When or if do you replace handlebars, stem and forks?

[lxs602]

I inherited the bike below. I now found out it has done ~25,000 miles.
https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/m...g-this-out-worth-keeping.302615/#post-7404815

Leonard Zinn recommends replacing the handlebars, fork and stem every 25000 miles in his book on bike maintenance, saying something on the lines of, "all handlebars will break due to fatigue, but the trick is not to be riding when they do" (I haven´t the book to hand, but I will correct this quote soon).

It is an aluminium bike, and I am aware that fatigue will vary with material, build design, quality of welding, etc., as discussed in this article on Sheldon Brown´s website. (It is an article on frames however, rather than on handlebars, forks and stems).
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/frame_fatigue_test.htm

The bike probably wouldn´t be worth keeping if these needed replacing, and I wouldn´t want to give someone a frame that might suddenly break.

What do you think?

 

[Paulus]

I inherited the bike below. I now found out it has done ~25,000 miles.
https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/m...g-this-out-worth-keeping.302615/#post-7404815

Leonard Zinn recommends replacing the handlebars, fork and stem every 25000 miles in his book on bike maintenance, saying something on the lines of, "all handlebars will break due to fatigue, but the trick is not to be riding when they do" (I haven´t the book to hand, but I will correct this quote soon).

It is an aluminium bike, and I am aware that fatigue will vary with material, build design, quality of welding, etc., as discussed in this article on Sheldon Brown´s website. (It is an article on frames however, rather than on handlebars, forks and stems).
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/frame_fatigue_test.htm

The bike probably wouldn´t be worth keeping if these needed replacing, and I wouldn´t want to give someone a frame that might suddenly break.

What do you think?

Is there any signs of visible damage, ie. Cracks, dents? With the Fork, are they bent, damaged, rusted through?
If not, then I would say there is no problem. Carry on riding the bike.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Personally I would feel that bike with 25,000 miles on frame and components has served its life. I ride 11-12,000 miles per year in all conditions (winter and summer bikes). Bars and stem probably get 3 years on the winter bike and 5 on the summer. Forks are retired with the frame. I don't sell bikes on as a general rule as they are knackered by the time I replace them, the retired bike goes on the turbo and the turbo bike will go in the shed!

 

[All uphill]

Do you scrap your car at 25,000 miles?

 

[HLaB]

Personally, I've never changed forks and would only intend to do so if I saw damage. I have actually changed my bars but only after a bike fit. The original 42cm bars were on two frames for I guess 45,000 miles and my current 40cm were transferred from my last frame to the current frame as they fit my shoulders (at a guess I put them on the old bike in 2016 after a bike fit and done about 20,000 miles on them and they've been on the current bike for nearly 33,000 miles; 53,000miles in total). Other than fit/comfort though I wouldn't purposely change them.

 

[Animo]

All those lot who do the Eroica seem to manage to get round a couple of hundred Ks on gravel roads on bikes from the 1980s and earlier without their forks and handlebars snapping en masse.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

25000 miles is nothing to be worried about, if the bike hasn't been crashed etc. I'm in the camp of not changing unless I could see damage.

 

[Drago]

At work we'd replace alloy handlebars every two years, which was the advice from IPMBA (and also MIAS for civilian MTBers) at the time. Sure enough, once removed the odd one did indeed so visual signs off stress and fatigue.

Of course, those bikes led a very hard life, often at the hands of multiple riders. On a well cared for personally owned bike id be happy to extend that out to between 5 years and a decade, depending on the level of use.

Steel is a different boiling vessel of aquatic life.

 

[Drago]

Do you scrap your car at 25,000 miles?

If it were made from alloy handlebars I would.

 

[Venod]

I have never scraped any bike bits through fatigue worries, but I have changed several things from having visible damage, but having said that I did ride a Cannondale aluminium frame with minor damage to a seat stay for several thousand miles.
A mates son has just had a aluminium seat post shear of flush with the top of his carbon Ribble frame, it was less than a year old, Ribble did send him a free replacement and commented "that they had never seen this happen before"