Originally Posted by
HillRider
Yep, stainless steels have been used in bike frames for quite some time. Columbus also offered a stainless tube set (XCr, IIRC) a few years ago and there have been others.
However, these are very expensive and very hard on tooling so they never caught on. I remember when Reynolds announced 953 as "the next big thing" a few years ago and i'm still waiting for any volume builder to adopt it.
Ti is lighter, just as strong, even more corrosion resistant and readily available. Ti is the barrier stainless steel can't overcome.
And yes, the Ti grades used in good bike frames are also alloys.
I think the big thing with using Reynolds 953 for some folks is that lugged construction can be used. Not easy, and certainly not cheap, but for some (myself included), the aesthetics of lugs are a big deal. The lugs on the Waterford frame I mentioned above, for example, are "Newvex" lugs (a Richard Sachs creation, I believe), which look like Nervex lugs.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, just genuinely curious: can ti frames be built using (brazed) lugged construction?