Bicycle frame crack

Asked 6 years, 11 months ago. Active 4 years, 2 months ago. Viewed 15k times. Improve this question. Matthew Matthew 3 3 gold badges 10 10 silver badges 22 22 bronze badges. Can it be repaired? Is it worth it? Probably not. I'm guessing the bike is too small for you, so the seat is really jacked up, and the amount of seat post in the seat tube is less than ideal. Or perhaps the post doesn't even come down that far. If you did not ride with the seat extended so far this would be a minor problem and you could just throw a hose clamp around the tube.

But with the seat extended there's too much stress for that. DanielRHicks I've added a photo to show the height of the seat-post. Not jacked up quite as high as I suspected. Where is the bottom end of the seatpost? I can answer that just as soon as I bring a spanner to the bike.

I strongly suspect that it's about where that crack is though — Matthew. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. I am going to get beat up for this but steel frames don't fail catastrophically.

I know this is kind of ghetto but put a couple hose clamps on the crack. If that was an aluminum frame I would tell you to throw it away. Improve this answer. I agree, basically. But the seat seems to be jacked up pretty far, and a longer post may not be available or at least uneconomical -- last I looked seat posts were ridiculous. A fact that he was able to post this question is testimony that steel frames don't fail catastrophically. He came home alive and even the frame is in one piece.

Or buy one if you never had one. Check the alignment. If your bike just doesn't seem to handle right since you crashed it or your brother borrowed it, the frame might be out of alignment. This is a job for shops. But before you take the bike in, double-check to eliminate things that cause bad handling and can be mistaken for misaligned frames:. Bikes and Gear.

United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. The problem is that, sometimes, it can be difficult to tell whether your aluminum bike frame has cracked. In many cases, it may just be a small mark in the powdered coating.

If you are unsure whether it is a crack or not, the best option is to take your bike to a specialist and they will be able to tell. Alternatively, you can remove the powdered coating around the potential crack and get a better look.

Age is probably the main factor in a bike frame cracking. The older it gets, the weaker the material gets. The weaker the material gets, the more likely the frame is to crack. Simple as that. Of course, there are some manufacturers that will make stronger bike frames, and these will take a little bit longer to age.

The same goes for the amount of weight on the bike. If there is a heavier weight on the bike, it will be putting a lot more pressure on the bike frame. This will cause it to crack quicker. All Facts You Need to Know. Remember; one of the advantages of owning this type of bike is because there is so little maintenance that is required. The whole purpose of having a bicycle is to actually ride it, right?

All you really should be doing is wiping down your bike after every ride. While this may not reduce the chance of cracking, it can help to reduce the chance of scratches, which may potentially lead to weak spots in the future. Those weak spots, in turn, could become a crack. That—and the cost of the High Modulus carbon needed to realize the most heavily tweaked designs—is what makes the nicest carbon-fiber bikes so much more expensive than even their mid-line peers.

If you find any crack anywhere, stop riding the bike. Complicated fixes are more expensive, and recreating the original paint can increase the price dramatically. At a certain point, buying a new frame may be a better investment.

Carbon fiber composites have no fatigue limit, but that is not really the question to ask, since they do not behave like isotropic, hard i. But being a matrix, carbon is less predictable in its failure modes under fatigue. Can carbon be fixed? In fact, carbon fiber is one of the most repairable materials and each Appleman repair is covered by a 10 year warranty. If a carbon frame cracks from fatigue, it shows small crack in the paint, then splintering, and then it will look like crushed bamboo when it fails fully.