Originally Posted by sohi
thats an interesting point. check out this page:
http://www.efbe.de/erenn.htm
they test lightweight frames with repeated stress cycles. there is not a single steel frame in the
top list. and suprisingly lots of aluminium. nowadays steel cannot compete in the weight category.
but i remember that they used to test steel frames years ago. and not a single one made it to the top.
at that time not even titanium frames made it to the top. but cannondale did!
i have to add that i prefer steel and titanium but these tests show that there are a lot of myths floating
around.
Thanks for the link. It's really interesting stuff and made me look at the situation alittle differently. At first I thought they were saying that AL was stonger than steel (fatigue-wise) which just isn't true but as I read further I saw:
The fact that aluminum and carbon frames in this test last longer than the steel frames is not in our estimate a question of the material, but the constructional expenditure. Not the material, but its skillful use gives the excursion. However, the manufacturers concentrate their constructional efforts in a logical way on frames with good potential for light weight construction - and those are made from aluminum or carbon, and only rarely (because of small rigidity) from titanium.
This is interesting because for all of the talk (and I've done this too) of which metal is better, the reality is that we don't ride 'metal', we ride bikes. It's metal+design+construction that is important and there seems to be a clear corollary between material and design/construction effort (at least at the higher end of the scale).
Thanks again for posting the link.
Jim