I make no claim of being a world class framebuilder like Mark B., but I have enjoyed building frames for myself and select friends over the years. Being a bit of a techno geek I’ve mixed and matched different tubing, size and gauge, in my builds and have generated opinions on how they affect the characteristics of a frame.
First off I’ll say that frames flex very little in the vertical direction so tubing differences don’t drastically affect ride smoothness unless comparing something super thin and small diameter against something super stout. Fork flex is a far more meaningful characteristic affecting comfort (with tires being the most significant.) Anyway, what I have noticed regarding different tubing is a difference in bottom bracket (lateral) stiffness. One of my pet peeves is chain rub so that is something that I always take notice of.
Early on in my experimentation I made a frame for a friend who raced so I used a super beefy down tube in OS sizes and that thing was pretty stout; the rear wheel would almost skip while sprinting if your pedal stroke was sloppy. In comparison my more conventional OS tubed daily rider at the time was definitely softer through the BB. It was lighter too, with almost all the weight difference centered in the down tubes.
I’ve always been intrigued by MAX tubing and wanted to build a frame with it but my skills weren’t up to the challenge, in part because my building method and tooling relied on round tubing. Ceeway in England started offering some XL OS tube lugs though (in about the year 2003) so I saw my chance to build something similar so I ordered some. Excepting for the stays, MAX uses ovalized XL OS tubes so I think my frame (and the other two that followed) share a lot of the same characteristics.
The frame I was able to create came in at the 4 lbs mark and had excellent BB stiffness. Ride smoothness was firm but not harsh (again, frames don’t flex very much vertically so…). Anyway, the moral of the story is that MAX sized tubing isn’t beastly mystical stuff. It’s simply one step larger from OS. From what I’ve read, no personal experience, the Columbus branded MAX lugs were quite heavy, so a frame made with them would weigh a bit more than the frame I built.
As an aside...a MAX fork on the other hand looks like a MONSTER so buyer beware on that front. And there are newer super jumbo XL OS tubes these days that make MAX look like SL. As the tubes get larger in diameter they also get stiffer so…
