I am thinking bolts could get rusty on bikes,especially when taking off-road regularly in muddy and rainy conditions. I know titanium bolts can be used, but not always as strong as steel. However, I found these ones
They are forged and therefore very strong, also quite expensive. But by opinion I am just trying to find out where on the bike rust can be a real problem, and where on the bike can failing bolts be most dangerous?
I think of using these expensive bolts on places where inferior bolts may cause dangerous situations, and perhaps cheaper titanium bolts in areas where lack of strength is less of a struggle, I am thinking bottle cages for example. Anyone any overview of bolts on bikes?
Every once in awhile I get a little surface rust inside the allen head of a bolt. But that is easily preventable if you just get a dab of grease in there. But in my 20+ years of cycling, I have never had a bolt rust out on me. Get some fancy bolts if you want, but you don't need to in the name of safety. You are overthinking this.
I've never had a ti rotor bolt cause an issue. I get 12 packs on Amazon and use em for rotors, bottle cages, fenders, etc. I use some bigger ones on my wife's tubus rack or on brake calipers.
On bottle cages some weight weenies use nylon bolts. You really dont need much strength there.
Konass wrote:Every once in awhile I get a little surface rust inside the allen head of a bolt. But that is easily preventable if you just get a dab of grease in there. But in my 20+ years of cycling, I have never had a bolt rust out on me. Get some fancy bolts if you want, but you don't need to in the name of safety. You are overthinking this.
Truth.
Water and mud are not the problem...Corrosion is caused more by sweat and sports drinks (which contain varying amounts of sodium). Sweat tends to come off your face and head and land on the front of the bike, so just be sure to rinse or wipe off stem bolts after a hard ride, and the rest of the bike occasionally too. And don't forget to do the same for the cable guides on the head tube and/or down tube.
Also remember that ti bolts will not be as strong as good old cro-moly steel, and ti is also more likely to galvanically weld itself to other metals used on your bike.
With all of that said, I just got a bike with a Zipp stem that came with ti bolts...So I am planning to pull them out and reapply anti-seize paste every year or so.
I ride a bike year round here in northern Minnesota. That means lots of brine (road salt +melting snow/rain) for at least 5 months of the year. I have never had a bolt completely rust out on me. But I have had lots of corrosion in the heads and galvanic corrosion on the threads.
The problem on a bike is that you are almost always screwing a bolt into aluminum threads. So the issue becomes galvanic corrosion. The problem there is that the more corrosion resistant the bolt becomes the more you are increasing the Galvanic corrosion with the aluminum part that it is screwing into, so there really is no win-win there as far as I know.
That said, I have replaced most of the brake caliper mounting bolts with stainless bolts.
If you do have an issue with aluminum corrosion, and something seized, try ammonia to loosen it. It was the only thing that worked on my through axle that seized in its threads.
Most of my bikes I ever owned had stainless bolts on the handlebar mount bolts and water cage bolts. Why not just use Stainless? Lowes and other big box hardware stores sells metric stainless bolts somewhat cheap. I know I work for one of them.
Zurichman wrote:Most of my bikes I ever owned had stainless bolts on the handlebar mount bolts and water cage bolts. Why not just use Stainless? Lowes and other big box hardware stores sells metric stainless bolts somewhat cheap. I know I work for one of them.
Zman
I believe stainless steel is not as strong as cro-moly (chromium molybdenum) steel. While stainless steel is fine for low stress tasks such as holding water bottle cages to a frame, I would never use it on a stem, for instance.
Koyote you had me curious as I work around Hardware bolts so I did a search. It said that stainless is the same as grade 5 bolts which is what most cro-moly bolts are. Of course they aren't as strong as grade 8 bolts but I don't need grade 8 bolts on my stem which are used mainly for heavy equipment use.
So I came across this bolt chart. 170,000 psi tensile strength for stainless and 180,000 - 210,000 tensile strength for cro moly. Stainless works for me.
Zurichman wrote:Koyote you had me curious as I work around Hardware bolts so I did a search. It said that stainless is the same as grade 5 bolts which is what most cro-moly bolts are. Of course they aren't as strong as grade 8 bolts but I don't need grade 8 bolts on my stem which are used mainly for heavy equipment use.
So I came across this bolt chart. 170,000 psi tensile strength for stainless and 180,000 - 210,000 tensile strength for cro moly. Stainless works for me.
Still not worth the bother, at least for me. I'm a heavy sweater, and I've got a 16-year old bike with the original headset and top cap bolt - and though the bolt is a little rusty, everything still works just fine. Oh, and I almost never clean it off after a hot ride.
Still not worth the bother, at least for me. I'm a heavy sweater, and I've got a 16-year old bike with the original headset and top cap bolt - and though the bolt is a little rusty, everything still works just fine. Oh, and I almost never clean it off after a hot ride.
I am not OCD or a clean freak by any means on my bikes. I don't like to see rusty heads on bolts though. Since I work where it isn't much of a problem to get stainless bolts I replaced them on my roadie bike. My 2 Raleigh's from what I have seen has Stainless headset bolts.
My Lemond Victoirre I sent back to Trek once. My sweat eats off the clear coat. They fixed it but said one and done.
Fastenal and Grainger are great places to get large quantities of stainless hardware. I bit the bullet and got a bunch of cap head screws in a variety of lengths and diameters, and have dipped into that collection often as I work on my bikes.
Thanks chas weighs in around 18 lbs if I remember right. 2006 Victoirre version(call her Victoria Secret). Not sure when Lemond had to stop making his bikes. I bought it to do RAAM. Top is carbon and 1/2 day glued with all Ti. The only bike that rode close to it when I bought it was an all Ti Merlin.Bikes have come so far since then that a friend of mine bought a no name carbon bike on Nashbar that had more bells and whistles than my Lemond but he sure did build a sweet bike. I have a couple of others and probably will build up an all Ti 2003 Lemond Victoirre frame in a double as this bike is a triple. One of the reason I can never forgive Lance from forcing Trek to drop the Lemond brand. I have heard he is selling bikes in Europe but I don't know anything about that.
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