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I have been reading a lot of stories of broken frames which seem to be appearing with more and more regularity, and in fact i have recently had one of my own frames replaced after it failed.
I wonder what the general opinion is, are riders getting better and pushing their bikes harder or is the industry fascination of building lighter and lighter bikes resulting in under building?
Personally I would struggle to put too much faith in a 160mm bike weighing in at under 30lbs but there does seem to be quite a lot of them now, so do they hold up to proper AM abuse or are they really just long travel XC machines?
I have been dropping off 4 and 5ft drops on my Meta 6 just to see how it holds up after hearing all the horror stories. Its been totally fine and I'm over 200lb, there have been a few shoddy landings as well. Time will tell but I'm happy so far. It weighs around 35lb.
Is it 1993 again?
Better technology will lead to lighter bikes
-carbon fiber
-better alloys
-FEM analysis.
Back in '93 carbon fiber monocoque was considddered exotic in F1, and FEM would take weeks to run a single calculation.
I don't think bikes break any more than they used to, there are just more bikers and the internet means you hear about more failiures.
I'm over 200lbs and will happily ride anything you stick in front of me (normal trail-wise) on my 2004 NRS, that comes in at 28lb with just 100mm of travel. It's not broken yet.
Maybe, like everyone in modern Britain (take a look at photos of ordinary people from 15 years ago) riders are getting fatter?
edit(I know I am!) 😳
broken bike frames are part of cycling.
bmxers take pride in snapping a frame, any one who rides a lot - i've known mtb guides to snap a frame a year (probably putting on a lifetimes riding in a season) - or rides heavy or goes big should expect this to happen.
True. Lifts used to be designed to 75kg per person (look at old lifts), modern ones are spec'd to 85kg per person.
bmxers take pride in snapping a frame
I agree with your post, snapped frames are just a sign that yuo're trying hard (or crashing hard!) but MTB frames are generally a LOT more expensive than BMX frames I think?