[CR]Re: broken bike components revisited (part 387)

(Example: Framebuilders:Masi)

From: <GPVB1@cs.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 15:55:18 EDT
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]Re: broken bike components revisited (part 387)

Stevan:

I think you may have just pointed out that any manufacturer's BB axle can break! If you ride long enough and far enough, you may end up with a total of zero manufacturer's axles that you will trust.

IMHO, if you had an Engineer's inside view of the Automotive or other major Manufacturing business and saw the details of exactly what gets sold to the public, I fear you might never drive another car or use another toaster oven! Engineering and Manufacturing something for use by humans is always a compromise.

Bottom line: any part/component/machine/thing can break. Some do fail; the vast majority don't. Most (yes, not all) that break do so after hundreds of thousands (or indeed millions) of cycles of use. Some break due to exceeding Design loads and/or stresses. Some finally fatigue due to old age at many times Design life (how long does anyone think that Tullio's Engineers intended a 1958 Record crankarm to last?). There are a zillion other reasons why something can fail. Ask Laurent Fignon if his infamous SR BB axle failure in the TdF was "catastrophic" or not. Ti (and many other "exotic" materials) fail that way. One of the best things about steel is that it rarely fails suddenly and catastrophically. Steel is real!

You may want to see Damon Rinard's website for pics. of various manufacturers' broken bicycle parts (http//pardo.net/pardo/bike/pic/fail/FAIL-001.html for cranks and spindles, for example).

Regards,

Greg Parker A2 MI USA Never broke a Campy/Phil/Sugino/TA/Stronglight/Zeus/other bike part personally, but have seen more than a few broken ones over the years. Chilly and rain due soon.

Stevan T. wrote:

<snip>
> It was only the very first batch of hubs that had failures. The later ones
> are quite reliable. My point, and this was from when they WERE failing, is
> that he should have recalled them and he didn't. Same with the bottom
> bracket
> axles. I don't care how good the stuff is now, I won't touch it because I
> can't trust Phil with my life. I've broken two Campy bb axles. They were
> slow
> radial failures, that were inconvenient, but they didn't just snap off. The
> second one was about 5 miles into the start of the Marin Century. I pedaled
> back to my car with only the right crank attached to the bike, drove to
> Sausalito, bought and installed my first Nadax cartridge bottom bracket,
> and
> finished the century with a shot right leg. I haven't had a Campy bb on my
> serious bike since. The Phil bb axles that I have seen fail, sheared off
> where they exited the bearing. They didn't look like progressive (benign)
> failures to me. It would be interesting to ask Phil how many have failed.
> Incidentally, a friend of mine snapped a Shimano Dura Ace DynaDrive bb axle
> in a hammer down sprint and broke his pelvis in the crash. Riding style
> probably is a contributing factor. In the old days, I did a lot of climbing
> in the big ring, and that is harder on bb axles than spinning. I'm older
> and
> I'm not such a masher any more.
> Stevan Thomas
> Alameda, CA