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What's your worst Bike/Component Faillure??? Here's mine!!!

Here are my worst Frame/component Faillures:

1st was my AZONIC EVOLUTION , The Head-tube snapped off, when I only got 2' of air!!! :mad:

2nd was my HANE-STINK/ PLANET-X BOMMER set-up , The fork steerer bent after only 3 days of riding, and at the same ime ovalized the H-tube of the P-X. bommer!!! :angry:

3rd was when I cracked PROFILE steel cranks on my CLIFCAT TANKASS !!! :confused:

4th was my KHS FR2000 , which the rear disk side drop-out was ripped-off by the break when I was doing s rock-walk!!! :confused:

5th(and most recent) was when I ovalized the h-tube of the CLIFCAT TANKASS !!! :angry:

So, whats your worst failed bike/part(try to include pics. if you got them)??? :thumb:
 

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Are you building your own bikes? Because if you are, you are doing somthing really, really wrong! If you are not, your mechanic is doing somthing really really wrong!

You should not be breaking so much stuff, so quickly, I'm gonna go with user error, not equiptment failure
 

smedford

Monkey
Jan 31, 2004
400
0
Bellingham, WA
BigMike said:
Are you building your own bikes? Because if you are, you are doing somthing really, really wrong! If you are not, your mechanic is doing somthing really really wrong!

You should not be breaking so much stuff, so quickly, I'm gonna go with user error, not equiptment failure
I agree. Two ovalized head tubes on some burly bikes?
 

patineto

The RM Mad Scientist
Feb 19, 2002
935
0
berkeley, ca
Great Idea for a Post...

sorry I have No pictures of any of this,,way to long in the pass..

*Circa 84" ....Collapse fork on my second Mountain bike, jumping on a BMX track,,,bad idea specially if you suck at jumping.

Damage .. Nothing I can remenber..

*around 88"... quick release failure on a rigid fork,,, happend on a downhill and the wheel came off , oviuslly the forks bend and also the head tube of my second hand made bike,,i was Pisse..

Maybe that is why most of my current bikes use 20MM axles.

*1991...Broken "Mission control" Klein handlebars,, just fail on me do to streess..

damage... scrapes all over, since i lost control of the bike at about 25MpH in a decent..

*1993...Softride Aluminum suspension stem...

I was showing how great the stem was to some clients at my bike shop in Colombia, doing some bunny hoops when the whole thing broke and the few parts left cut my upper lip(14 stiches) and broke my nose,, i try to sue softride for a incredible dangerous component but nothing happend since the accident happend outside the U.S.A.,,silly if you ask me...

anyway they send me a new one, with a bunch of swag and a letter saying that mine was "the Four stem that ever broke" and they were really sorry about it,, over the years (here in the states) I talk with many guys that got the "Same letter" saying that they were the IV person the ever contact them about this..

needless to say I did not install it again ,even if the concept was great and much better than the lamme ass forks of the ErA.

*1993...Mert Lawill suspension fork made by Kosman engeniering in san francisso out of Cro-molly (one out of 13 ever made at that shop),, the fork suffer a catrastrofic failure when the steering broke from the rest of the fork( Overheated tubes at the time of fabrication made the steer super weak),, needless to say the landing was king of hard.

*1994 Mag 21sl rockshox...
I was coming to the states to race the kamizaze in 1994, my lawill was broken and i was still waiting for a replacement,,
I end up mounting the Mag-21 and fold it in one of the "water bars" In the midlle of the course,,i was not so sad about the fork or being DNF of the race,,, but what really piss me off is that I bend my wonderful and Incredibly crazy Paragon machine works 60T downhill chainring when the fork collapse and the bottom braket was almost touching the ground,,Oh I was racing a Klein Rascal hardtail...

does were the "manlly man" days...

I think that is It....
exept for a few broken Cranks, bend bars, seatpost and crapy brake wires on downhill situations i'm still alive after almost 20 something years of riding MTB's.

Oh plus I got Mug and serouslly beetup by Five F^^KIng Gang members 3 days ago when I confront them after they vandalize My motorcycles on a Violent Rampage,, so i guess if I was a little weaker I will suffer far more damage in all this bike crashes..

now if you really want to talk about the really dificult failures,,the ones from the HeaRt we will need far to many pages...

I guess Life goes On, and you just need to keep Riding It no matter what..
 

