Is my bike ruined?
March 25, 2012 2:04 PM   Subscribe

Someone wrecked my bike's frame while it was locked to a bike ring. Is it salvageable, or even safe to ride? Pictures inside.

I locked my bike outside of my girlfriend's apartment building on a (or so I thought) relatively quiet portion of a busy bar street last Friday. Like I had done dozens of times before, and probably will do again.

When I returned to it Saturday afternoon, I found it like this.

The hypothesis I'm more comfortable with is that someone thought they could pop open the u-lock by using the bike frame as a lever. For better or for worse, they just horribly bent the frame and busted the handlebars.

Better shots of the damage: one and two and three and four.

So - yeah, I'm not much of an expert on steel bars. Can this be fixed or is it a total writeoff?

At a first glance, it seems like it would be unsafe to ride if I don't get the bars straightened out again.

If I'm lucky and I can find the same model again, a new identical bike will set me back ~$600CAD. Any opinions?
posted by pmv to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (16 answers total)
 
There's a new bike frame in your future. Toss that old wrecked one.
posted by Hermanos at 2:09 PM on March 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


I work at a bike shop (have for years), and I'd say that if that's steel, you'd probably be able to baby it around until you're able to replace it, which you'd be well off prioritizing.
posted by Chutzler at 2:12 PM on March 25, 2012


Meant to add that I'd stay off it if it's aluminum.
posted by Chutzler at 2:13 PM on March 25, 2012


You can take it in to a bike shop and ask their opinion. A good shop will not work on a bike if it's beyond repair because they don't want the liability. My guess is that you are in for a new bike.

How are the wheels and components? You could just buy a new frame for less than the stock price and have someone build it up with the old parts.
posted by Think_Long at 2:14 PM on March 25, 2012


You need a new frame. All the other parts can be put on a new or used frame, but that frame cannot be saved.
posted by ssg at 2:15 PM on March 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


By and large, steel can be bent and bent back, unless the bend has caused a crease. A crease is a crack waiting to happen.

That looks like damaged steel to me and my experience with bikes, different materials for bikes, and damaged bikes.

Agreed that you can probably ride it safely until you get a new frame, but that you don't want to put off getting a new frame.
posted by entropone at 2:19 PM on March 25, 2012


Response by poster: It's a steel frame.

I think the front brakes might be busted, and the wheel seems the tiniest bit wobbly. Might salvage the back wheel.

A friend of mine recommended a place that he says can bend it back into shape, but they're across town so if I have to replace it regardless I might as well spend that time trying to track down a replacement bike.
posted by pmv at 2:20 PM on March 25, 2012


Response by poster: (I guess related question then: how do I dispose of the frame (I live in Toronto…) and do I just approach bike shops if I'm looking for spare frames?)
posted by pmv at 2:22 PM on March 25, 2012


Gah, what a shitty thing to do!

Given that the rest of the bike is probably salvageable, I'd try calling around in search of a same or similar frame. And posting a wanted add on craigslist. Does Toronto have bike co-ops? The ones here tend to have a lot of old donated frames (and far fewer full working bikes). If you're trying to do this on the cheap, definitely look for a bike co-op--they'll walk you through doing your own repairs and have things like tools and stands. And whatever you do, don't buy a frame before making sure it'll work with your current components.

Wobbly wheels can often be trued with a spoke wrench. It's hard for me to see what they did the to the brakes.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 4:36 PM on March 25, 2012


I wouldn't mess with that. It may not fail on you, but that's a LOT of damage and I wouldn't eff with it. Get a new frame! You can probably true the front wheel easily enough unless it's super screwed up, so you can salvage the wheelset. Husband and I run a bike shop, and we have and would in the future trash steel frames that were only a fraction of the screwed up as your frame is.
posted by kpht at 5:17 PM on March 25, 2012


Best answer: Your frame is pretty much toast, correct. You'll probably be able to get away with riding on it for a bit, but those bends are pretty big stress risers that will lead to cracks and failure before very long.

