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Santa Cruz bike destruction test article on PB

frango

frango

Turbo Monkey
Jun 13, 2007
1,454
5
I think, all A-brands do it, too.

"Swing-A-Frame" test should become a standard in industry :D
 
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stiksandstones

stiksandstones

Turbo Monkey
May 21, 2002
5,078
25
Orange, Ca
Having been involved with Intense cycles in my past, who uses santa cruz's test lab, I am sure there are bigger guys with more elaborate machines perhaps, but knowing Joe Graney and his crew built these machines specific to their bikes needs and how dedicated they are to testing, its safe to say Santa Cruz bikes are probably the most engineered and tested bikes out there. I was always blown away at how much destructive testing they do, before bikes go to production. Thumbs up to these guys.
 
W

wood booger

Monkey
Jul 16, 2008
668
72
the land of cheap beer
Santa Cruz does a lot with a little. They have some ingenious fixturing and tooling and are the kings of making things work w/ what they have at hand. I love the concrete test tables, sweeet! They are the "A Team" of the bike industry, capable of fabricating a tank out of a few empty tuna cans.

That being said, there is another company just over the hill from SC whose test lab has millions of dollars in test and data acquisition equipment alone and more test engineers and technicians than SC does bike designers. You just don't get to see much that happens in there, but it is very impressive, as is the volume of frames/forks/bars/wheels, etc that goes through there.

Does Cannondale even have anything outside of Asia these days (machines or employees)? They pretty much liquidated the entire facility a few years back.

I would love to see TLD's pajama testing room, I am sure it is equally impressive! I envision huge beds to lay on and lots of sunglasses to protect your eyes from the glare. :eek:
 
p-spec

p-spec

Turbo Monkey
May 2, 2004
1,278
1
quebec
stiksandstones said:
Having been involved with Intense cycles in my past, who uses santa cruz's test lab, I am sure there are bigger guys with more elaborate machines perhaps, but knowing Joe Graney and his crew built these machines specific to their bikes needs and how dedicated they are to testing, its safe to say Santa Cruz bikes are probably the most engineered and tested bikes out there. I was always blown away at how much destructive testing they do, before bikes go to production. Thumbs up to these guys.
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kinda wish you were stil there :)

p.s great article to show people the diff between the forces both materials can take.
 
bdamschen

bdamschen

Turbo Monkey
Nov 28, 2005
3,377
156
Spreckels, CA
wood booger said:
Santa Cruz does a lot with a little. They have some ingenious fixturing and tooling and are the kings of making things work w/ what they have at hand. I love the concrete test tables, sweeet! They are the "A Team" of the bike industry, capable of fabricating a tank out of a few empty tuna cans.

That being said, there is another company just over the hill from SC whose test lab has millions of dollars in test and data acquisition equipment alone and more test engineers and technicians than SC does bike designers. You just don't get to see much that happens in there, but it is very impressive, as is the volume of frames/forks/bars/wheels, etc that goes through there.

Does Cannondale even have anything outside of Asia these days (machines or employees)? They pretty much liquidated the entire facility a few years back.

I would love to see TLD's pajama testing room, I am sure it is equally impressive! I envision huge beds to lay on and lots of sunglasses to protect your eyes from the glare. :eek:
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I've always wondered- what do you have to do when you get initiated into the Morgan Hill cult? Sacrifice a dog? Drink from the blood of innocents? Did the brain-washing ritual hurt?
 
Downhillbiker23

Downhillbiker23

Monkey
Aug 25, 2011
526
0
West Milford, NJ, 'MERICA
Santa Cruz testing process is immensely long and rigorous it seems. A plus to testing there bikes to such abuse! No wonder why there bikes are built so tough!

Kona must not have an extenssive testing facility. Same story with the snapping frames!
 
T

trib

not worthy of a Rux.
Jun 22, 2009
1,480
422
I have to say the difference between an Alu frame bending and the carbon frame splintering doesn't make me feel comfortable at all. Regardless of the extra force required to make carbon fail, it still can fail, plus you get the extra fun of carbon splinters....

Would still love a carbon frame though.

Also nothing beats FTW's 'stand on the swing arm and see how much it flexes' test. That was real pro testing and analysis work
 
baca262

baca262

Monkey
Aug 16, 2011
392
0
his testing methodology is, well, questionable. and those are roadie frames ffs, of course the carbon one will be paper thin.
 
4130biker

4130biker

PM me about Tantrum Cycles!
May 24, 2007
3,884
450
Very cool vid!
Does anyone know if they do the opposite of the Jra test- to simulate a 50/50 type case? I know that's the situation where I don't want the front coming off. Nose case- doesn't seem as important to rider safety.

Has anyone seen the specialized vid from roam special features? Similar glimpse into their testing of a demo 8 and pretty cool.
 
Huck Banzai

Huck Banzai

Turbo Monkey
May 8, 2005
2,523
23
Transitory
trib said:
I have to say the difference between an Alu frame bending and the carbon frame splintering doesn't make me feel comfortable at all. Regardless of the extra force required to make carbon fail, it still can fail, plus you get the extra fun of carbon splinters....

Would still love a carbon frame though.

Also nothing beats FTW's 'stand on the swing arm and see how much it flexes' test. That was real pro testing and analysis work
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Failing at 3x the expected maximum load? I wouldnt care if it burst into flames and destroyed everything in a 10' radius since it wont actually happen...
 
