Durability

[rliu]

How durable would you say a mid range bike worth about £1000 is? I have a GT Tachyon 1.0 and started pondering this as the roads near where I live are pretty bumpy and then today I slipped and collided at slow speed with a foot bridge railing. How well are hybrid/road bikes designed to deal with wear and tear?

 

[HLaB]

Bikes are pretty robust touchwood, I've came off mine a few times and they seem to be OK. I collided once with a chain across the path in the dark on my £300 townbike, the bike has done thousands of miles since OK.

 

[JohnHenry]

Unfortunately there is only one way to find out for sure. Keep hitting the bridge railing on a daily basis, raising your speed at increments of (say) five miles per day until something breaks on either you or the bike.

 

[fossyant]

Very robust, so long as you look after them, ie maintain them properly.

 

[martint235]

Check it for any sign of a crack. If it's carbon, get your local LBS to give it a once over. I'd imagine it'll be fine .

As a slightly larger person, I was always terrified of commuting on a road bike so used an MTB for years. I've now been commuting on a road bike for about 8-9 years and I've only broken the frame on one (Giant SCR1 which I'm convinced has a design fault cos there's quite a few been broken in the same place, top of seat tube)

 

[lulubel]

Depends how solid the item you collide with is, and how fast you're going when you collide with it. They're pretty robust up to a point. My OH rides hers (alu road bike) into things at low speeds on a fairly regular basis, and it doesn't seem to come to any harm. I rode mine into a car at 18mph just once, and the frame bent. So unfair .....

 

[rollinstok]

A £100 pound bike is in many ways more durable than a £2000 bike.
In general, you just get where your going a bit faster the more you spend.