Originally Posted by
SlimRider
Aluminum is cheap and more easily accessible as a material resource due to it high potential for recyclability. It's much cheaper to recycle aluminum than steel. It's also cheaper and faster to produce bicycles from aluminum, than steel.
Again, too simplistic. If you start with raw ores, steel is far cheaper to make than aluminum. Both are as easily recyclable and recycling costs about the same. Aluminum just happens to be cheaper to make from
recycled materials than from raw ore. A mountain bike Columbus frame set in 7005 aluminum cost $125. A similar frame set in Columbus steel cost roughly the same. If you are making bicycles in a factory, the production costs are about the same but the aluminum has to undergo annealment after welding. For a small shop manufacturer, the annealment process is expensive enough that most just use steel because it's easier to deal with.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
That's only because, it's a cheaper material that is easier to reproduce, as previously stated. Steel is heavier and costs more to transport. It also costs more to recycle steel than it does, aluminum. Producing bicycle frames from aluminum is faster than producing frames from steel. Also, since its easier to damage aluminum than steel, when aluminum is damage, the cyclist is forced to return to the bicycle market to replenish himself with yet, another bicycle $$$.
Steel
is heavier but the extra costs of transportation is minimal. From a rider perspective, steel is much heavier. A steel frame with all the manipulation required by dual suspension would weigh 15 lbs instead of the 5 lbs an aluminum frame weighs. Mountain bikes are already heavy, adding another 10 lb wouldn't make them better.
As for the cost of production, the $100 bikes at HelMart are generally steel because they can be produced in large quantities for very little money. Kids bikes are steel because they can be produced cheap and quick. Aluminum bikes, when they first hit the bicycling market in mass (around 1985), were the most expensive bikes to purchase. Klein and Cannondales weren't cheap. All the other companies selling steel bikes sold much less expensive models.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
As already stated, the reasons for the industry preferring aluminum over steel, is more related to industry economics$$$, than cyclist's riding comfort and performance satisfaction.
Nope. It's related to the market. Most cyclists don't want a bike that weighs 3 times more. They want a light weight bike. That's why carbon is beating the pants off aluminum which beat the pants off steel before it. Steel has a higher density than aluminum which has a higher density than carbon. Simple chemistry. Yes, you have to use more aluminum to make a bike that is as strong as the steel one (as well as using more carbon to accomplish the same thing) but the amount of extra aluminum isn't 3 times as much so the aluminum bike is lighter.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
I have personally witnessed larger numbers of failed aluminum frames, than steel frames. Aluminum has a very small yield capacity, causing it to break rather than bend. This weakness is the primary culprit in the demise of the failed aluminum bicycle.
I've had 4 frames fail on me. Two steel and two aluminum. The aluminum didn't 'break', it cracked and tore as I'd expect aluminum to do. It isn't brittle. The steel frames did 'break' as in fracture. They didn't bend, they didn't warn of impending failure, they just broke. I'd expect that out of steel because steel
is a brittle material. I've broken aluminum parts and steel parts, the same mechanism held in each case. Aluminum tears and is more of a slow failure. Steel (axles mostly) goes 'snap' and is in two pieces.
Originally Posted by
SlimRider
I personally, don't see too may older aluminum bicycles...Where are they all?
I see lots and lots of them. At the co-op I work at the number of failed aluminum frames is about equivalent to the number of failed steel frames. We don't see a lot of very old (pre 1990) aluminum bikes because the majority of bikes made before 1990 were steel. From 1990 to around 2000, the ratio is closer to 1:1 and the number of aluminum bikes we see reflects that. It also reflects advances in the technology to produce aluminum frames and the market demand for a lighter bike.