It’s officially over. I finally cracked my Performance Titanium frame after all these years. I put a lot of miles on it and it was a great frame while it lasted. The weld on the drive side seat stay, right behind the seat clamp cracked, and the crack was spreading across the tube. Oh well. Performance had a lifetime guarantee on the frame so I brought it in for a replacement. Knowing that the Ti frames were a thing of the past I suspected that I would be offered one of their current frames. I was right, but instead of taking the Aluminum with carbon fiber seat stay frames I took the value of the frame and put it towards a brand new bike. My parts were pretty old, and I’m not a big fan of aluminum frames. So now I’m cruising around on a brand new Ultegra equiped Scattante Monocoque Carbon fiber frame. I’ve ridden it two days this week on my commute to work, so far so good. It’s definitely not a steel frame, and not as flexy as my Ti frame was. I’ve heard carbon described as “dead” feeling, it’s weird there’s almost no feedback from the frame. It doesn’t flex, and sort of rattles along over the bumps. Maybe that’s what it is, the almost clunking sound of the parts not jingling on the frame. Not bad, just different.
