Hello all,

Well I've been away for 1 year to the tropics and have returned to shock and horror. My rear hub seems to have snapped itself off? The bike is hardly ridden, maybe a 20 min ride before I left for the tropics. This bike has largely been in my bedroom and is more of a show bike than anything else. I've asked the family they are adamant no one has touched it or gone near it. I just can't work it out, was it done by Aliens? The cut seems pretty smooth, there doesn't seem to be any blunt trauma anywhere. You decide?

If only Sherlock Holmes or Columbo could investigate . Im with the Alien theory .

Serious question: do any of your family members (or roommates, persons who share your living space) have disdain for your cycling passion?

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Exp001

Thanks for the replies guys. Notice the dust on it? This means its not been ridden, I just dont get it. There are no damage marks, the cut is clean. Unexplained mystery.

Just a random, remote guess - it could be a failure of the hub's flange, all around - and the spokes pulled the flange towards the middle.

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Exp001

Sun ?

Maybe heat coming from the sun, maybe even a small opening in the window. Gives stress to the metal, every day, for repeated days, same stress...
...And then, BOOM !!!
I had a bike lying in the sun for 30 minutes, and BOOM! a spoke snapped on the front wheel right there.

Louis

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http://www.ccsalma.com

Carbonfiber sucks

snap was on the metal bit.

suicide, the hub was depressed because it was never used?

On a serious note, be grateful it happened while sitting in your home instead of on a fast downhill.

Is the break clean an an even colour all the way round? If it is dull in one spot that might indicate a flaw in the offside flange that was present from day one.

Many thanks for this I shall check when I get back home.

Believe it or not this isn't the first time I've seen a failure like this in the last year or two, though to be honest the other wasn't an FRM hub or a full alloy one. The other one had only been ridden a couple of times as well. Though unfortunately for him the flange let loose while riding.

Nobody broke your wheel, it was just a defect or possibly stress corrosion. Sergio from Extralite had the simplest explanation of stress corrosion:

"This phenomena happens to high-strength alloy when the part is constantly subjected to an excessive tension and this lasts for a long time (the excessive high tension is normally produced by an excessive and/or uneven strain).
Additionally storing the bike with the tensioned part in a humid place will significantly speed up the stress-corrosion process.
After the "stress-corrosion" starts to show its signs the part is not repairable and its not usable anymore.
The usage of the bike and the part is not a cause of the stress-corrosion, the reasons are excessive tension and storage in a permanently humid environment."

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Fair Wheel Bikes

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The same thing happened to an old-school Nuke Proof hub on my mountain bike back in the mid-90s. I was deployed for 6 months and left my bike locked in a storage unit. I came back and the rear hub had failed at the flange...

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
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English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo

Common with Nuke Proof hubs and not unheard of with others.

Here's a Nuke Proof hub that was sitting in Schwinn's offices. It was a special edition Homegrown presented to the governor of Colorado in the Boulder days.

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Zippy engineer

I love it when a "nukeproof" hub breaks sitting in an office on a trophy bike. Makes me really sweat my ultra-fragile carbon clinchers!!!