The anti Klein brigade.

@fguki:
Sorry, unfortunately you are totally wrong:
Vintage Klein bikes breaking is not the most stupid thing at all.
Be informed, do your research, read = be knowledgeable!
If you're choosing to be ignorant or have half knowledge, then that's your choice, but do not pretend to know, if you clearly don't.

Why (for example) the boxed fork, with square head was discontinued after 1991....guess why? Because they broke very often. It was also the same reason why FUNK bikes changed to round heads in 1992.

Back to Kleins:
Other areas on the frames prone to breaking - were seat tube area near the top, on the rear, headset area and others.
Kleins 6061 T-6 tubing (used with Kleins until late 1993), which btw came from a large plane builder, was unfortunately not that strong and prone to break, especially with bikes from 1990 - 1993.
@fguki: Read on the subject, do your research, inform yourself, talk with many who have owned various Kleins who have really driven them offroad, not just put them on a wall or driven around the corner to impress their neighbors. You will then have to acknowledge that (unfortunately) all mentioned points are 100% correct. 🍔


I think its fair to say, Steel rusts, Aluminium corrodes, Frames break, if you have someone over tightening a seat clamp, it will break eventually, headtubes will crack, forks will fail, especially if your at the cutting edge chasing the boundaries of what is possible, Chasing the ultimate balance of weight and strength.

Its Not Klein, its certainly not isolated, not even to aluminium, its no secret Chas Roberts developing the White Spider which evolved, suggested certain variations were only good for One Race season.
Look again at the Roberts Stratos, the E-stay design, he didn't even want to build it, as he felt the whole e-Stay concept was flawed, creating as many new problems as it did solving old ones. And yet the bikes exists, and why..?, because the market was new, builders were searching for solutions/balance and weight advantages in an industry that was new and marketing led.

r5 (2).jpg
 
Klein's were a massive part of the local racing scene when I was a Youth/Junior rider. The group of young riders from Croydon that were always at the front (Humphries and Hemmings usually off the front) were picked up by Klein. I would smash my way around the Southend and County Wheelers' Winter Series getting thrashed by these guys every few weeks on their Dolomite Attitudes. As someone mentioned earlier, Hemming took his to a silver in the junior downhill in Durango, so they must handle reasonably well. So, in my mind they have always been associated with racing and performance. Unlike Cannondale I have never seen a Klein frame failure at a race.

I couldn't afford one as a junior and really didn't understand how anyone could; but would I like a Dolomite Attitude now? OMG yes.
1701944188894.jpeg
1701954391148.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Even on the road side, the steel 753 tubeset was intended for race grade and to be retired after a few seasons / races even of being thrashed. The 753 ATB tubeset seems rather rare. It's just daft to think these uber light frames regardless of material were built to be eternal.
 
Even on the road side, the steel 753 tubeset was intended for race grade and to be retired after a few seasons / races even of being thrashed. The 753 ATB tubeset seems rather rare. It's just daft to think these uber light frames regardless of material were built to be eternal.
Precisely.
 
@24pouces

Oh wow...one KLEIN frame cracked. Can you please provide whats the average failure rate of KLEIN MTB frames per thousand? Compared to Manitou, Cannondale, later Yetis or other Aluminium manufacturers in general.

Its not about lurid examples from the net or magazines. Its about pure and dry statistics - lets say per thousand - or ten thousand of manufactured frames. How many cracked?

And again: KLEIN frames were definitely not certified as being "prone to cracking". There are many other brands or products that were!

@biker23

Were talking about frames here. And you are arguing like a 14 year old. Just the fact, that neither the boxed fork of KLEIN or FUNK cracked (5 of 1.000) dont make the brand prone to cracking in general.

It is simply "stupid" to take out one fact of a peripheral part that was changed after 1 year and categorize the whole brand as "they crack" and simply stubbornly stick to your argument. *lol*

I am not any kind of "fanboy" of KLEIN. I do have a lot to criticize. But its simply dumb to completely overgeneralize ...

Sorry
 
@24pouces

Oh wow...one KLEIN frame cracked. Can you please provide whats the average failure rate of KLEIN MTB frames per thousand? Compared to Manitou, Cannondale, later Yetis or other Aluminium manufacturers in general.

Its not about lurid examples from the net or magazines. Its about pure and dry statistics - lets say per thousand - or ten thousand of manufactured frames. How many cracked?

And again: KLEIN frames were definitely not certified as being "prone to cracking". There are many other brands or products that were!

@biker23

Were talking about frames here. And you are arguing like a 14 year old. Just the fact, that neither the boxed fork of KLEIN or FUNK cracked (5 of 1.000) dont make the brand prone to cracking in general.

It is simply "stupid" to take out one fact of a peripheral part that was changed after 1 year and categorize the whole brand as "they crack" and simply stubbornly stick to your argument. *lol*

I am not any kind of "fanboy" of KLEIN. I do have a lot to criticize. But its simply dumb to completely overgeneralize ...

Sorry
@fguki:
Maybe the MAIN problem lies with you (💩)and you should simply learn to read in a proper way? :LOL:

Aren't you just a little bit ashamed of yourself for being a grown up man & not being able to read nor understand what I wrote in my text?!
The cracking of the boxed forks with Kleins was a fact & the cracking of frames (as mentioned in my previous post) also.

I wrote that vintage Klein frames were prone to crack in various places.....read again and again and again, if you read my text 10 times in a row,
then maybe your brain will pick it up after 5 times.

And about the way (in your opinion) that I argue like a 14 year old:
This is kind of an insult to me, but ok it's your strange opinion.
I don't think that a 14 year old could write in that way, but if you insist then:

Well, the reason is, I assumed that you had the intellect & understanding of a 14 year old, so I thought, let's argue like a 14 year old so that
the manchild = you understands it.
But maybe you are even younger in maturity?

Wow so a fork is a "peripheral" part for you?
The only good use of this eloquent word, actually too eloquent for somebody like you,
is that your knowlegde of Kleins is EXTREMELY PERIPHERAL. 🤣

P.S. You seem quite frustrated & bitter. Maybe you should buy a parrot who lectures you about the cracking of vintage Klein bikes,
then you would have 2 positive effects: Someone you could talk to & you would even learn something more valuable than you usually do! 🥳
 

Latest posts

Back
Top