Originally Posted by
The Golden Boy
As you mentioned in that thread- everything that appears to be known about Tenax comes from supposition on forums. The only information that I know of that's come second hand are from Stan Cooper's email from Richard Schwinn and the info from Nova. What I know first hand about Tenax is that my 1986 Voyageur takes a 26.6 seat post. However, I know of other people that state their Tenax framed bikes take 26.8 and 27.2 seatposts.
That leads me to come to the same conclusion that Stan came to:
"I believe the Tenax label was applied to a range of specifications ranging from straight gauge seamed chromoly to higher spec double-butted seamless tubing is the often repeated specifications in the late eighties Schwinn catalogs."
For the record, I believe you're incorrect about the Reynolds 531CS tubeset being only used by Trek and for "a slight discount."
I'm not going to argue about what price breaks Reynolds gave Trek since we can't prove it but 531cs was originally made exclusively for Trek for the 600 series bikes starting in 1984, but Reynolds made a lot of those tube sets and some found their way into a very few custom builders; see:
http://www.vintage-trek.com/Trek_timeline.htm where this is stated:
Reynolds 531CS (Club Sport) frame tubing is first used by Trek. According to Terry at Reynolds-Cycle.com: "531CS was a special set, supplied mainly to Trek. The main triangle was butted 531 and the rear stays were CrMo (501)." The fork was taper gauge CrMo (501). (Info. provided by Dickey Greer.)
But as far as Tenax goes, there may have been a wide range but according to everything I've ever read what I said agrees with VeloBase which documents this stuff and not some forum which I also posted in that thread; see:
http://www.velobase.com/ViewFramePar...c-896abd64ba6f And there was this too I had also posted that came from a report that derived it from Bicycling article, see:
http://mauisvintage.blogspot.com/201...-revealed.html Not saying that Stan is wrong but his is the only thing I have ever read that way, so I'll tend to go with the way over majority on this.