Mono chain and seat stays.
My old Columbia has a mono chain stay (the chainstays are actually one tube which is formed like an extremely tall U and then joined at the bottom of the U to a short tube which connects to the BB) and I always thought this was peculiar, it seemed to be that this would be given to more side to side flexing than conventional chain stays.
Now I'm seeing a lot of new bikes that have these mono seat and chain stays - are they stronger/lighter or somehow better than the traditional designs? I'm just wondering what the reason behind this is.