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The welding appears to be fine.
This is a classic failure. My best guess (as an Engineer) is that the top tube cracked at the bottom
of its joint with the head tube some time ago (why I do not know, could have been a tube
imperfection but more probably insufficient stress relieving of the joint/weld). This cracking
overloaded the joint between the down tube and the head tube (which then started cracking at the
bottom). Both indicate a classic flexure/tension failure. As time went by and the joints flexed, the
cracking of both joints proceeded. This resulted in the dull cracked areas. Finally when enough of
the tubes had separated, the stress was high enough on the remaining material that the entire thing
let go and you had the catastrophic failure. This is seen as the newly torn area where the tear is
bright and shiny . The older injured areas are duller. Both the old and new tears are clearly shown
in the photos. See your dealer about a replacement.
Hopefully your description and excellent photos will be useful to others and encourage them to
inspect their frames periodically.
If your injuries are severe, you might want to seek the services of a lawyer, well versed in cycling
and product liability.
Hope this helps,
Ernie
WooGoogle wrote:
> My Litespeed mountain bike failed spectacularly today. After going up a local hill down the other
> side and back home all on the road, I was accelerating on a flat road to go home. All of the
> sudden the head tube separates from the down tube and top tube. I was blessed in that it didn't
> happen on the descent of Portola Park road or Moody/Elena and I only got some very mild road rash
> and a cracked helmet. I put some photos at
>
http://www.printroom.com/ViewAlbum.asp?userid=Yetanotherwoo&album_id=127225,
>
> Is that gold colored stuff a bad weld indication? It's odd that it's on both the down tube and
> top tube.
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<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> The welding appears
to be fine.
<p>This is a classic failure. My best guess (as an Engineer) is that the top tube cracked at the
bottom of its joint with the head tube some time ago (why I do not know, could have been a tube
imperfection but more probably insufficient stress relieving of the joint/weld). This cracking
overloaded the joint between the down tube and the head tube (which then started cracking at the
bottom). Both indicate a classic flexure/tension failure. As time went by and the joints flexed,
the cracking of both joints proceeded. This resulted in the dull cracked areas. Finally when
enough of the tubes had separated, the stress was high enough on the remaining material
that the entire thing let go and you had the catastrophic failure. This is seen as the newly torn
area where the tear is bright and shiny . The older injured areas are duller. Both the old
and new tears are clearly shown in the photos. See your dealer about a replacement.
<q>Hopefully your description and excellent photos will be useful to others and encourage them to
inspect their frames periodically.
<r>If your injuries are severe, you might want to seek the services of a lawyer, well versed
in cycling and product liability.
<s>Hope this helps,
<t>Ernie <br> <br>
<u>WooGoogle wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>My Litespeed mountain bike failed spectacularly
today. After going up <br>a local hill down the other side and back home all on the road, I
was <br>accelerating on a flat road to go home. All of the sudden the head <br>tube
separates from the down tube and top tube. I was blessed in that <br>it didn't happen on
the descent of Portola Park road or Moody/Elena <br>and I only got some very mild road rash and a
cracked helmet. I put <br>some photos at <br><a href="
http://www.printroom.com/ViewAlbum.a-
sp?userid=Yetanotherwoo&album_id=127225">
http://www.printroom.com/ViewAlbum.asp?userid=Yetanothe-
rwoo&album_id=127225</a>,
<v>Is that gold colored stuff a bad weld indication? It's odd that it's <br>on both the down
tube and top tube.</blockquote> </html>
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. Broken 3 mountain bikes in pretty much the same place,
