average life span of Aluminum hardtail?

V

vlkslvr

Active Member
Hey everyone, was wondering if anyone can give me some advice/insight on what they think the average lifetime for a mid-quaility Al frame hardtail is.

I ride a mid 90's (I believe 96) Scwhinn Homegrown that has served me well but I am beggining to wonder if it hasn't reached the end of it's life cycle.

I bought the bike used and while I didn't ride it for many years I have recently gotten pretty into riding again and have been putting some miles on it. Since I'm learning how to ride I've take a few decent spills on her and while I've done no visable damage to the bike I am certainly not making it any stronger by crashing it.

I'm going to thoroughly clean and inspect the bike this weekend to look for any signs of fatigue and if I find any I obviously won't continue to ride, but say I don't find any. Would you all continue to ride this on the NJ trails?

I'd hate to break this thing in the middle of a long ride, even more so if I got banged up because of it. I'm already planning on buying a newer bike sometime this year as technology has certainly gotten better and the cost to upgrade my bike to disc brakes and a new shock would be prohibitive vs just buying something new.

I'm looking more for general advice rather than specific advice on my bike, I was just using it as an example and to explain where the question came up from.
 
I'd ride it until you are ready to buy a new bike. Don't decomission it unless you see cracks in the tubing or at the welds. It's lasted this long, I'm betting that it'll last an additional few months or so. Plus the homegrowns are classics.

My opinion applies to all three of your threads.
 
Those early schwinn homegrown frames are fairly sought after. Some were made by Yeti and are supposedly pretty good quality. I'd do a little research to find out the origins of that frame.
 
the 96 scwhinn homegrown has a life span of only 8yrs. therefore its past due for replacement.
that was just a joke, but is sounds like you want a new bike. As Bshow said if there are no visible cracks you can keep riding it. If you have the cash and are into cycling than by all means upgrade. As a heads up 29ers are the future, i dont have one but everyone else who is cool has one.
 
I've never had an aluminum HT last more than 5 years, and I don't consider myself hard on bikes at all. Now for the threadjack: Most homegrowns were built between Anodize Inc in Portland, Control Tech in Seattle and a builder in Taiwan. A very limited number seem to have been built in Durango by Yeti, perhaps only a few hundred over the years of the model's production. The Yeti built bikes were always 7005 series aluminum. It seems that many homegrowns were sent to the Yeti factory for their final prep before shipping out in Yeti boxes.
 
Ride it till it breaks. Or put it on Craigslist as "vintage", and I'll claim you stole it from me in Soho.
 
BShow said:
I'd ride it until you are ready to buy a new bike. Don't decomission it unless you see cracks in the tubing or at the welds. It's lasted this long, I'm betting that it'll last an additional few months or so. Plus the homegrowns are classics.

My opinion applies to all three of your threads.
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Yeah Sorry about the reposts - I was getting a page not found when I hit submit and the thread wasn't showing up when I reloaded.

As far as the bike - I'm not worried about it lasting a few more rides/months, that's why I said this was more general information.

Aluminum Fatigues, that's kind of a given. I know riding conditions/rider weight etc all make a huge difference so you can't pinpoint a failure date but I figured there had to be some standard guidelines.


As far as riding it till it breaks - that just seems like poor advice. I mean we don't have PacNW type drop offs and terrain here but there is plenty of stuff that could mess you up pretty good if your frame cracked while riding it.
 
vlkslvr said:
As far as riding it till it breaks - that just seems like poor advice. I mean we don't have PacNW type drop offs and terrain here but there is plenty of stuff that could mess you up pretty good if your frame cracked while riding it.
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ride it till you break, panhead leads some good tours at wawaywanda
 
poor iggy said:
ride it till you break, panhead leads some good tours at wawaywanda
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Waway just ate my Rig a few weeks ago. Something went bad in the rear triangle, I now have squish back there. Took a while to figure out why the chain dropped when I hit the gas. Guess I rode it till it broke. Gears for the next few weeks for me:cry:. When you heading North again, Chris?
 
Panhead said:
Waway just ate my Rig a few weeks ago. Something went bad in the rear triangle, I now have squish back there. Took a while to figure out why the chain dropped when I hit the gas. Guess I rode it till it broke. Gears for the next few weeks for me:cry:. When you heading North again, Chris?
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i have a similiar story with my mtb, cracked weld where top tube & seat tube meet. I'm in the process of getting it replaced, until then I be on my road bike. but i do look forward to heading north so i can work on breaking it again.
 
Uber thread derailment below

You might have to lead me on a road ride down there, I've been looking for a route that I could do after work, PM me.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled thread, thank you.
 
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