"Phil, Squid-in-Training" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Do frames like the Castellano Fango
http://www.castellanodesigns.com/fango.htmland this Ibis
http://www.totalbike.com/news/article/24/have a propensity to fail?
There are other similar softail designs out there, notably the
carbon-stayed
Quoted message said:Cannondale Scalpel:
http://www.cannondale.com/bikes/02/images/large/scal3000_02.jpgThoughts?
The Castellano looks a bit dicey to me, but Klein and Trek both have
aluminum-based softail road bikes on the market this year, and there have
been plenty of others in the past. Discovery has been using the design on
their carbon team bikes in some of the spring classics, most notably Paris
Roubaix. As for how failure-prone they are, it's likely a function of how
much travel is built into the design. If you limit the travel sufficiently,
there shouldn't be a big problem if properly designed and tested. After
all, unsupported fork blades flex back and forth regularly, but you don't
see too many people worrying about how failure prone they are. Ti, steel
and carbon setups should be able to offer a bit more travel than aluminum
and live to tell, but with a maximum of 10-12mm of axle movement like the
road designs mentioned above, aluminum will probably be OK too.
SB