Monkeybidnezz

Turbo Monkey
Dec 16, 2003
1,212
0
Pac NW
Dang, and to think I get ticked when I break derailers. If I went through frames like you do I couldn't afford to ride..especially considering how my tastes seem to exponentially get more expensive each year.
 

droplover

Monkey
Nov 3, 2004
173
0
Colorado
No manufacturer's defects here, but I did bend the nose down on my FR seat about 90deg. with my tailbone when my left foot slipped on a 13' landing...........yes, it hurt!
 

stinky6

Monkey
Dec 24, 2004
517
0
Monroe
I tacoed my front rim earlier this summer and just last week blew 5 spokes out of my rear rim, cracked the rim and lost all spoke tension. I just hit a rock that was kind of sharp while haulin through a high speed section on No Joke. The crappy thing was that I was about 3/4 of the way up the Garbanzo chair at Whistler so I had to take it really easy the rest of the way down so I wouldn't screw the wheel up to the piont of having to walk down. Luckily I made it down. The rim was a WTB Freeride rim.
 

BussaFrame

Monkey
Apr 19, 2005
197
0
I sheared the headtube of a Tomac 98 special, too bad the breaks didn't happen at the weld. It actually looked like the tubing exploded.

I also snapped the chainstay on a Klien Attitude.

Other than that it's a long list of tacod wheels and stupid fork mishaps.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
i snapped the stanchions of a stratos FR5 landing a small drop. i don't think i have any pictures anymore, but at one time Stratos had 'em on their site as what not to do (basically, the previous owner exceeded the torque limits on the crown pinch bolts, and weakened the legs).
 

Total Heckler

Beer and Bike Enthusiast
Apr 28, 2005
8,171
189
Santa Cruz, CA
Ovalized head tube on my heckler after 4 months of riding with a King headset on it. You could lift the headset out of the head tube, it was really bad.
 

Jayridesacove

Turbo Monkey
Feb 21, 2004
1,335
0
Falls Church, VA
Total Heckler said:
Ovalized head tube on my heckler after 4 months of riding with a King headset on it. You could lift the headset out of the head tube, it was really bad.
what kind of fork did you put on it? what year was the heckler?
 
BigMike said:
Are you building your own bikes? Because if you are, you are doing somthing really, really wrong! If you are not, your mechanic is doing somthing really really wrong!

You should not be breaking so much stuff, so quickly, I'm gonna go with user error, not equiptment failure


First off, I am not a light rider, at 270lb, "BUT" ,I have checked with the manucfacturers on every frame before buying it(this is why I have gotten warranties on every one of these), and they oked them!

Second, I am a mechanic, and have worked in several shops!

As for the ovalizations, the P-X only happened bacause of the fork bending, Which happened because HANE-STINK was over concerned w/light weight(steerer way too thin)! The other FAULT here is when I called up ADDRENALINE BIKES(mail order), and asked weather I should get the HANE-STINK or the 03 DJ1, he said the HANE-STINK(even tho I told him my weight and what I do!
The CLIFCAT was due to metal fatuige since I had been riding that for three years now! And this is agreed by Bill Millington(owner of clifcat), Which is why he is fixing it for me!!! Also the MONSTER-T on it in the pic., was ok'ed by Bill to be used on it and the ovalization didn't haped till I was using a 66RC, so that is how we figured it must be fatuige!

The only one which I will admitt was partly my fault was the KHS, because the brake mount is designed to take the braking force in one direction, and I was applying it in the other direction(rock-walk).
 
Monkeybidnezz said:
Dang, and to think I get ticked when I break derailers. If I went through frames like you do I couldn't afford to ride..especially considering how my tastes seem to exponentially get more expensive each year.

The thing is that I haven't lost any money on these(except shiping charges), b/c I do extensive research on the warranties, talking directly to the manufacturers, before buying anything(hense my signature on here)!

An example of this is when The profile cranks became avail. for MTB, everybody said you should get those, they are legendary! So I did, and I cracked them and had a bit of a hard-time w/the warranty!

After that, I called up TRUVATIV, and asked to talk to a highly technically inclined person, and when I got him, I started by saying: Let me just start off by saying that your being truthful w/me will spell the difference between me getting something that works for me, or you having a "Warranty NIGHTMARE"! So then I told him my weight and that I am into jumping/dropping on a 45lb H-tail bike, and that I had broken the profiles! I said I am interested in your HOLFELLER crank and want to know if they will work for me or fail on me!

