How to make a grown man cry...

FST4RD

Senior Retro Guru
So I took my pride and joy, a 1993 DB Apex with full 737 XT out for a ride this morning with 2 mates and my partner. There's a 12 hour teams race coming up in a couple months as we decided to head out for a 30km ride. About 7 K's into the ride I came flying round a nice banked corner, powered out of it and felt a clonk. I stopped straight away as I thought I had broken a spoke, I checked the rear wheel, seemed fine so I jumped back on my bike, something didn't feel right.... then I looked down.... :cry: I had snapped the frame.... :cry:
I couldn't believe it, my trusty bike, broken. Well I managed to limp it back to the car park and then drowned my sorrows with an ice cream from the shop there. On further inspection it doesn't look salvagable, it's broken in a bad spot and the insides of the tube are fairly corroded.
I almost shed a tear... pretty emotional moment.
RIP :cry:
 

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Ironical thing is yesterday i was talking to a mate about breaking old frames, and when I loaded the bike onto the car this morning I checked for cracks around the headtube... Funny cause I have never ever done that before. Must have been an omen. :shock:
 
jamabikes":d491d0pg said:
everything is fixable, just depends how much you want to spend.

Not to sure... the inside where it had snapped is pretty rusty, and when I stripped the frame down when I got home and took the BB out is was pretty corroded in there too...
For the last 3-4 months I have been going out 3 times a week in the mud and the rain. Bike constantly covered in mud, getting a good hose down after every ride... I assume the whole bike is pretty terminal.
 
orange71":3kjcvlxr said:
:( pretty unusual event I'd say.

I'm guessing banked corner, going real fast, leaning very hard into the corner and powering the pedals must have put a lot of twisting force through the frame causing this, the corrosion didn't help though.
 
must be gutting.

on the brighter side, you could fairly easily grab another frameset the same & just replace everything like for like.


I would have been tempted to get the break lined with a little bit of smaller diameter tubing and then have the whole thing welded up IF the bb shell etc. weren't starting to go as well. If you are even slightly concerned about the frames stability it may be wise to bin it as you won't have the confidence to ride it at 100%.
 
As jax13 above says - sleeve it and get it brazed or tig welded - wont be to obvious and the chainset will hide it well too!

I'll echo the above comments - on a steel frame nothing is beyond repair (note the absence of the word economical there!)
 
really depends how attached you are to the frame. BB shells, chain stays are all replaceable, but cost more than a new frame to do, once you add paint too. If it were mine i would leave as is and hang on the wall, mud an all.
 
I'm very attached to the frame, although even if I got it repaired I would probably still not trust it 100%.
Sleeving it might be hard, the frame isn't round there, it bows in on one side.
I want another one, but I have never seen another one, let alone for sale. Seen older and newer ones but never like this.
I do think though that if I get another one I'll treat the inside of the frame before I ride it.
 
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