Road Cycling - Reynolds 753, 853

Was Reynolds 853 developed from 753 ?

Not to be pedantic, but I am not sure what relevance if any your quesiton has. All the Reynolds steels are similar...the higher number offerings simply have higher yield strength and therefore can run thinner wall to achieve the same section modulus. The most common way to achieve more strength with steel is alloying, more carbon and/or heat treating. Reynolds is very protective of their steel composition...it is proprietary for obvious reasons. All said, you will be hard pressed to tell the difference between riding two similar bikes with frames from either...one with Reynolds 631 and the other with 853. 853 is great stuff but you would likely not feel any difference other then a few grams of weight.
George

I believe 853 is an air-hardened steel that was developed specifically for TIG welding applications, and is more amenable to production building techniques as it is more tolerable of overheating. 753, otoh, was a superthin tubing that required a Reynolds certification for framebuilding. I think the issue was that improper or sloppy heat application would weaked the thin tubing. I'm sure there are other differences, most importantly physical tubing spec, but they are not evolutionary other than in numerical designation. The same with 531 and 631. I saw a Masi 3V (753) 10 years ago that when thumbnailed, gave a ring unlike any other tubeset.

thanks pigmode for your reply. more demanding to weld heat treated manganese molybdenum (753).

Reynolds 953: Steel as light as carbon.

The weight in all of the modern steels is so small that unless you are comparing the lowest end with the highest end the weight difference is hardly worth mentioning. And even then there are no free lunches. One of the reasons that everyone loved the ride of Reynolds 753 was because most of the tubes were straight gauge.

I had a Bottecchia built from straight gauge Columbus tubing and you could actually tell that it rode better than the butted bikes. Apparently the tubes flexed more linearly or something because it felt very similar to a titanium bike.

So going for minimum weight costs you ride comfort for what that's worth.

Ok, let me throw this in here......I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I think it's somewhat relavant.

Back a few years ago, I believe LeMond used Reynolds 853. Now, LeMond uses True Temper OX Platinum for their steel bikes.

To those of you who rode both these steel frames, would you please comment on the ride? Do you notice any difference?

Thx.

Reynolds 953: Steel as light as carbon. I gotta say, I'd love it if 953 became the next big thing in the next few years :)

What about 531? Mercian still has a lot of it left and still can build a 531 frame. How does 531 compare to newer 631 or 853?

meh, Carbon is the wave of the future.

I have a late 80's Peugeot Versailles with the HLE frame. Being Peugeot's base model steel, I'm assuming the tubes were straight guage. This bike is quite heavy at 27lbs but it has the most comfortable ride. It is also a very stiff and robust frame. There is much to be said for straight guage tubing.

meh, Carbon is the wave of the future.


Steel has plenty of carbon in it.

Steel has plenty of carbon in it.
:D

So many posts, so little of the info correct.

Anyone care to to illuminate? Anyone know what the Reynolds label "numbers" really mean?

Anyone know what the difference is between Iron and steel? Anyone know the difference betweem generic steel and a steel-alloy?

C'mon.

100 year old iron is used in the bodies of my Japanese chisels and plane knives for resiliency, to which a piece of high carbon Hitachi White steel is hand forge-welded to provide the cutting edge. The carbon content of these cutting edges is slightly over 1%, which means it take great expertise to forge, heat treat and temper properly, and not just a fair amount of techinque in putting them to use and keeping them sharp.

Other than that, when it comes to bicycle frames I tend to trust the knowledge of my framebuilder. If you have something to share, don't play coy. :p

So many posts, so little of the info correct.

Anyone care to to illuminate? Anyone know what the Reynolds label "numbers" really mean?

Anyone know what the difference is between Iron and steel? Anyone know the difference betweem generic steel and a steel-alloy?

C'mon.
__0

The weight in all of the modern steels is so small that unless you are comparing the lowest end with the highest end the weight difference is hardly worth mentioning. And even then there are no free lunches. One of the reasons that everyone loved the ride of Reynolds 753 was because most of the tubes were straight gauge.

I had a Bottecchia built from straight gauge Columbus tubing and you could actually tell that it rode better than the butted bikes. Apparently the tubes flexed more linearly or something because it felt very similar to a titanium bike.

So going for minimum weight costs you ride comfort for what that's worth.
+1