He said they would work, so I took down hsi name and quoted him on it, and I have now been riding them for three years w/o any problems!!! :evil:
 

wood-dog

Turbo Monkey
Jun 20, 2005
1,008
0
the mid-west armpit!
Monkeybidnezz said:
Dang, and to think I get ticked when I break derailers. If I went through frames like you do I couldn't afford to ride..especially considering how my tastes seem to exponentially get more expensive each year.
Yep, what he said!
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
Just an FYI, check your frame/components a little more often. when a bike snaps from just a small drop, it usually means that it was cracked prior and just gave way at that time.

if you're ovalizing a lot of headtubes, check out either steel or 1.5. we've never had a failure or ovalization on one of our (alu) 1.5 headtubes on DH/FR bikes. just a thought.
 
dante said:
Just an FYI, check your frame/components a little more often. when a bike snaps from just a small drop, it usually means that it was cracked prior and just gave way at that time.

if you're ovalizing a lot of headtubes, check out either steel or 1.5. we've never had a failure or ovalization on one of our (alu) 1.5 headtubes on DH/FR bikes. just a thought.

Not to argue w/you man, but on that AZONIC, when that snapped, I took one look at the tube walls, and said "NO WONDER". The walls of those aluminum tubes were thiner than the walls of some steel frame tubes I have seen... Anybody knows that aluminum needs to be thicker than steel, and especially at the H-tube junction of a frame marketed for jumping!!!
 

rigidhack

Turbo Monkey
Aug 16, 2004
1,206
1
In a Van(couver) down by the river
My most catastrophic failures have all been on BMX bikes. The scariest was snapping a stem and the piece left in place stuck up out of the head tube like a dagger. (This was on a old skool aluminium pin type stem that dropped down into the steerer tube of the fork.) I got a nice slash on my chest, but if I had landed differently it could have gone through my sternum into my heart. Fortunately I was off balance when I landed, so when the bars and half the stem broke off in my hands, I went to the side instead of straight down.

I shore off a BB spindle once too, but no (major) bodily harm.

All my MTB equipment failures are comparatively minor (cracked frames, bent wheels, the usual stuff).
 

Downhiller

Turbo Monkey
Sep 20, 2004
1,498
0
CROATIA....europe....CROATIA
one fully--frame only
two or more BB
i dont count how many pedals, seats,rims, spokes, axles, one or more crank set, chain rings, head sets, chains i broke cca. 1 on month ..etc.

i all most brake everything on bike
 

ridetoofast

scarred, broken and drunk
Mar 31, 2002
2,095
5
crashing at a trail near you...
see signature.

had a fatigue crack at headtube/downtube junction that i didnt know about.

hit a small root/bump in trial down tube let go, unbeknownst to me, all i heard was a weird click sound. i had just enough time to say to the dude behind me, did you hear that? at that time i was committed to about a 6' gulley/whoop-de-doo type depression. then my top tube let go, and my bike literally separated into 2 pieces. the ONLY thing holding it together was the rear brake cable. i fell through the bike with the top tube missing the boys by a mere 2 inches. the only reason i wasnt impaled at the inner thigh was because i was wearing lyrca shorts so they didnt bunch up. otherwise, loose shorts would have bloused up, caught the tube, and cut the beejebus out of the inside of my thigh. as it was i had a ~ 14" massive bruise on the inside of my thigh that left a mark lasting about 6 months. i can't bitch though as this happend in 04 and the frame was a pre trek 93 klein rascal so i think its safe to say i got my money out of it. i still have the frame so ill post some pics this weekend.
 

allsk8sno

Turbo Monkey
Jun 6, 2002
1,153
33
Bellingham, WA
i broke a bmx bike... and also some derailures. wheels and square taper bb...that was fun i dropped down a double set and the crank arm was left at the bottom of the set...i was just goin to meet my friend to go on a ride too
 

Grizzle

Monkey
Sep 7, 2005
216
0
La Crescenta, CA
norco-freerider said:
snapped the chainstays on my vps shore, then snapped my seat tube /main pivot weld on my scream a few months ago

That is a total manufacturing defect. If you look at the weld, there was no penetration to the lower piece of metal, just the upper one. Basically, the person doing the welding was not using a hot enough arc, probably because they were afraid of burning a hole in the aluminum. Its a pretty weld, but not an effectiv weld. Whenever i weld aluminum, i either weld it from both sides, or lay down two beads, one on top of the other, so that the weld is absolutely the strongest part of the tubing. If they did not cover that, i would never buy anything from them again, same with any company that will not cover a weld break.
 

