In integral abutment bridges clamped abutment piles are in addition to a compressive normal force subjected to bending load cycles from daily and yearly temperature variations. Through experiments with full-scale specimens representing a clamped pile it is shown that a steel pipe pile loaded in bending can withstand several hundred load cycles at strain ranges greater than 6 times the yield strain with almost full load bearing capacity. By means of an example it is shown that by permitting pile strains greater than the yield strain, in contrast to most present design codes, integral abutment bridges can be erected with a span length up to 500m and a prospected service life of 120 years.