Component life

[Pickle]

I have memories of BITD bunny hopping off a little drop (showing off to a mate :roll: ), landing it and promptly snapping my handle bar :shock:

Now, at the time, my bike was that years model so everything was brand new, so goodness knows why that happened.

Over the weekend I changed the stem on my RTS, and consequently that got me thinking........

How long do you guys trust your components before you think its time to bin/shelf/mount them on the wall?


:?

 

[cchris2lou]

till they show sign of breaking like craks .

 

[legrandefromage]

Er....

Newest mechanical part on the GT is the cassette, the rest, nothing newer than 1994 (alot of NOS though).

I'd only change stuff that was physically knackered, too loose, warn threads, cosmetically fecked etc.

Didnt think twice about building a road bike with 25 year old kit...

 

[perry]

i know what you mean

when riser bars came into vogue the pwers tha be always said to give them a lifespan of at most a year :?

and that included all the good pro tapers and azonics

my cheapy amoebas have recently been swapped over to the mrs bike after 10 years of jumping use , they are 5mm thick straight 22.2mm diameter though

i have been using a cracked pedal for at least 5 years

its usually in the manufacture or fitting , bars for instance go at the edge of the stem due to the incresed stress and sometimes a sharp edge causing fatigue

 

[hamster]

There were some nasty experiences with Marin Ovation bits - the bars had a CNC turned finish which (surprise surprise) was a good source for crack propagation.

 

[yo-eddy]

For a lightweight alloy or carbonfiber handlebar (wich I would never use btw ) I would say a year or so. The thing is that most people don't wanna throw away a 100+ € bar after a year :roll:
Personaly I would never even consider a 120gram or less bar on a mountainbike, 've seen three of my mates severly crash after a handlebar failure over the last ten years :twisted:
So on my GROOVY there are Steel bars , don't even know the weight of my barstem combo and I don't give a sh#t either :!: This is just one of the parts that you just don't gamble with on a bike imho......

 

[Corduroyboy]

As a cash-strapped teenager, I had a set of anodised blue Kalloy bars. After cleaning my bike one day, I was suprised to see that the sweep of the bars had changed from fore-aft to up-down. They had bent under light use and Lord knows what would have happened if I hadn't changed them. :shock:
Made a mental note after that: 'I will not skimp on skimpy bars!'

 

[pistol13]

These are xlite 555 straights!

 

[scant]

These are xlite 555 straights!

there bar ends were shocking too. used to crack at the clamp if you looked at them too hard.

I tend to turn my modern rider bike components over fairly frequently, 2 handlebars a year, I dont worry about thomson/hope stems so much.. I personally wouldnt do serious rides on older alu bars... depends on useage I guess.