BSEVEER

Monkey
Dec 23, 2004
248
0
SoCal
I cracked a Mountain Cycle San Andreas swingarm racing at Keysville. Plenty of derailleurs and wheels but that's about it.
 

Sir_Crackien

Turbo Monkey
Feb 7, 2004
2,051
0
alex. va. usa.
2001 messed up bushing is a pyslo race with in 2 weeks of each other
2002 i have mutalited a rear der (i could find all the parts)
2002 some how ovalized 2 20mm hubs (yes the hubs)
2003 on a i cracked a swing arm twice in the year
2004 striped a pedal thread doing a 6-7' to flat drop on a hardtail
2004 macked a Mag30 like no one else, not its fault though
2005 blowen up a stance kingpin more than i would like to admit to
count less seat and seapost (well like 5 of each in total)
also i brake about 1 set of pedal about ever 9 mounts for the past 3 years.
also i have thorw a couple of tires

btw i ride part for the application that they are intended for
but i'm a big person and i just break parts

though all of this i have found out that Mag30's are really really strong, wellgo make the pedals that last the longest, don't spend alot of money on ders, but buy the best crank you can afford.
 

PatBranch

Turbo Monkey
Sep 24, 2004
10,451
9
wine country
I cracked my gary fisher level betty.

At cambria bicycle outfitters, poncho saw paint coming off the shock mounts and told me that there was a lot of stress there. He took some paint off and there weren't any cracks, but weeks later, it strarted cracking. I raced dh on it with cracked shock mounts at firestone above santa barbara.

The cracks were getting bigger. Then there was a crack on the underside down tube near the head tube.

Then I got an azonic evolution hardtail and its holding up well.
 
mtnbrider said:
I cracked my gary fisher level betty.

At cambria bicycle outfitters, poncho saw paint coming off the shock mounts and told me that there was a lot of stress there. He took some paint off and there weren't any cracks, but weeks later, it strarted cracking. I raced dh on it with cracked shock mounts at firestone above santa barbara.

The cracks were getting bigger. Then there was a crack on the underside down tube near the head tube.

Then I got an azonic evolution hardtail and its holding up well.

Is that the old style EVOLUTION you got(the RAD style tubing)??? If it is, all I say is if you cracked a FISHER FR RIG, the you better be careful w/that AZONIC :nopity:!!!
 

MisterMental

Monkey
Jul 26, 2002
385
0
UK
in no particular order;
taken the headtube off a PX bommer
snapped some fr4's
bent some mx6's
bent 2 pairs of shiver sc's
ovalised an ATX team
cracked an ATX team in about 8 places
ovalised a letoy3
killed many cranks
cracked an azonic shorty
cracked countless rims
cracked the crown race on my pig headset all the way around so it just fell off my forks.
bent some boxxers
broken many seats
broken a goldtec manacle
bent loads of pedals
bent my xtr bb axel
bent some PX goliath bars

think thats all...
 

arboc!

Turbo Monkey
Dec 18, 2004
3,288
0
spokane, WA
i snapped the head tube clean off on my friends giant ht. i fell into a pricker bush, it sucked. other than that, just bent rims, and a bent fork.
 

MisterMental

Monkey
Jul 26, 2002
385
0
UK
when i took the headtube off my bommer i ended up headbutting the front wheel at about 25mph, not fun considering i was running a 3" tyre at the time
 

SD_TMTB

Chimp
Jun 26, 2005
91
0
Raleigh, NC
-Have broken one side of a swingarm about 4/5s all the way around
-Bent pedal spindles/snapped parts of the platform
-cracked some BMX handlebars
-bent some XC bars that where on my DH bike for a little while.....
-completely bent some high end XC rims (actually doing cross country)
-bent/snapped some derailleur/ hangers, but I think every DHer has done that.
-and finally I have broke axels- front (9mm) on a Judy dho and my back bolt-on axel on my P bike is broken at the moment.

that’s about it, and none caused any catastrophic injuries.