Steel definitely IS real



Steel is the "Big Boy" material of choice. At 250 Lbs. all three of my bikes are steel (2 road, 1 mountain ) and their frames have never given the least bit of trouble. I had a steel Fuji which I rode for 11 years and the frame was as good on the day I donated it to the local public program, as the day I got it. For the "large framed" among us it can't be beat.
 
I have foudn this thread to be particularly interesting, as I am currently going through an infatuation with steel frames.

I am pretty sure I can feel the difference between riding my steel bikes (Colnago Master X Lite, and a Kenevans Reynolds 753), my Giant OCR comp, and the Cervelo One (aluminium).

I have since retired the Cervelo One to its bare frame.

I can agree with 531Aussie about the springiness/liveliness of steel. What is the character of steel that contributes this "feeling" to the ride? I am just as confortable on my steel bikes as I am on my carbon.

However, I find my teeth getting jarred with the Cervelo one bike. Could it be the frame geometry rather than the frame material itself?

I have not found myself noticing the differences in the weights of the frames, on all my bikes, its just as difficult climbing hills!
 
I bought a Peogeot Carbolite 103 (steel) frame years ago and did my own little Tour de France ( a bit less grueling than the real thing.) Loved the ride and strength of the steel and the comort in knowing that you can load it up with panniers and go off road if necessary, race over cobblestones etc and not get any weld cracks. That was 20 years ago and although the frame has got a few brown spots, it could be ready for a restoration and another Tour without too much effort.
 
thomas_cho said:
However, I find my teeth getting jarred with the Cervelo one bike. Could it be the frame geometry rather than the frame material itself?
!
I'm no expert, but they say it's a bit of everything: material, geometry, tube shape & diamater, and wall thickness!

This was my first alu bike: a 1999 Specialized Allez Comp, and it a beuuuuuuuuuatiful bike to ride, but I don't know why. I eventually cracked the BB shell. :( It's not Columbus tubing; I put those stickers on

specialized.jpg
 
dhk2 said:
My old Raleigh 531 Gran Sport may have a "lifetime" lugged steel frame and fork, but who wants to ride a heavy clunker like that anymore?
I've wondered how much weight has to be on a bike before it's noticed. Two kg or more? Or do my old steel bikes feel slower for other reasons?

I have two 'decent' 531 bikes with 8sp on them that I dust off about once a fortnight for a ride. They sure feel slower than my aluminium bikes, but I don't know why. They have the same hubs (Ultegra) and similar rims, so it ain't the wheels.
 
FreeHueco said:
I'm assuming that the basic materials- aluminum and steel- have not changed since the dawn of mankind. What has changed is the way the framebuilders manipulate the tubing. So a highly manipulated steel tube should still be stronger than a highly manipulated aluminum tube.
Strength is pretty much irrelevant to any current bicycle frame - what you want is stiffness in certain places, impact resistance and fatigue resistance everywhere.
What bicycle frame ever failed through simply being too weak?
Cutting edge steel frames also fail from fatigue, not infrequently.
There seems to be just as much BS coming from the steel lobby as comes from the composite and Ti fans.
 
artemidorus said:
There seems to be just as much BS coming from the steel lobby as comes from the composite and Ti fans.
Don't bring Ti into this. Ti is a wonder metal. Moots told me so. I ride up hills faster, my AT has gone up by five beats a minute, and my johnson has grown two inches. All due to Ti.
 
While on the topic of stainless steel, are there any alternatives to Reynolds 953?

Were stainless steel tourers ever popular? Stainless steel frame, fork, panniers...my idea of a dream bike.
 
dhk2 said:
Seriously, how many frames have you seen of any material that failed due to fatigue?
It's a fair point (all of your points are quitre fair!). I haven't had a frame fail through fatigue. But I have had quite a lot of aluminium components fail completely (seat pin binders, bars ond so on) where I honestly don't think similar steel componenets would have suffered the same fate. They would bend, but not ultimately break.

I know some of my views are ultimately cliche'd but I don't actually think they are necessarily wrong. And one point I am certain about, I have about 7 aluminium bikes and one steel one (shortly to get another steel one!), and the steel bike is without any doubt what ever, much more compliant in it's ride and it's every bit as quick (for me, not for every rider but certainly for me). And my initial post is only that steel shouldn't be overlooked as a frame material because my own personal eperience is that it has an awful lot going for it.
 
xxamr_corpxx said:
While on the topic of stainless steel, are there any alternatives to Reynolds 953?

Were stainless steel tourers ever popular? Stainless steel frame, fork, panniers...my idea of a dream bike.
Didn't Schwinn have a SS touring bike long ago? I recall an "older" couple on a matching pair of these in the 70's.
 
KellyT said:
No doubt at all, aluminium can be shaped to give ultimately similar properties to steel. But, since it is a material that behaves quite differently to repeated flexing, it will fail a lot quicker. It's a bit of a catch 22, that the 'filling rattling' very rigid aluminium frames are likely to be the one's that will suffer fatigue damage more slowly, since they are resisting any movement at all.
I am not so sure Al frames are (or used to be) harsher because they required more meat to resist fatigue.

Al is weaker and less stiff than steel, necessitating either thicker tubing walls or larger diameter, factors which may dramatically alter how it handles stress and especially vibration. So you may wind up with a harsher frame even with no thought given to fatigue life.

