Rear Derailleur Hangers

[ewep]

I've been looking at the Airborne bikes and saw that they don't come with a rear derailleur hanger that can be replaced. I've read all over that it is advisable to buy a bike with a dropout. Their reasoning is as follows:

Because of titanium's strength and long fatigue life, it is not necessary to use a replaceable derailleur hanger. The general consumer has been educated by manufacturers of aluminum bikes/frames that this is necessary, and it is, for aluminum! Aluminum fatigues 5 times faster than steel. If you were to bend an aluminum hanger, you would not be able to bend it back without losing a significant amount of strength in that area, hence, the replaceable hanger. The force required to bend a 7mm titanium hanger is enormous. Airborne Direct™ and a number of other titanium manufacturers use CP (Commercially Pure) Titanium for dropouts because of its ability to be repaired (bent back into place) using shop tools. I personally have never seen a titanium frame that has encountered this problem. In addition, component manufacturers (Shimano, SRAM) have engineered a number of their products with aluminum mounting bolts so that the bolt will actually break off before damage is done to the frame.

Could anyone give me some info on this?

 

[izzodesh]

I've been looking at the Airborne bikes and saw that they don't come with a rear derailleur hanger that can be replaced. I've read all over that it is advisable to buy a bike with a dropout. Their reasoning is as follows:



Could anyone give me some info on this?

def. true...i have an airborn and have crashed in races and the hanger has never bent!

 

[RC2]

Makes perfect sense.

 

[closesupport]

i always thought that the hanger and dropout where put inplace to stop deraileur and framme getting damaged, since it costs so much to straighten and have heat treated, makes more sence to me to have a detatchable hanger if its gonna save me money.