Cracked aluminium downtube, advice needed

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Thanks Brucey, very informative. You're right about the fork, It says kinesis on it.

Will probably strip the bike and sell items of worth.

Cheers

[Brucey]

if you like the way the bike worked, and all the other parts are in good condition, why not just get another frame/frameset and fit all those bits to it? Almost any 'road frameset' with a quill stem and a 1"steerer will accept all the parts you have without too much difficulty; the only wrinkles are likely to be the seat pin (which IIRC is 27.0 or 27.2mm in that frame? -both are common sizes) which might have to be replaced, and the front mech mount, which might necessitate that you buy a band-on adaptor. Those parts will cost about £25 or so.

A new welded aluminium frameset can be had from as little as £99 eg here;

http://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/components/frames-forks/frames/

-with the parts you already have, add a new handlebar stem (to go with the 1-1/8" steerer) headset etc and you could be back in action for not a vast amount.

cheers

[Vorpal]

I would still consider a long-cycle fatigue failure in a steel bicycle frame to be extremely unusual.

Does this occur after a LEJOG, or a RTW?
Could your frame die from HCF if you go over the Pennines? Or would it need to be the Alps?

long-cycle fatigue is more like after 50 or 100 LEJoGs.

[Brucey]

there are some frame fatigue test results here;

http://sheldonbrown.com/rinard/frame_fatigue_test.htm

however I disagree with JA's view that these tests 'are of prime importance'; I am more inclined to the views expressed here

http://www.tomsarazac.com/tom/opinions/frame-test.html

in relation to these tests.

cheers

[TrevA]

Today we took my wife's bike with a cracked frame to the retailer(Evans). Even though it is 6.5 years old and we didn't have a receipt, they managed to find a record of the sale on their system so accepted the bike for an inspection and will forward the bike to Specialized if the crack is confirmed ( you can clearly see the BB shell is cracked with the naked eye). We'll see how far it gets. I had a similar problem with my Trek and the frame was replaced under warranty after 3 years use.

Check with the manufacturer to see if they offer a warranty on the frame - some do, some don't. I was talking to the guy in Evans and he tried to claim from BMC for a cracked frame but was unsuccessful.