Perhaps it's a combination of both factors.
 
garage sale GT said:
That just means the stays come together into one tube at the top before they meet the seat tube. I wrote what I wrote while laboring under the impression that their more curved shape would add a bit of flexibility, but Sheldon mentions no such thing.

However, I remain convinced that an aluminum frame could ride very well with proper design. You could make the steering tube, down tube, BB, and chain stays very stiff for good power transmission but add a bit of flex to the seatstays to prevent them from transmitting too much shock.
Just a random bit of cool info on the streetfire stays. Both stays are part of an ingenious 2piece design where the left chain & seatstay are one piece and the right chain & seat stay are also one piece. they weld together near the seat-tube junction to create a 'double wishbone' with three contact points for welding. One at the seat tube and two at the BB. That and the crosslock skeleton make it comfortable and stronger without nearly as many welds. It was used for PR after all.

Now. Steel is cool. I have a steel singlespeed that is comfortable, stiff and a joy to ride. However. It weighs a ton and rusts. It comes down to the manufacturer. Some people can make steel frames that are light, 'zingy' and stiff. The thing is, if you get builders at this level with other materials, chances are they will be able to build a frame out of their respective materials that also possesses excellent ride qualities.
 
p38lightning said:
Steel is the "Big Boy" material of choice. At 250 Lbs. all three of my bikes are steel (2 road, 1 mountain ) and their frames have never given the least bit of trouble. I had a steel Fuji which I rode for 11 years and the frame was as good on the day I donated it to the local public program, as the day I got it. For the "large framed" among us it can't be beat.
You need a new user name! P-38 cockpits were designed for 5'9" pilots! Bigger fighter pilots were assigned to P-40's then P-47s!
 
garage sale GT said:
I am not so sure Al frames are (or used to be) harsher because they required more meat to resist fatigue.

Al is weaker and less stiff than steel, necessitating either thicker tubing walls or larger diameter, factors which may dramatically alter how it handles stress and especially vibration. So you may wind up with a harsher frame even with no thought given to fatigue life.

Perhaps it's a combination of both factors.
A major advantage of Al is that it can be made into very wide tubes, but not because it has to be. The wall thickness of a tube has a minimum thickness of 1/50th to 1/60th of the tube diameter. Thinner than that and the tube can collapse like a beer can. Because steel is dense, this limits the tube width. Aluminium, at 1/3 the density of steel, can be made into a much wider tube without weighing too much, giving much greater stiffness per unit weight.

Tube strength is a minor point. Bicycle frames are never too weak. You can make strong, narrow Al tubes if you want, but why would you?
 
KellyT said:
And my initial post is only that steel shouldn't be overlooked as a frame material because my own personal eperience is that it has an awful lot going for it.
Let's all just ride what we like best. I, for one, would never overlook steel as a frame material. I remember when all bikes were made of steel. There were no exotic materials available. At this point in time, there are still a lot of good steel bikes available, but you can spend a good deal of money and get a bike made of almost any material you want. I personally would like the opportunity to ride a bike with a fame made of wood. Talk about flexibility!:)
 
kdelong said:
Let's all just ride what we like best. I, for one, would never overlook steel as a frame material. I remember when all bikes were made of steel. There were no exotic materials available. At this point in time, there are still a lot of good steel bikes available, but you can spend a good deal of money and get a bike made of almost any material you want. I personally would like the opportunity to ride a bike with a fame made of wood. Talk about flexibility!:)
I've seen pictures in one of the cycling mags, of wooden bikes. They are probably great to ride, but I couldn't get over the 'look' issues easily myself. A bit too radical. We used to have a German Shepherd too and I think I would be fairly concerned to end up with a bike the dog could eat (and she certainly would have!)
 
I spent 33 years riding high-end steel bikes. I found them to be very durable under all the punishment I could dish out during racing and training. The worst i could inflict, damage-wise, was a cracked right-rear dropout on a Colnago that I'm pretty certain was caused by jumping railroad tracks at grade crossings.

Last June I bought a 57cm TI Litespeed. The frame is nice and light and I'm told they are very durable. It's smooth-riding and exhibits great 'all day' comfort over rough pavement. The tradeoff is that it the most flexible frame I've ever owned. The insides of the chain stays are now polished shiny by the tire rubbing them...this with verticle dropouts and about the same tire clearance as any bike i've owned.

I can feel the bottom bracket moving under me when torquing up climbs or sprinting. Now I'm looking for a stiffer frame and I think I'll give a full carbon frame a go.
 
Some book I read which was published in 1995 said there were still at least two makers of wooden rims. Apparently it makes a light, strong rim which can be run safely at lower spoke tension and absorbs a lot of shock, but fails by flying to pieces.

I think they are for tubulars.

Some guy had a site about building a MTB out of bamboo with hand wrapped carbon/epoxy lugs. Said it had competitive weight and stiffness. I heard somewhere else, though, that someone had been killed on a similar machine.
 
kdelong said:
Let's all just ride what we like best. I, for one, would never overlook steel as a frame material. I remember when all bikes were made of steel. There were no exotic materials available. At this point in time, there are still a lot of good steel bikes available, but you can spend a good deal of money and get a bike made of almost any material you want. I personally would like the opportunity to ride a bike with a fame made of wood. Talk about flexibility!:)
I have seen a bike made out of bamboo. :D