Udi

Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
4,915
1,200
4130biker said:
Very cool vid!
Does anyone know if they do the opposite of the Jra test- to simulate a 50/50 type case? I know that's the situation where I don't want the front coming off. Nose case- doesn't seem as important to rider safety.
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Yeah I wondered the exact same thing, because both the tests they showed essentially stressed the frame/fork in the same direction. A lot of jump/drop landings (especially flatter ones) would be stressing the frame in the opposite direction, in fact so would 'JRA' technically. I was surprised that was left out, hopefully just from the article / video - or maybe I missed it when I skimmed through both.
 
descente

descente

Monkey
Jul 30, 2010
430
0
Sandy Eggo
i would love to see what happens to the aluminum frame doing the drop test that broke the carbon. or the bang it on the wall trick. love seeing this kind of stuff!

still don't get the fear of carbon, the amount of force required to create those spectacular failures in a crash would most certainly result in a helicopter ride or worse for the rider.
 
descente

descente

Monkey
Jul 30, 2010
430
0
Sandy Eggo
Udi said:
A lot of jump/drop landings (especially flatter ones) would be stressing the frame in the opposite direction, in fact so would 'JRA' technically.
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i can imagine the failure point might even be higher as the down tube (which has significantly thicker cross sectional profile) would be the one being stressed in tension. just my hill billy guess tho. i wonder if the pivot axles/mounts would become the weak link. its also interesting to note that these tests were done on front triangles only, i'd like to see a complete frame in the squish test...

anyone else notice how much the steel "fork" was flexing in the first test before the carbon frame let go?
 
Huck Banzai

Huck Banzai

Turbo Monkey
May 8, 2005
2,523
23
Transitory
If you look through the pics, they have one jig that holds the bike at the axles and then forces it down at the seat tube:

p5pb7700231.jpg

Head on, and the above are the two biggest type of stresses/hits a frame can take - yesno? Aside from being hit with objects directly - like rocks, hammers and small wildlife.

A photo/video array of all the various machines and jigs would be very interesting to see.
 
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slyfink

slyfink

Turbo Monkey
Sep 16, 2008
9,331
5,087
Ottawa, Canada
what about repetitive stresses that are below the failure threshold? how does carbon deal with that? I guess I'm wondering if carbon could develop stress weaknesses over time that are not visible and then catastrophically fail at a lesser load than those frames were subjected to.

this is an honest question, not a troll. :)
 
Udi

Udi

RM Chief Ornithologist
Mar 14, 2005
4,915
1,200
Must have missed that one Huck, looks like the ticket.
What would be rad to see is someone taking the top 10-15 current DH frames, putting them through a bunch of these tests (the same for each frame) and then rating them. Obviously there'd be much more to a frame's durability than that (I imagine fatigue over time would affect them quite differently to these load-until-destruction tests), but it'd still be interesting to see some form of standardized durability testing.

Slyfink -
I believe carbon actually handles repetitive fatigue much better than aluminum, the original lahar frames were supposedly lasting many years over many owners. But a well designed alloy frame can last for a damn long time as well. I think the bigger issue for carbon than fatigue life is surface impact damage that can cause failures later, which SC seem to be trying to counteract by using smaller OD tubes with greater wall thicknesses.
 
R

ride979

Chimp
Nov 28, 2008
3
0
Sly:
The first carbon Nomad frame they tested at 1:15 had been fatigue tested, impact test and ridden for two year (in that order apparently) before the test in the PB video. Fatigue life seems okay.

As an aside, do frames made by US companies have to meet the CEN regulations if they are sold in Europe?
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,942
24,512
media blackout
Huck Banzai said:
If you look through the pics, they have one jig that holds the bike at the axles and then forces it down at the seat tube:

View attachment 110270

Head on, and the above are the two biggest type of stresses/hits a frame can take - yesno? Aside from being hit with objects directly - like rocks, hammers and small wildlife.

A photo/video array of all the various machines and jigs would be very interesting to see.
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i'm curious as to why they're loading it at the seat tube and not the bb... i don't know many people that land drops seated with their feet off the pedals. just sayin'.
 
T

trib

not worthy of a Rux.
Jun 22, 2009
1,480
422
It's more to do with having your feet blow off the pedals and slamming your undercarriage into the saddle I think. A mistake that can brake both bike and balls
 
Westy

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,440
20,239
Sleazattle
jonKranked said:
i'm curious as to why they're loading it at the seat tube and not the bb... i don't know many people that land drops seated with their feet off the pedals. just sayin'.
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With the cantilevered load I'm guessing applying the force at the seat tube is the worst case scenario. Most of the vertical load will be going through the BB anyway.
 
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4130biker

4130biker

PM me about Tantrum Cycles!
May 24, 2007
3,884
450
Good points here, but I'd guess that you guys are right and they didn't show every test
 
woodsguy

woodsguy

gets infinity MPG
Mar 18, 2007
1,083
1
Sutton, MA
jonKranked said:
They have an office in CT, and from what I've been told the Bedford, PA site is still open.
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Last I heard was that they build the Leftys and handle waranty stuff in PA and their HQ, design, engineering was in CT.

That video was impressive. Someday carbon will be the norm. I remember when alum was new people were saying how brittle it was compared to steel. They all said that the fatigue life was so low and that after a few years everyone would be going back to steel. So much for that. One thing to remember is that they aren't using carbon to save weight but to add stiffness. Modern carbon bikes are crazy stiff. And as this video shows much stronger than alum.
 
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