Carbon road fork lifespan

just buy a new bicycle

Other than being sensible about the condition of the faceplate... I've never been given advice about them. I would imagine their life is highly dependent on how well the faceplate is designed and tightened. As is handlebar life actually.

just buy a new bicycle

This. Buy new, get a warranty (set about voiding it).

:)

Good idea. But which one?

That was an interesting read, thanks!

Special offer, steel bars with a 30 year warranty, £500

i think the alloy handlebar rule is a bit more connected to mountain biking where the forces are greater, as well as the chance of complete failure. that being said I would definitely look to change alloy handlebars on a road bike after sustained use (probably longer than 2 years though!)

[fucking 504 errors!]

How often do they replace aluminium aircraft?

How often do they replace aluminium aircraft?

Design service life is an important variable, with input from accountants being critical. There's no point designing an aircraft to last past the point where it is expected to become obsolete for either tactical or commercial reasons. Typical numbers for airliners would be from 40,000 to 100,000 flights, with short haul types getting more design cycles than long haul types that comes to about 200,000 flight hours in either case. On the other hand, where a short lifespan (due to an expectation of rapid progress and/or combat attrition) and low duty cycle (due to air forces not having an imperative to sweat their assets) combined with a desire to maximise performance at the expense of durability, military aircraft are sometimes designed for as little as 5000 flight hours. When they get those calculations wrong, you need something called a Service Life Extension Programme - either things start breaking sooner than expected (sometimes due to changed tactics - see a whole bunch of cold war bombers which were designed for high altitude and suddenly had to switch to nap-of-the-earth flying to mitigate unforeseen SAM risk), or you keep stuff on the fleet for 100 years due to five generations of "replacements" proving too expensive/useless (hello BUFF)

To the actual question; I'd be surprised if any reputable company was designing any aluminium cycle parts, even the weight-weenie options, for under 2,000h of typical service loading, so the 'replace every 2 years' advice is for people who use one bike for about 15-20,000 miles per year. The mandatory EN 14781 test, though, only requires 100,000 cycles (2 sets, one in phase and one out of phase) which is really only about 24 hours of riding, so it's there to weed out utter rubbish rather than provide any assurance that stuff will last a reasonably long time.

Wouldn't manufacturers mention it on the packaging

Some of them do; not a specified service life, but ass-covering language like 'inspect before every ride' and 'this high performance racing widget won't last forver'

I don't take any chances with aluminium. Just had the whole chassis of my Audi A8 swapped out for a new one - the dealers thought I was mad. What would they know eh.

Would be interesting to see whether fatigue was actually the limiting factor on any part of the A8 chassis - often with vehicle structures (bicycle and car), once you've thrown enough metal at the problem to solve the stiffness requirement, the strength and fatigue life look after themselves. After that, it would be interesting to see what fatigue life Audi decided was a match for their brand aspirations - few first owners are likely to go past 250,000 miles. The accountants will point out that it's cheaper to fix early failures than it is to make everything last a long time (even if those early failures kill people and you have to pay compensation, in some cases), but the marketing department might say that a reputation for long service life is a good advertisement which can generate new sales from people stepping up from old second hand models.