General Cycling Discussion - Lugged? Can you explain

During a stage of the Tour de France one of the commentators mentioned the advance of welded frames over lugged. However I'm not sure what he meant. I mean I understand the concept of welding and the inherent benefits but I don't know anything about lugged frames.

If anyone could explain, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Portent.

Try this:

http://www.rivendellbicycles.com/html/bikes_lugs.html

RichC

According to Sheldon Brown, that purveyor of all cycling lore:


A lug is a socket that forms the junction between two or more frame tubes. Traditional bicycle construction uses steel tubes and lugs, joined together by brazing or silver soldering so that the space between the tube and the lug fills up with molten brass or silver alloy. Some aluminum or carbon fiber bicycles also use lugs, with glue instead of the brass or silver.

Now that metallurgy has produced tubing which doesn't need annealing to produce a strong frame, most good steel frames are welded rather than lugged. Pity, though-no weld will ever look as nice as a good lug.

Here's a rather extreme example of lugs, these being some rather ornate Nervex lugs (stolen from Mr. Brown's website, as well). Most lugs were much more ordinary...