Originally Posted by
draganm
I thought his TT was pretty spot on.
The first Cannondale frame was 1983 but it was hand made, hand mitered , hand welded. I remember wanting an AL frame badly early 90's, and while I had heard of Vitus, and was told it was a boutique , hard to find, and very whippy/flimsy frame, I did not hear of Cannondale until later, maybe that was a local thing? At that time, 1992 I bought my first high-perf. AL road bike, Trek 1400 was internally lugged and Epoxy bonded and my understanding is it was the first truly
mass produced AL frame?
maybe mid 90's? That's when I remember seeing welded AL CAD's and Colnago's popping up. My frame already felt obsolete by then. It's an interesting topic as I started off my road biking days on AL so very nostalgic for me.
I think ARC welding bicycle frames at that time, mid/late 90's, made some huge strides as Reynolds started releasing tubing that would heat treat itself at the weld joint and become stronger instead of becoming brittle. That's when you saw the lugs and brazing rods really going away AFAI recall.
Trek made nearly 3k alu bikes across 3 models in '85, 1,290 of which were the 2000. The following year, in '86, they made over 10,000 alu frames, more than 4k of which were 1000s. (
Trek Bike Production Data by Model from late 1980 through 1986)
Mass produced alu bikes were widely available in the mid '80s.