It's easy to straighten the handlebars yourself with a metric Allen wrench set. Here's some random dude with an untrustworthy mustache showing you how:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuTxugV6yY

A singlespeed bike is a pretty simple machine. Your cheapest bet is definitely buying a new frame rather than a whole new bike. A bike coop would probably help you transfer over parts to a new frame if they don't have something sitting around yourself. You want something in the same size (same length top tube and seat tube) as what you have now, and chromoly (rather than high-tensile) steel or aluminum are better materials. It's easiest to get a frame with the headset already installed, and you'll probably need to get a new seatpost since different frames take different sizes. Also make sure the frame has enough clearance to use your current brakes and fit the 28mm tires and fenders you are using, since many singlespeed frames are built to only take skinny tires.

Here are a couple examples of decent-quality cheap frames:
http://bikeisland.com/cgi-bin/BKTK_STOR20.cgi?Action=Details&ProdID=1833
http://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product_10053_10052_530125_-1___202389

These days even whole singlespeed bikes are pretty cheap:
http://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product_10053_10052_504148_-1___202614
posted by akgerber at 5:26 PM on March 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


My $0.10:
I wouldn't ride that around a city even if it were steel. That looks pretty crimped, and just think of what would happen to your nether regions if that thing folded in half...
Save what you can off of it, and then scrap the frame. I wouldn't ride it again if I were you.
posted by aloiv2 at 8:02 PM on March 25, 2012


Best answer: As noted by everyone else, your frame is toast. As for your second question, about what to do with an old frame, your frame is recyclable- it's just steel! If you have a bike shop swap the parts, they will take care of it for you. Otherwise, just put the frame out with the rest of the recyclables.

Personally, I would head over to the community bike network and ask them for recommendations for where to find a decent used frame, if you don't want to deal with craigslist. This part of their site talks about their shop where you can do the work yourself, and also mentioned a couple non-shady used bike/part dealers.
posted by rockindata at 8:15 PM on March 25, 2012


Just to expand on the "it's toast!" thing a bit, the reason people are telling you not to ride on it is because a dented or bent frame is much weaker and can fail without warning. I know a guy crashed once, and then weeks later went over a pothole and ripped his down tube in half. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, at this point, you could put your foot at the bend, grip the two ends of the top tube in your hands, and just fold the frame up like stiff paper. Most of the strength of a bike frame actually comes from the geometry, and once that geometry is altered it really doesn't work well.
posted by d. z. wang at 11:25 PM on March 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


you'd probably be able to find a used frame at Bikechain (bike co-op on the UofT campus) at a very reasonable price, and they'd likely have good advice on what to do with the old one
posted by iona at 4:04 AM on March 26, 2012


Okay, a dented tube is a compromised tube, and the top tube takes a lot of load in compression. I would be leery of riding it -- there's a lot of damage to the left-hand top tube, and the right hand is going to be supporting almost nothing with that much kinking in it.

The following assumes that the frame is steel, which it looks to be -- that sort of tubing isn't really suitable for alloy, it's clearly not composite, and I'd hope you'd not be leaving a Ti frame outside....

Assuming there's no other frame damage, it's actually repairable. Because of the double top tube, which bends into the backstays, it's a bit unusual, but the way I'd do it is to cut a new, single top tube, braze in the front end, then cut the old top tubes off about, oh, two inches ahead of the seat tube, trim and bend them to fillet into the new top tube, then braze them in as well.

This assumes that it's a steel frame worth saving. If it's a cheap gaspipe store frame, then a new frame will be cheaper, but if it's an expensive custom frame, there's no need to trash it completely -- any competent frame shop could easily measure and braze/weld in a new top tube and make sure the rest of the frame is square.

However, there could be other frame damage, esp. around the bottom bracket if the down or seat tubes were rotated when the top tube was pulled, so I'd want to evaluate that, and the proper way there is to strip the bike down and strip off the paint and get it into a frame jig.

So, really, what's the cost of the frame? You can get a basic decent steel frame for a couple of hundred bucks, sometimes less, so if the components on the bike are worth savings, then it's just a matter of swapping them on. If it's a customized frame, or a frame that fits you perfectly, it's probably fixable and may well be worth it to you.
posted by eriko at 7:08 AM on March 26, 2012


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