I actually know the original owner of the frame. It's been set up in a few iterations. Notably with a nitto campee rack, large basket, and child carrier. I'm assuming it has hauled a fair amount of weight in it's day. I am rebuilding the frame as a light trail / fire road mountain bike. The cracks were noticed while the initial negotiations of the purchase of the frame. We sanded them down to make sure there was no issues with the tubing itself. I am confident there is no structural issues with the frame. (not that I can do ultrasounds, but assume cracking would appear on the outside as opposed to internally)
The paint itself is way too thick and chipping out quite bad in a lot of spots. It kind of has a consistency of M&M's. I am guessing any amount of flex of vibration would have and will cracked the paint. I have a Marino MTB with a similar issue with its powder-coating. It just gets small cracks anywhere there is any flex. I really love the clementine orange despite it's lacklustre quality, so may do the "fingernail polish" method of just spot covering up the chips. Lean in to the "beausauge" The only broken mixte i've seen sofar is the overloaded susie. I'd wager this frame will continue to last and not too concerned about issues with breaking even with light mountain biking. If it does break at any point, I'd be happy to do a full report of the conditions that lead to it! and probably get a frame builder to fix it and add in a top tube for the heck of it. On Friday, August 26, 2022 at 8:34:01 AM UTC-7 brok...@gmail.com wrote: > Wow. That is interesting. Maybe a bit concerning?? So, did you grind the > paint off in those sections just to see the extent of it, or are you > planning to try to repair the paint job? > > On Friday, August 26, 2022 at 5:38:03 AM UTC-4 iamkeith wrote: > >> That's what you get for catching big air too many times! Perhaps the >> real flaw of step-through designs is that the generous standover height >> (read: low-consequence crotch clearance) encouages aggressive rididing or >> attempting of tricks. In seriousness, it's oo bad you don't/can't know >> the real history because anything else we offer would be speculation. >> Still... knowing myself, that WAS something I intuitively worried about >> when i opted for the high-bar (clem) version. I didn't/don't have the same >> concern with the gus/susie hillibikes. >> >> On Thursday, August 25, 2022 at 6:54:08 PM UTC-6 Mike Godwin wrote: >> >>> Dramatic for sure! >>> >>> Mike SLO CA >>> On Thursday, August 25, 2022 at 3:15:37 PM UTC-7 Mackenzy Albright wrote: >>> >>>> [image: PXL_20220825_220133171_2.jpg] >>>> >>>> I recently acquired this orange Clementine. We all know early >>>> generations paint are negotiable. However, I find the crack patterns quite >>>> interesting. Obviously, given the cracking location and direction leads me >>>> to believe that this puppy planes! Move over kasai tubing. >>>> >>>> *note. hint of satire here. but also am curious about the flex quality >>>> of step through frames. I've found them to feel as spritely as anything. >>>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/351156e5-ce80-44af-8c4b-75d8f93a6761n%40googlegroups.com.
