This is from Skills with Phil instagram (@philkmetz) where he claims that "bikes are designed to fail this way to prevent injuries"
Now, hes got a lot more experience about bikes and the bike industry than I have, so Im inclined to trust him, but this is the first time Ive seen this claim and I cant find anything online to support this. Common sense also suggests to me that it would impossible to design a mountain bike strong enough to survive Hardline for example, yet somehow also designed to crumple if impacted in a certain way. It doesnt make sense to me. Seems to me like the frame already had a crack from previous hard use.
Or is he just making a joke??
by chuk9
23 Comments
Yeah – if an Alu frame bends it not only absorbs energy from the impact but it stops nasty sharp bits of tubing turning you into Swiss cheese.
It’s hard to tell from that video exactly how fast he was going – it kind of looks like he’s going a medium speed and it just folds! But I’m sure he was going quite some pace.
Bro… What the heck is that bikes geometry???
I think that’s a load of BS to be honest. Just some tip of the head bullshit after the bike broke. A “blonde moment” if you will
Bikes are not designed to fail. They are designed to be as strong as they can and as light as they can. Lately they are designed with a specific focus on rear wheel travel.
They are not designed to fail.
He’s not claiming bikes are supposed to break to prevent injuries. He’s claiming the way it failed (vs. snapping into pieces) is safer. That part is likely true, although whether it was “designed” to do that is debatable. Phil is sponsored by GT so he may be giving them credit for something they did not deliberately build into the frame.
He participates in this subreddit so maybe he’ll answer himself.
Bikes are not designed with Crumple zones
Hope GT gave him a raise for that BSing statement and got ppl to believe it.
It’s bullshit, normally the wheel or the fork goes First, but no bike frame has a breaking point
Ask him to publicly point out a crumple zone or what could have been designed as a crumple zone. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a bike builder to dispute it. That ranks as one of the dumbest fucking things I have ever heard.
The bike pictured looks to have been driven into the garage on a roof rack or took the hardest nose dive with a gorilla onboard
Hahaha who tickled It’s neck
what a load of bullshit, just sugar coating the situation to keep GT happy
Not sure on the whole story but I would expect someone to spout bullshit like this in an effort to avoid a lawsuit.
Yeah that’s complete bullshit. You won’t be physically able to hold onto the bike in a crash that bad so the whole “they fail so you don’t break bones” is horse shit. If a bike hits anything hard enough to do that sort of damage, your body is going to keep going forward regardless.
I’ve seen this in other industries, a poor design so they try to turn a defect into a feature.
No prescribed failure modes on a bike frame.
Certain regions are beefed up for sure (for obvious reasons) with gussets or additional layup, but the true design battle is always between weight and strength. Axle-to-crown on the fork has a huge influence in a failure like this… and it could be that the rider put a longer fork on the bike than what it was designed and tested for, which increases the load to the headtube during braking and when you punch the bike into a ditch.
he is making that up, 100%
I had a bike break like this once during this sprint cyclocross race at night. The organizer told us about the down tree, i forgot. As im going through the woods, i see some people on the side of the trail. Thinking it’s the finish, i speed up. It was the tree. Flipped over the handlebars, flew another 10 feet or so. When i got up, the front wheel and fork were fine, but the frame was bent in a few places. Most notably, the top tube and down tube were bent right near the head tube like on Phils bike. Im not defending his comments. When i first saw the video, my initial thought was he was going way too slow for the bike to fail like that. Maybe it was just the perfect amount of force at the perfect angle to crumple instantly. But when the clip started by showing the bike and then the lead in, i thought i was about to see Phil get thrown down the hill, not come to a gentle stop unharmed just off the trail.
Think about wheel spokes.
Pretty thin.
These are going to give way long before a frame does.
Stop listening to this clown.
Watch the video it literally breaks that way
I would imagine that an intact frame is better/safer than a shattered one, especially carbon. It’s not difficult to imagine that companies would take some affordable measures to mitigate liability should their frames fail. It could be as simple as extra layers in typical stress points or a layer of kevlar or some material that keeps the broken bits together so the rider doesn’t impale themselves. I’m not saying that it is a designed crumple zone for the wellbeing of the rider, but something that keeps GT from getting sued when their products break apart under use. Companies are extremely motivated to not pay out legal penalties.
Also, unless any of us here are engineers for GT, this whole thread is speculation and opinion.
I saw that video and was surpised at how it failed as it did not look like a violent crash
Yes, they have crumple zones now—haven’t you read the latest crash test reports? /s
That looks like it was driven into a barrier while on the top of a car!!!