Bad, but inevitable news: the Orange Demon, my ca 1997 or 98 Gary Fisher Kaitai--beloved mountain bike, commuter workhorse, and mountain bike again--may be at the end of its life. After hearing some loud, resonant, cracking/clunking/pinging noises coming from the bottom bracket area during out-of-saddle climbing on my rides at Cache Crk and the Village singletrack on Sunday, I did some investigating and found a crack at the base of the driveside chainstay. After scraping the paint away and buffing with steel wooly stuff, here is what it looked like:
The noises I heard may have been a red herring wrt the frame crack--a contaminated bottom bracket after the crazy muddy Shadow Mountain ride on Thursday could be causing that (although there's no play in the BB to indicate it's on its way out) and if that's the case, maybe this crack has been present for years...and I could ride it for the rest of the summer with little risk...but there's no way to know.
As it is, the super cool shop Hoback Sports, in town, has submitted a warranty claim for me, complete with photos. Truth of the matter is that aluminum frames, even in reasonable use, do not last forever. It's a material property of Al itself. Nevertheless, these frames carry a lifetime warranty so with luck they'll honor it at some level.
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