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Old March 21st 17, 01:23 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
JBeattie
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Posts: 5,870
Default m-m-m-my Saronni

On Monday, March 20, 2017 at 2:15:34 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 1:17:56 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 9:03:57 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 12:40:05 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 3:12:04 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Friday, March 17, 2017 at 2:57:35 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/17/2017 4:21 PM, Doug Landau wrote:
On Friday, March 17, 2017 at 1:52:28 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, March 17, 2017 at 10:02:34 AM UTC-7, Doug Landau wrote:
I really liked this bike.
Not sure why I got rid of it, except I guess it was just time for something new, just for a change. Paid $150 for it ready to ride.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/saronni

Saronni's were sort of bottom top-end bikes. They were manufactured by a variety of makers so one could be nearly perfect while another badly brazed and fitted poorly.

What can be known from the heart-shaped cutouts on the lugs? I mean, they are there, but look sloppy/carelessly made

tinyurl.com/saronni-lug1
tinyurl.com/saronni-lug2


Nothing useful can be known from that.

Although we in sales speak of 'lug cuts', implying some old
Italian guy for hours with a very small file, the various
standard shapes are punched from standard lug blanks (or
cast in standard angles). Clean braze flow looks nicer,
yes, but most of the oopsies are usually in the paint.

Your seatstay top plugs are also dirt cheap and offered for
pennies with anything you like cut into them.

But what you can't see under the lugs is important. The tubing ends have to be fitted tightly to the tube it is meeting with - the top tube fitted to the head tube has to have the proper angle cut into it. If you do not have this the frame flexes a bit around that joint. The bike just doesn't feel correct. The downtube and seat tube fitting against the bottom bracket as well. If you look into a well made frame you won't see any gaps and the brazing runs right up to the edge of the connections so that you can't tell the difference between the tube and the BB casting. The older French bikes had this sloppy fitting and so they gave the bike long geometry so that you couldn't turn fast enough for it to be a problem.

My local bike shop owner was Clarence Witt and he made some of the finest frames I've ever seen. I was never able to afford one until after he stopped building.

You should change your ID to Mr. Doom and Gloom. LOL VBEG

Cheers

Mr. Doom and Gloom had three carbon fiber forks break on him. In one case there was no serious injuries incurred.

In the the second I received a severe concussion and had no short term memory and was having seizures for over two years before my best friend got me to a neurologist who knew how to treat them. It took me six months before the proper dosage and proper medications were settled and another two years to get more or less back to normal. When I "came too" I had gone from 210 lbs to 142 lbs and my doctors had simply assumed that I had some sort of indetectable cancer. The way I felt and because I couldn't remember anything I was on the verge of suicide. Luckily that only lasted until I started to gain weight. I am missing over 20 years of important memories.

The third CF fork broke just last year and dumped me in a stone lined culvert at 25 mph. Luckily everything but my head hit.

Do you suppose people like you shouldn't know the dangers? That you should know to inform people close to you that these things are possible and IF they were to occur that they should know what to do?

Or are you one of those who believe that ignorance is better than knowledge?


What broke on your forks (steerer, fork leg, crown) and why? How old were the forks? What brands? Any warning signs?

I've been riding CF forks since maybe 1989 and haven't broken any. For most of that time I weighed between 195lbs and 220lbs. Riding included a decade or two of racing. I do have some concerns about carbon steerers and too light forks, and knowing why you had so many bad forks would be enlightening for us all.


Forks were mid-2000's. There was NO warnings and if the bike was going straight after that bump I may not have known that it had cracked until it was in the work stand at the end of the ride.

The first fork cracked visibly at the bend at the head. I don't remember that well. The second fork failed because it was incorrectly constructed. And this fork was the Colnago Star fork - the lightest one they make.

However, carbon bikes are being make lighter and lighter. 16 lb ready to ride are common and some people brag of 12 lb bikes. These guys also tend to carry flat repair kits in their jersey pockets to show how light their bikes are.

Bikes of this weight will fail catastrophically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn29u7GoqPk

While on a 40 mile ride yesterday I was overtaken by a kid on a steel bike. While talking he said that he had a steel bike fail, it had a circular fracture of the seattube and the chainstay. He said that the only way he could tell was that the bike felt a little bendy when he stood to accelerate.

My experience is that when metal bikes fail they are not catastrophic but reduced performance.


True, although Frank had a catastrophic steel fork failure on a tandem, and I knew another guy who had the same problem on a different custom steel tandem. I don't know why these tandems were a problem. I saw some bad forks back in the '80s on some Italian bikes that were just tack brazed or poorly brazed. Paint can cover a lot. They didn't fail but would have if the problem hadn't been caught as part of a new paint job.

I don't know anyone who doesn't ride carbon forks on their "fast" bike. Even the steel frame guys have carbon forks. Not saying carbon forks are perfect, but they do seem to be passing the test -- and they should be getting better with the new resins. I would not, however, go with the bleeding edge stuff. Not at my weight and age.

-- Jay Beattie.
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