The strangest thing ever now with pic[kind of]

I've just come back from the s/market
Chained up outside was a roadbike that had seen better days.It had to be the strangest and most scary thing ive seen yet.
For some reason the owner had cut away just under half of the top tube.It had been cut horizontally :shock: not a bit, the whole length :shock:
[leaving something akin to a tray,which must fill up with water when it rains], completely open at the top.
You could see the inside of it,where iot joins with the head and post tubes -everything.He had even continued the cut so it took the top inch off the headtube :shock: .

I hung about till he arrived to unlock before quizzing him on it
Seems he was cutting the top inch off the headtube to further lower the bars[ive no clue here] and just continued the cut right along the top tube and tailed it off just before the seat tube
He was an odd[read dangerous]looking chap so i decided not to ask why he didnt just buy a down facing stem,so asked instead if he felt safe riding it seeing as half the F**ing tube is missing :? .
He seemed to come into his subject and assured me is wasnt unsafe and he'd been using it that way for years
Now im sure if it was dangerous it would have folded long ago and this guy seemed to understand frame stress better than most.

having seen this and having watched him cycle off at breakneck speed over pot holey road,i now think tube dents mean absolutely nowt structurally
I'll start looking at frames that are dented for a bargain price

:shock: The Whole F***ng length AND the top of the headtube
--------------------------------------------

My bike is the blue tube, the silver tube is the cycle stand and the red one is his bike.
The black is where the rest of the tube should be.

:shock:

He could have a degree in mechanical engineering .

Can't say ive ever seen a frame bend at the toptube vertically , they normally go at the side when theres a dent that causes a weakness and thats usually because of a hefty crash .

Only real concern i can think of would be the shorter headtube being more likely to snap off as it places more stress on the downtube weld , it should be ok if he has left enough of a U at either end . Of course if theres a slight impact on it , it could fold up .

i wouldn't want to catch my leg on it , i always rub the toptube , it could chafe a bit .

Years ago while sat in a multistory carpark in the early hours of the morning taking a rest from riding , a drunk guy comes upto me and the mates , first offers us some cider then a mate notices his proflex has an extra inch welded into the top and downtubes ( i guess it wasn't long enough for him as stock ) offered it to us for £50 and swore blind it was original even though the welds were pig ugly and unpainted , we declined .

People do the strangest things, may be totaly rational to them but bonkers to another.

I'd categorise this guy as bonkers , certainly doesnt sound safe.

BTW i would'nt be to complacent with dented frames, seen an alloy frame with a dented downtube which turned into a crack.

If the 'top' as it were, has been removed, the top tube will lose its strength against forces from below, and will eventually break/bend upwards, if that makes sense. There is no bracing for the semicircular half tube, and it would fail given the right forces.

Wouldnt do it myself...
























































(except maybe on a kona to see how it happened...)

I suppose he never has to lock it up, who would ever want to nick it :?

Might do mine later

I have an idea why he has done this butchery!




He's a NUMPTY!!

Al.

I suppose now its just a U-shaped channel, rather than a tube, which is still pretty structurally sound, however, its likely to buckle at that length. . Even a julilee clip around the middle would help ensure this doesn't happen. All the time the chanel is there, its cool, but if it starts buckling, failure is imminent. .

The 2003(?) yeti kokopelli has a u-channel top-tube section, all be it the other way up. And where the shock mounts and the tube (channel) changed doestion, the sides of the channel are breached (linked), stopping the long slender side plates buckling. .

All ok in theory if you knowo your structures. . but this one shown is flawed for many reasons. . :!:

how does chopping up the top tube help lower the bars???? :shock: