Mountain Cycle

I spent 8 hours in a car today. I drove 530 miles and got to fondle a DH frame in the middle of it all. All while simply doing my job.

I had to take a piece of rail car to a lab for analysis. The company I subcontracted to do this work is amazing. IMR Test Labs in Lansing, NY has some amazing equipment and gave me a pretty in depth tour of their facility. They have a scanning electron microscope capable of over 5000X magnification... that's amazing.

When I walked in the door of IMR, I was shocked to see an old Mountain Cycle DH frame on display along with some other cross sectioned equipment which the lab had performed analysis on. When I inquired, they told me that this particular frame had broken during a DH race and Mountain Cycle hired them to perform a failure analysis, with specific attention to the welds. They told me that the welds ended up being fine, so I wonder what the hell happened...