rhm

Oh, I don't know about their politics, but that stuff goes way back! Kromo was a trademark of a tubing made by Accles & Pollock, competitor to Reynolds. GB used to make chromed steel stems out of both Kromo and 531.

USAZorro

Well, steel is an alloy, and we don't throw the term "iron alloy" around. Iron would clearly be wrong - as would aluminum. I'll gladly save 2/3 of my time yet still convey information clearly by just saying "alloy". The rest of you can do whatever you'd like.

RobbieTunes

I say alloy because it's easier to say than alumimimumium.
I say alloy because if it's steel, and someone corrects me, it's still an alloy and I may actually be right once.
I still can't pronounce or spell chromium molybdenuminmumim.

The truth is, I generally have no idea what anything is made of.

rhm

Well, hold on now. The English language is rich in terms for various alloys, some defined rather specifically, others less so. Steel is our word for an alloy of iron and carbon (and it may contain other elements as well). Similarly, we have brass and bronze (copper with zinc and tin, respectively); pewter (tin and who knows what else), electrum (silver and gold), and so on.

We really don't have terms for specific aluminum alloys, unless you want to use the old trademark terms, so "aluminum alloy" is a good catchall term for any alloy that consists primarily of aluminum. You really shouldn't call it "alloy" unless it is perfectly obvious to your listener that the main constituent is aluminum; but then since we are talking bicycles here, that much is obvious. That's why we can get away with it.

USAZorro

My point exactly.

Chombi

So the British car journos say "Aluminium" (I dont think it was ever spelled that way in the periodic table of elements), "Purrjoe", Nessan", "Dater", "Wurster", "clark" (clerk), "Gerrage" (garage)....."Dustbin" (Garbage can).........And they always put us "Amurricans" down for screwing up their king's language??

BTW, I always thought that the definition of "Alloy" is, a mix of two types of metals. It does not even have to have aluminum in the mix, ie...CrMo is an alloy.


Chombi

OLDYELLR

Kromo was the trade name for Accles & Pollock chrome moly tubing since the 1930s in the UK. It was the alternative to Reynolds 531.

This is alloy steel, not aluminum alloy, which this thread is about.

artimus

Surprised that no one has thrown in 'Aircraft Grade' aluminum, argument. Talk about a marketing ploy!! 6061, 7075 etc. All the same grades, but not all of it is 'Certified' for aircraft use.

jimmuller 

You left out a syllable.

Doohickie

This. ^ It's slang adopted by the uninformed. They knew among each other what they meant and it became pervasive because bike and car enthusiasts are not necessarily engineers or metallugists. This has always bothered me as well.

thebulls

"Aluminium" is the British spelling and pronunciation of what American's call "aluminum", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium. But they use "tin foil" to call what American's call "aluminum foil".

I can't really say I've heard bicycle people using "alloy" to refer generically to aluminum alloy. Car people seem to do that with "alloy wheels". But bicycle ad's always seem to specify the material.

Doohickie

Bike people do it all over this forum.

I grew up saying tin foil in Western New York, but tin foil is, strictly speaking NOT the same as aluminum foil. Aluminum and Tin are different elemental metals.

USAZorro

What's 37 positions on the Periodic Table between friends?

Chombi

I think it was mostly caused by "cage" enthusiasts saying "Alloy wheels" when describing that part of their ride........Heard this since as far as I can remember that cars can come with wheels other than steel......

Chombi

RobbieTunes

We used to call all custom wheels "mags." If any of them were made of magnesium, I sure didn't know about it. There were only 3 kinds:

Cragars
Keystones
Slotted dish (K-Mart, etc)

OEM non-standards wheels were "factory mags," though GM did have "SS" wheels.

jimmuller 

A few months ago when referring to alloy wheels I used the term "mag wheels" to another sportscar guy. He looked at me with a weird expression and asked "Really???" I had to explain that they weren't really magnesium. I guess the term isn't so common anymore.

Fasteryoufool

There are more English speakers in the U.S. than there are in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand COMBINED. It's not really "English" anymore... it's American, and THEY'RE doing it wrong.

USAZorro

The one that gets me is "Worcestershire". How they get 'wurst-a-shur' out of it is beyond reasoning.

repechage

Campagnolo made Magnesium wheels for Motorcycles and cars, and aluminum alloy ones for the Pantera and other DeTomasos.

Of course, the nick name for 4130 was also "molly"

unterhausen

I used to have a pinup poster Campagnolo made for their wheels. Posted it in the bike shop I worked at so I had to cover strategic parts of the model.

rhm

Hey, could we please stop repeating this?

An alloy is a substance composed a metal and one or more other elements (whether metal or not). Steel is an alloy of iron (which is a metal) and carbon (not so much).

Good point, but... uh...

Aren't there more English speakers in India than there are in the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand combined? So... It's not really "American" any more, either....

strop

Actually the correct pronunciation is closer to "woost-a-sheer", and yes you probably have to go a long way back and try it with a very thick middle ages accent to understand it's origins.

Several people have used the term "Magnesium Wheels". If the wheels were really made of Magnesium (a) they would cost more than the car (b) if they ever caught fire they would burn down the car and every other car in the surrounding block. They are of course Magnesium alloy.

Lastly Aluminium doesn't appear in the periodic table but neither does Aluminum since the periodic table uses the short form Al. The correct spelling is Aluminium, Aluminum is for people who can't pronounce words with more than four syllables :-)

bikerosity57

It's woostasheer. We used to say "whatsthissheersause?" and wheels were indeed made of magnesium at one time, and yes they could burn. I saw it once when a guy thought he could weld a crack in a mag wheel(years and years ago)

Doohickie

Same thing as "alloy". Mag wheels were just a slang term that applied to custom wheels, particularly the kind that looks like the ones on Hot Wheels toy cars. When I was a kid I thought "mag wheels" refered to that particular style of wheel and not the material it was made from. It was a slang term for custom wheels that morphed the technical term to the point that it was used incorrectly.

Fletch521

From Wikipedia:

Alloy wheels (incorrectly known as rims) are automobile (car, motorcycle and truck) wheels which are made from an alloy of aluminium or magnesium (or sometimes a mixture of both).

and

A sizeable selection of alloy wheels (sometimes called "mags"—see below) are available to automobile owners who want lighter, prettier, rarer, and/or larger wheels on their cars, in order to increase performance, manipulate handling and suspension, and/or signify luxury, sportiness, or wealth.

wait, there is more...

Magnesium alloy wheels, or "mag wheels", are sometimes used on racing cars, in place of heavier steel or aluminium wheels, for better performance. The wheels are produced by one-step hot forging from a magnesium alloy known as ZK60, AZ31 or AZ91 (MA14 in Russia). Cast magnesium disks are used in motorcycle wheels.
The mass of a typical magnesium automotive wheel is about 5–9 kg (depending on size).[1]
Magnesium wheels are flammable and have been banned in some forms of motorsport in the UK following fires which are very difficult to extinguish. Mag wheels have been known to catch fire in competition use after a punctured tire has allowed prolonged scraping of the wheel on the road surface.[citation needed] Some variants of Magnesium alloy wheels may have low corrosion resistance.
They have the disadvantages of being expensive and not practical for most road vehicles. Aluminium wheels are often mistakenly called "mag wheels".

American Racing S2 was a two-piece magnesium racing-only wheel


A Halibrand magnesium 16 by 10


A Halibrand magnesium 16 by 14 Indy wheel


American Racing magnesium twelve-spoked spindle-mount


If you want to read more...