ZoeS

I came across this Bianchi in the local classifieds:



It is listed as 19", 27" wheel, 18 or 21 speeds and in "excellent condition".

Bearing in mind that I am not looking for something particular high end, I have a few questions about the bike that the vendor is unable to answer. They are a ways away so I would love to get an idea before I drive out.
Is it a hybrid of a road bike? 19" seems ridiculously small for a road bike, but reasonable a hybrid.
Someone I've showed the picture to says the bike looks like it would be all steel. If so, I presume it would be quite heavy and if it is steel I am probably not interested... so if you concur please let me know =)
What is a reasonable price for this bike, if anyone can even guess based on the one photo. It is listed for $125 (CAD).

Thanks!

JanMM

Looks as if its a step-thru frame road-style bike with flat/tourist bars, that pre-dates the introduction of 'hybrid' bikes, which happened in the late '80's. Of course, the frame is steel. What kind of steel? Dunno. Steel does not equal heavy. Chrome fork is cool. That does look like a fairly small frame - step-thru frames have traditionally been marketed to women in the New World. Which is not to say that they are Ladies Bikes.

ZoeS

Thanks Jan. I love the look of the bike, but I just sold an old 70's Raleigh Superbe because it was so heavy, just a monster.
I'm 5'6ish (maybe 5'7). Do you think this bike would be too small? I don't care to ride it with the seat jacked as high up as it would go, but if it was just a bit small, I could change the handlebars for something cruiser-ish which would be put me more upright and still allow me to raise the seat a little bit.

JanMM

At your height, it might fit. Hard to tell from the pic - . Only way to know is to go see it. Unless someone here is familiar with those Bianchi's. I have no idea about the price. You certainly can't buy a newish bike for that price. More pictures with more detail would help but you don't have that. It's almost a mixte frame.

ZoeS

I guess I'll just have to go try her out and see if she's worth $125 to me

Zoe

ZoeS

As a follow up to the steel issue:

I came across this website tonight, that proclaims that all steels are equally heavy.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/frame-materials.html

Thoughts? Am I misunderstanding, or is this so?

tcristy

Yes and no. For a given amount of steel (say a cube 1" on a side), the weight will not vary much with alloy. The common alloys are >95% iron, so the variations in weight due to the differences in weight of the alloying elements (carbon, manganese, magnesium, nickel, etc) are only going to be a couple of percent at most.

Using a higher strength steel alloy means you can use smaller diameter or thinner wall tubing to get the desired frame strength. The frame will be lighter since there is less steel in it. To give you an example, 1" diameter 0.12" wall thickmess 4130 (chromoly steel) tubing weighs 1.14 lbs per foot. The same 1" tubing but with a thinner 0.065" wall runs 0.66 lbs per foot. If you could get away with the thinner wall tubing, the frame would weigh almost half as much.