Unfortunately, my bike was damaged in transit to IM CDA. It’s not bad, but I’m not sure if it shortens my frame life or not. Can this be fixed? I’ve tried contacting American Bicycle Group, but haven’t had a response yet.
Should I ride this frame (it seems to be fine now although it is quite flimsy around the dent) and what kind of frame life can I expect?
It’s hard to tell from pictures the extent of damage etc. It looks like it should be alright but without the whole story and actually seeing it who knows.
If you do ride it I would hit the local hardware store and get some pipe clamps to wrap around the dent to help reinforce the bike.
In reality a damaged bike should never be ridden. But it happens as much as riding a bike without a helmet.
from the dent i see on pic 4, it s clear it isnt safe to ride… my friend had a similar dent on his frame and it cracked after 2 months of riding… you just dont know when it will happen…
I have bike with three dents all bigger then that and it’s a mountain bike and i’ve been riding on it for years and nothing has cracked. I would just ride it. It’s not going to explode.
Quintana Roo / American Bicycle Group was / is closed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday thus the lack of response.
As for the dent it is tough to say without seeing it in person. My recommendation would be to have a bike mechanic look a bit closer at the frame and if it is truly just a dent and not a crack I would say that you’ll be fine racing it and riding it for awhile.
Aluminum is pretty notch sensitive. It doesn’t have to be cracked for the crack to develop and grow to a full failure within a single ride. Steel, most likely you have a little time. It’s pretty clear to me from the pictures that there has been material removal (or at least creation of stress risers) on that tube. With the cyclic nature of the downtube stresses (full reversals, not just on/off stress), I think that the danger of cracks developing would be enough for me to relegate this bike to the trainer. But then again, I’m an aerospace engineer (read: ultra-conservative) that works mainly with aluminum parts, so maybe I just know too much to be of usefulness here.