Question about aluminium frame challenge to carbon fibre frames?

[Mr Celine]

Spesh Sirrus bought new January 2006

Best bike for 4 years, then relegated to winter and commuting use.

November 2021, after 15,000 miles and 15 Scottish winters with all the road salt which that entails the paint was flaking off the chainstays which were gradually turning to powder. A lot of poking around with a sharp awl showed the damage was cosmetic and the frame was still sound.

But after a grit blast and powder coat ...

...as good, if not better, than new and ready for another 15 winters.

 

[kingrollo]

It's hilarious. We've had steel, aluminium, ti, carbon frames between the family.

One steel and one ti have failed. No carbon or aluminium failures.

Surely it's a quality control issue rather than the material it's self ?

 

[wiggydiggy]

Surely it's a quality control issue rather than the material it's self ?

Yes.

The Giant frame that failed on me was replaced like for like under warranty and has been fine.

 

[kingrollo]

Yes.

The Giant frame that failed on me was replaced like for like under warranty and has been fine.

It's good that giant at least replaced the frame.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Resurgence sounds out of place as the material properties have not changed. All/alloy continue to be popular for entry level and general purpose biking as they are affordable and serves its purpose. Yes their primary issue is metal fatigue but that only comes on a well used bike over many years and where the joints are not triple butted. Believe me its great value for its price.

Carbon is lighter and hence popular for those who can afford it and into serious cycling. A well looked after carbon can last decades and will not fall to pieces. Its only problem is it is not impact resistance compared to all other material in cycling.

Steel, Ti etc are popular with certain segments and more niche and well appreciated by their owners.

Nothing has changed over the last few decades material wise while many bike features such as design and accessories have come and gone.

If resurgence is to be applied to a bike material it should be steel frame bikes that have seen emergence of young artisan custom builders who charge around £3k and more with many placing custom orders and prepared to wait for months. Truly labour of love with many that are fall into the work of art classification.

 

[keithmac]

I've had aluminium framed bikes for 35 years or more and never had a failure, all mine now are aluminium and no issues at all.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

This thread is cheerfully ironic to me as I just found horizontal scores on the upper inside of my nearly new giant aluminium road bike, which has a carbon fork - worried about the fork imploding under load, I was under the impression that carbon is less durable than metal

Carbon fibre is a very good structural material when loaded as designed in a predictable way. The problem is it doesn't take well to localised impacts against hard edges or sharp objects or unforseen loadings.
Drop a carbon frame against the corner of a low brick wall and you might start a crack. Drop a steel or alloy frame against the same wall and you'll likely get a dent. Plain gauge steel frames are the most abuse-resistant but also the heaviest like for like. Choose light weight or choose durable if knocked around. You don't get both in the same frame.

 

[bonzobanana]

I noticed the other day that higher end bikes are filtered out from being sent to Africa as unsuitable where as entry level steel bikes without suspension are sent and sold here (see image below). Halfords have donated 120,000 bikes for Africa. In the harsh environment of Africa without proper roads and used constantly components need to last as long as possible and be durable and of course need to be cheap to replace plus if a frame or fork needs re-welding it has to be high tensile steel. So the so called quality bikes here become sub-quality over there in such a harsh environment for bikes. Back along I saw on a youtube video a similar charity in Japan which again was sending stronger more basic bikes to Africa and maybe a common charity setup across the world. 120,000 is quite a lot I'm sure that has done a staggering amount of good in Africa, hats off to Halfords there.

https://re-cycle.org/buy-a-bike/

I don't recognise the brands on those bikes so makes me think another countries bike donations are shown there. You can see every bike has a quill stem and rigid forks plus decent tyre width. No threadless headsets because those aren't height adjustable, no suspension as its high maintenance, no aluminium frames and forks as will fatigue quickly in such an environment. All just practical long life bikes capable of taking abuse.

 

[wafter]

Surely it's a quality control issue rather than the material it's self ?

Taken to its logical extreme / in a best-case-use scenario I'd agree, however taking CFRP as an example it's both difficult to manufacture to an acceptable standard, and difficult to test / inspect post-manufacture (one assumes that not every £1k CFRP frame is ultrasonically tested / X-rayed before dispatch - unlike, I suspect composite components in other safety-critical applications such as aerospace).

Plus, once out of the factory gates it's at the mercy of the user and arguably is more likely to fail unpredictably if mistreated..

 

[fossyant]

God there is some crap written in this thread. Steel, carbon, aluminium, titanium, all serve well as a frame material. I've never had any carbon, steel or aluminium bikes/parts fail - the only titanium I have has been saddle rails, and they have been fine too.

All materials can suffer from user abuse and poor build quality - given the state of some folks bikes on here, I'm not surprised when stuff fails .

 

[Sharky]

The only fails I've had are,
- a rear Miche track hub(alloy) , used for fixed gear timetrials. The spokes ripped the eyelets in the flange of the hub.
- seat stay in a ribble frame set (steel) rusted through from the inside.
- a simplex nylon gear lever snapped off at the start of a 25. Had to ride the whole of the event in a 100+gear.

 

[ianrauk]

I used a Boardman Comp (£600) road bike originally but laid it up after 5 years use

I hope you passed the bike onto someone else so they could get many years of great cycling out of it.

 

[matticus]

God there is some crap written in this thread. Steel, carbon, aluminium, titanium, all serve well as a frame material. I've never had any carbon, steel or aluminium bikes/parts fail - the only titanium I have has been saddle rails, and they have been fine too.

Do you believe that parts ever fail? Concluding from "I've had no failures" that all those materials must be fine, is to use your own words, "some crap".

 

[fossyant]

Do you believe that parts ever fail? Concluding from "I've had no failures" that all those materials must be fine, is to use your own words, "some crap".

Plenty on this thread are dissing aluminium frames. Now't wrong with them and in some circumstances carbon isn't better. Would I have a carbon MTB - absolutely no chance given some of the massive rock strikes my alloy MTB has had.

Cannondale, for example, make some alloy frames that are at least equal to their carbon ones, and almost as light.

As I as said, there is nothing wrong with any material mentioned.

 

[fossyant]

Do you believe that parts ever fail? Concluding from "I've had no failures" that all those materials must be fine, is to use your own words, "some crap".

PS we are talking frames mainly.