF the answer is yes then ride it if not then use another bike (I assume you have one).

I get about 3 ‘mammoth’ rides a year so I’d want to start knowing the bike I was on wasn’t likely to let me down.

will be fine if theres loads of seatpost in there

but Id take a load of gaffa tape in my camelback, just in case 😉

Probably been like that for a while… I’d ride it one last time to make sure its properly broken 😈

get it repaired? not too tricky to weld that one up and then it’ll be good as new with a cool scar on it. And chicks dig scars, so win win

I reckon you could probably get away with it one last time.
Now you know the crack is there you’ll going to naturally be a bit more careful about how much you load the seatpost, and I think that caution will get you through.

1) do the ride stood up
2) eat more pies and break it properly

why are there little spots appearing next to the crack?

Jubilee clip below seatclamp and on toptube?

How much seatpost do you have in the frame? If the answer is ‘a lot’

Yep, there’s plenty of seatpost inserted in there, it’s a long 400mm titanium post, so it’d be inserted well past the crack which should help support it a bit I guess?

Find the extreme ends of the crack and drill holes with a 1mm drill or smaller this should stop the crack growing anymore, has to be at the end or it will continue cracking..

How to locate the end of the crack? Visually? And do you need a special drill bit for titanium?

get it repaired? not too tricky to weld that one up and then it’ll be good as new with a cool scar on it. And chicks dig scars, so win win

It’s been repaired before, this crack is along the weld/repair line I think (you can kind of see it from the wee little dimples and the blurred welds on the top of the toptube/seattube joint.) I might try getting it repaired again, but not sure there’s anyone qualified in my town to weld titanium, will look into it…

why are there little spots appearing next to the crack?

See above 🙂

I do have another frame I can build up SS, an Ibis Tranny, but this is my favoured SS option (I love this frame and it’s build), but I’m not sure what the odds are of it making it through or not… Wouldn’t really like to DNF, this is a ‘challenge’ ride for me and I want to finish…

it’s long, so it’d be inserted well past the crack…

Chortle..

DrP

snigger 😆

Thought it was gonna be the Bow Ti! Although isn’t it a Mojo?

Nope, a more modern frame than that… The Bow Ti no longer lives with me, it didn’t make the cull to come back to Australia, which I now hugely regret 🙁 😥

psychle – Member

And do you need a special drill bit for titanium?

No, but it’s not very easy to drill- you need good drill bits and some idea of what you’re doing 😉 Titanium both heat and work hardens if memory serves.

But if you’ve got any thoughts of repairing it, then don’t **** about with it, speak to Enigma about a repair maybe- they did a nice job on my Soda with 2 pretty similiar cracks.

Bit of duct tape to fix and an extra pad in yur shorts in case it (or you) lets go mid ride

Zip tie’ll see it reet.

You will die and/or gain a second bumhole. 😯

I wouldn’t worry, that’s just a scratch in the paint.

…is that a Pace?

I don’t think the fact you’ve got lots of seat post in there matters – the crack still initiated and propogated with the seatpost in there, so the seatpost is not doing a very good job of reducing stresses in that area. It might help prevent a sudden catastrauphic failure, but wont prevent or slow down any further crack propogation.

Well the crack is along an existing repair that’s failed (after 3+ years), but I guess it will still/may propogate along that line (in fact, looking at the back of the seat tube it has continued around further…

Not willing to risk this snapping completely on the big ride tomorrow, would be annoyed to DNF due to a frame failure I knew about going in (would be different if I’d only spotted this tomorrow morning!), so I’ll be riding the Tranny instead…

Do we think drilling wee holes at the crack ends will help stop further spread? Or too far gone? Not that I’ll be riding it really, so might just hang her on the wall until I have the cash to send it off to the manufacturer for a replacement at wholesale (which they offered to me a long time ago, wonder if they’ll remember the deal nowadays ha ha)

…is that a Pace?

Nope, not a Pace…

That’s an Indy Fab, isn’t it?

Drilling it will not be so easy either looks like you might have a bifurcation ther.