Weight Weenies

You're absolutely right, need to wait and see what grade they offer first.
If by some stroke of luck they were to offer one of the higher end, US made Madones, then i would be tempted to give it a try.
If not, then like you say it would more than likely be sold to go toward funding another ti, or possibly steel frame.

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I thought Ti frames never cracked, corroded or degraded and were true "bikes for life"????

LOL, actually I didn't but many Ti devotees wrongly do.

Pleased you found the Ti fault.

Wow - surely have been lucky here!

Would the bike shop not be able to order a frame via special order via their supplier? Dono if it's different because it's a frame, but I was able to get Speedplays from a shop that normally don't sell them.

have ridden 2 titanium frames in the past (litespeed and de rosa), both cracked. If I were you I should choose for a stainless steel frame

Like any frame, it's not the material as much the builder which will lead to a frame cracking.

So to say choose stainless as it won't crack is simply wrong.

And those who think their ti bike won't crack might simply be repeating what they were told... (ie: the sales pitch that had them hand over their hard earned).

I agree with TP, I could use the same generalisation with carbon frames, steel and aluminum too but don't. Look at the manufacturer first...

I have a 650 Litespeed Vortex and the right base cracked!
it's been repaired by Jean Pierre Levacon in FRANCE and now , it's right !!

picture after:



when repaire by Jean Pierre:



after the repair:



the complete bike :

Get the heat / weld wrong and ti will fail... The cracks in this thread are all down to manufacturer error.

Get it right and the fatigue life of ti is generally better than steel or alu of any comparable weight...

And yet the MpA readings don't lie; 900-1000 for Ti, 1400-2200 for quality steel-reynolds 953 and a USA brand I've forgotten.

If you ignore weight and or take things more completely out of cycling context, that would be a good point.

That said, Steel and Alu failures are typically around bad welds too.

CharlesM wrote:Get the heat / weld wrong and ti will fail... The cracks in this thread are all down to manufacturer error.

Get it right and the fatigue life of ti is generally better than steel or alu of any comparable weight...

If that's true it's even more worrying given the brands in this thread include pre-eminent Ti specialists.

I wouldnt worry much about the brands mentioned... They're going to have the odd issue like every other manufacturer.

Of course this is the Internet so if the same failure gets re-reported 100 times, people will claim trek or lite speed have had a hundred failures

Well I've only had three failures with Trek, and it was only their cheapo hybrid frames; still, one bike lasted for 3 month's before it cracked. I tend to trek the other way these days, can't think why. Must be the opera.

Interesting point there about the pressure values for each material, not what i would have expected.
As for manufacturers, in my situation, as the frame split on the tube i would have to say that it would be Reynolds as the tube maufacturer that were ultimately at fault rather than the frame builder, as there was no problem with any of the welds.
Also, i am pretty sure that i read somewhere that Lemond Ti frames were actually subcontracted to be built by either Lightspeed or Merlin ( can't remember which ) - both as Charles said, well respected Ti frame builders. So it would be rather unfair to hold Trek directly responsible on this occasion. Although depending on how they ultimately respond to the problem i reserve the right to change my opinion!

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understand that a bad weld doesnt mean failing at/on the weld material in most cases.

It more frequently means a failure in the area around the weld or between close welds where heat wasn't properly handled.

The weld material it's self is usually fine but the bad weld damages the thin tube material around it.


Sometimes its the tube material right at the edge of the weld but other times it will be the area at the edge of where the heat changed the structure of the metal... The crack can be a half inch or inch away from the actual weld at the seam where the improperly heated material meets undamaged material (within the same tube).

Other times it will follow a seam or shape / fold away from a weld (like the Litespeed above). It was a mistake welding process that made for the weak spot and or sometimes a poor design like the loads of cracks at poorly engineered gussets on lots of mountain bikes. Sometimes a design requires too many passes or two much jeat concentration.