Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Cyccomute, I happen to own four bicycles. One of them is the Trek 7.5FX. If it's heavier than the oldest chromoly steel bike that I have, I most certainly can't detect it! However, I'm a fairly strong guy and sometimes I have trouble distiguishing between feather weights. Besides, as men, if were not racing, what do we care about an extra pound or two! What we should really be concern about, is our overall investment, and whether we'll be able to cycle a decade from now when the economy might be in even worse shape. Sure, an aluminum bike might feel light and look shiny today. However, its lively service may very well begin to subside and begin to weigh heavily upon our minds as time transpires. Heaven forbid, if we should experience any medium impactive forces upon our aluminum frames. Aluminum tends not to be too forgiving, you know. No major bicycle manufacturer is going to honor any frame warranty where its obvious that the frame was involved in an accident. As a matter of fact, if you read most bicycle warranties, most are not worth the paper they're wriiten upon.
No, an aluminum bikes service will not "weigh heavily" on my mind with time. I don't think about the frame material at all while I ride. I think about the ride and traffic and little Jimmy running out in front of me and how to descend the rock garden and a whole host of other things. I don't 'think' about the frame at all. I don't worry that the bike is going to collapse in a heap nor that the frame is going to snap. I do check the bike for cracks occasionally but I'd do that if I had a steel or titanium or carbon bike.
As for warranties, I've had two bikes replaced under warranty. No questions were asked about the bike or how I rode them. Personally, if I crashed a bike in such a way as to ruin the bike, I wouldn't expect the manufacturer to replace the frame. I certainly didn't when I ran one into the side of a car nor when I bent the frame when I hit an unmarked trench.
And is buying one bike to ride the rest of your life really the point? If everyone did that, there would be no bicycles made. Look at the touring bike market for a real world example of what happens when people buy one bike and keep it for 20, 30 or 40 years. From 1985 until 2008 (roughly), the touring bike market was almost nonexistent. It's had a little bit of a surge lately but is starting to taper off again because people aren't buying touring bikes.
On the other hand, look at the mountain bike market. Mountain bikes have been booming since the mid80s. It's driven by innovation and changing technology that makes people want to replace the bikes they have with better bikes.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
BTW..How do you know that the Atwood weighs so much more than the 7.2FX? ...The Atwood's weight is not published. To say that's it's so much heavier without any evidence whatsoever, I think, would seem to be, just a tad disingenuous.
As has been demonstrated by mechBgon's post above, I'm not a bad judge of bike flesh. The Atwood has a steel seat post, steel saddle clamp, steel headset and steel frame. The steel frame isn't going to be a wonder frame like the Rodriquez Trillium so it's likely to be a fairly heavy frame. All that steel adds up to a whole lot of extra weight. It's certainly not going to be all that close to the 27 lb that mechBgon estimated. All those steel parts are going to increase the weight a good 5 to 7 lbs over the FX. That's noticeable.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Nobody's saying anything about ticking time bombs...That's you, attempting to put words in my mouth! However what I am saying, is that the mere use of your aluminum bicycle, each time you use it, brings it closer to its point of failure, due to its already proven limited stress threshold. Aluminum has a short fatigue life. <clip all the silly marriage stuff>
You certainly implied it.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Yes, steel bikes to break. However, they almost always break at the joints where they can be welded back together again. That's easy with steel. It's not so easy and reliable afterwards, with aluminum. Also, when those cracks and points of breakage do occur with aluminum, as a result of impact, that breakage can occur anywhere, because aluminum is more highly susceptible to random stress point failure.
Aluminum almost always breaks at welds too. That's where all bikes are weakest. Heating of the metal around the weld causes weakening of the metal. The welds themselves are strong but the heat that spreads away from the weld causes changes in the crystalline structure of all metals.
And, while steel bicycle frames may be repaired, it's not as easy as you think. Even fairly inexpensive frames like the Atwood use thin walled steel and require special skill to repair. And once repaired, they would be suspect for riding for any appreciable amount of time. You could certainly repair an aluminum frame as well but, again, the repair would be suspect.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Who said anything about aluminum exploding? That's not what aluminum does! Aluminum snaps! It breaks! I know. I've heard it snap before and I can assure you, it's not a very pleasant sound.
Again, you implied it.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Have you been smoking again or something? ...Where'd you get that from?...I never said that!!!
Again, you implied it. Go read your own posts, man.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Yes, I know! Now this is one issue that needs to be seriously addressed. I personally, would like to see more chromoly steel frames in MTN biking. As a matter of fact, most freeriding MTN bikers would prefer chromoly to aluminum, just like most BMX cyclists. In fact, most successful, dirt jumping, freeriding MTN bikers, carry the value of chromoly steel with them from the BMX experience. It's only the BMX and DH MTB racers who appreciate the composition of the aluminum bicycle frames more so than that of chromoly steel.
Freeriders (more correctly "all mountain riders") don't want steel frames for the simple reason that steel full suspension mountain bike frame would weigh what a motorcycle weighs. All mountain riding means that, occasionally, you have to ride up something. Assuming the same volume of steel and aluminum for a full suspension bike (valid because of all the different tubes that make up a full suspension bike), a steel full suspension bike would weigh 3 times as much as an aluminum bike. In other words, a 5 lb aluminum bike frame would balloon to a 15 lb steel frame. That's not too pleasant if you have to ride
up something.
By the way, downhill bikes
aren't steel. They are aluminum.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Aluminum wheels, do break! Aluminum handlebars, do break! Aluminum seatpost, do break! Where have you been that you don't know that information?
Then why haven't you changed all your parts to more durable steel parts?
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
No. We're not talking about more than an ounce, because the topic was solely about the weight of a threaded versus a threadless headset, only. Not all of those other components, that you've just now, most propitiously thrown into the mix!
What I said:
The FX uses a few more aluminum parts than the Atwood so, overall, it's going to be a lighter bike. Not hugely lighter but it might feel more responsive then the Atwood.
What you said:
Yes, and each of those aluminum parts, will share in a shorter fatigue life and lack the same yield capacity, as the same frame material from which they were all sprung. Besides...You're talking less than one ounce of weight here?
I don't see anything about only the headset. The Atwood does have more steel parts: seatpost, seatpost clamp, stem, headset, frame. That adds up.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
All I ask, is that you type what you mean to say, Cyccomute. Otherwise, readers will be forced to mind-read.
Context and reading comprehension.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Cyccomute, if you were left alone overnight at a well-supplied LBS, by opening time first thing in the morning, I'm certain that you would have a steel bicycle frame with the best of well-installed components. The likes of which would surpass that of either the Trek 7.7FX or the FX+. That would most certainly be at least one step up from say, a Trek 7.2FX! I say that, not only because you would have properly installed much better components on the bicycle, but because, that bicycle's frame is made of steel, too!
Nope. I'd have an aluminum bike with well chosen components because I'm not enamored of steel like some people. But I already have a well equipped bike shop. It's called my garage. I also have access to a bike coop filled to the gills with steel bikes. I wouldn't give a plug nickel for 99.9% of them. The other 0.1% I might look at but I probably wouldn't buy one.
And I wouldn't touch a Trek FX+ with a ten foot pole. The '+' doesn't refer to a higher quality bike. It's an electric. That's cheating.