So it was a really busy April and then May and June got really quiet on the riding front. As you can see from the pictures, my Salsa Fargo Ti frameset developed a proper crack on the top of the non-drive side seat stay, just below the weld to the seat tube. It's cracked all the way around and there's a hairline crack on the opposite seat stay right about the same spot, except on the drive side stay, the crack is on the weld itself.
It's not like I was doing massive jumps for our page on TikTok, this was from basic riding and metal fatigue. I guess it was the frame's time to meet its maker. It had a lot of miles on it, I mean a lot, at least 30,000, with a bunch of GDMBR miles mixed in. I bought it at Universal Cycles in Portland in 2017 and it's been my primary bike ever since.
So it made me a bit sad to strip the bike down and then figure out what "Plan B" was going to be. After sourcing a Curve GMX+ Ti frameset that I've been coveting for years, I took Salsa up on their offer of a crash replacement discount (missed the 5-year warranty period by a year!). So yes, I'm in the enviable position getting to specify and build out two Titanum adventure bikes.
I've had a bunch of component breakages lately, so rather than just building the bikes out with existing components, I took a comprehensive look at all of the gear I've been riding with. Haven't talked about it here, but in the last three years, I've broken two Ti cranksets and an aluminum one from 5Dev. Both Cane Creek and 5Dev were great about replacements, and from my conversations with engineers at both companies, I got the sense that these were extremely rare events. I also confirmed that both companies have my picture posted on the wall of their test cells. The common thread in all three failures was that I was out of the saddle climbing, so they were at relatively low speed, but there's nothing pleasant about being surprised, losing your balance and landing on the ground.
I talked it over with a metallurgist friend of mine and he convinced me to switch over to the aluminum cranks made by White Industries. They're machined out of 2024 Aluminum, an aerospace alloy with a high concentration of copper. It's a little more prone to pitting and corrosion, but the strength is much higher than 7075 or 6061 Aluminum alloys used in most other cranksets.
Of course, the White Industries cranks are beautifully made and no one else seems to be making cranksets out of 2024, so they may be on to something. We'll see how they hold up to my crank-breaking ways. Oh, didn't mention how I broke a SRAM Descendant GXP Aluminum crankset on this bike as well, didn't bother to take a picture of that one. The next stop on this bus will be the chromoly-steel BMX inspired MTB cranksets by Profile Racing.
So while I work out a whole new set of component choices, I'm going to put my summer GDMBR tour on hold. We'll get everything rolling and burn in a whole new set of equipment for the 2024 riding season through a series of long weekend adventures. Stay tuned for some awesome new build details.
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