Steel is better? - Page 3

Nowadays you can get steel tubing drawn down to .4mm(Columbus Foco, EL-OS, etc).

True Temper S3 steel is used to make sub-3 lb. frames.

If you've got the scratch, you can satisfy that itch.

here's the 2005 Columbus catalog. The Spirit tubing is .5mm/.38mm/.5mm
a suggested 54cm frame of 8 tubes will get you a 1060g frame.

That's scary light.

http://www.framebuilding.com/acrobat...us%2020054.pdf

I doubt it. If they are interested in engineering a bike properly then they have to look at fatigue. Static loading is no good even if you pluck some fancy safety factor out of the air. Maybe you work for or know a frame manufacturer well and if they dont design for fatigue on something that is exposed to high cyclic stresses then they are poor engineers.

It depends on what you mean by a good engineer. Fatigue is not the only constraint placed on a frame design. Cost, weight, ride quality, and manufacturability all weigh in very heavily. Good engineering means understanding how to balance these constraints knowing that you can't ever meet all of them. Just because a bike frame doesn't have an infinite fatigue life doesn't mean that it wasn't designed for fatigue. But a rough estimate is about as much as anyone needs. There are a lot of variables, and they're all stochastic. Infinite fatigue life for all outlying combinations is never going to happen. Some amount of judgement is needed to ballpark an "acceptable" life span for the product. Sure, you could design a steel frame to last forever, but the bike buying public has decided that it's not going to lay down several thousand dollars for a ten pound road frame.

Believe the numbers: http://www.efbe.de/testergebnisse/enindex.php
EFBe has yet to test a frame made out of any material that didn't break break under cyclic loading at some point.

The lugs, don't forget the beautiful lugs, the quill stems, the thin tubes, the retro look, the snob appeal in a retro kind of way.....

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Jamis Aurora, Jamis Coda Comp

Welp, I have a Columbus Zona steel frame, and it's really the best handling, best riding frame I've yet owned. I've had very good aluminum and titanium frames such as C'dale, Litespeed, K2, but not carbon yet.

This Zona is very stiff, almost too stiff at the rear, but it doesn't beat me up over longer rides. I have no problems doing metric and full centuries on this frame.

Weight is good - around 19 lbs. for 56cm, with a mostly Chorus group, but not the lightest wheels (1678gm/pr.), brakes (Centaur), saddle (Brooks Swift), or BB (Truvativ GP Team SL) just as examples. It wouldn't be too hard to get this rig to sub-18 lbs., which is very good for a steel bike. Unfortunately, I didn't have a means to weigh just the frame before I assembled it.

I'll probably keep this one for a long time.

__________________
"Bush is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

- John Dean, former Counsel to the President (Nixon)

The aim of big corporations is to separate fools from their money all of the time and ordinary folks from their money most of the time. The rest of us must fend for ourselves.

I didn't mean they should design bikes that never fatigue. That would mean steel bikes really would be king! I responding to the other poster's post that manufaturers dont care about fatigue. I was suggesting they must at least do some form of fatigue analysis to be credible otherwise they could have either a well over the top or under designed bike. You cant tell just by guessing

The best steel bikes in the world are still the ones that are hand built in small shops. I'll bet any amount of money that Richard Sachs doesn't sit down and do fatigue calculations every time he starts out a made to order frame. This is one of those cases where experience and intuition are far superior to any type of analysis.

For all you guys out there talking about weight of steel, check out Indy Fabs new bike in Road magazine. Now I know that this thing is built with some very high end parts, but it still weighs 16 lbs. I am riding a steel Lemond right now that is my father's. I thought that the weight would hinder me, but the ride quality and the comfort have helped me ride farther and harder. My next bike may just be a new steel custom frame. I do not get into the lugged ones though. I love the ride. Granted I have not ridden but one carbon bike and it was a TREK. I am looking to get a test ride on a Colnago C-50 which I have read is the pinnacle by which a lot of frames are compared. For the price of a C-50 set up though I could get a nice custom steel from Serotta, Indy Fab, Steelman........


Bruce

You mentioned Serotta. They just brought back their Coeur d'Acier for 2006. This is good! It's Columbus Niobium, but whether it's Spirit or Life or some combination I don't know. Custom geom is no charge, but various paint schemes are an upcharge.

http://www.serotta.com/pages/cda.html

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__________________
"Bush is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

- John Dean, former Counsel to the President (Nixon)

The aim of big corporations is to separate fools from their money all of the time and ordinary folks from their money most of the time. The rest of us must fend for ourselves.

I also noticed that Orbea has a steel bike now with carbon seat stays. I do not know if you can get it in custom geometry, but I think that may be an option. It is the same tubing, and it is called the spirit. You can also get it without carbon.


Bruce

Yes, I've been looking at that one too. It's a better price @ $1399. w. CF stays than the CDA @ $1599. The Spirit with steel stays is only $999. You can get custom geom for +$100. with the Spirit. The CDA can also be had with or w/o CF stays, but I don't know if the $1599. is the all-steel or CF version.

So, if the Orbea's stock geom is right for you, you can save at least $200. over the Serotta. It wouldn't be for me, so I'd have to pay the $100. for custom.

Then there's the paint scheme. The Orbea comes OEM with either black/white or blue/white, and I'm not sure if they want an upcharge for something different. Serotta does charge more for non-OEM paint.

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__________________
"Bush is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

- John Dean, former Counsel to the President (Nixon)

The aim of big corporations is to separate fools from their money all of the time and ordinary folks from their money most of the time. The rest of us must fend for ourselves.

I am not as much worried about the paint as I am about the geometry. That is good to know that they will do the custom geometry. I was told that they would do it on the alum. models, but not the carbon fiber. I did not even know that they had a steel bike.


Bruce