Originally Posted by
old and new
If you're focusing on SLX, you're focusing on the wrong thing. Better tubes prevail.
I'm not so sure. You can get thinner walled tubes made of heat treated etc. steel, which will be lighter but even more flexible, and probably less dent resistant. Also harder to work with. You can go to OS, which some people think is automatically better in every way because it looks so good on paper, but which has never ridden as well as standard diameter IMO.
I could have built my "no compromise" randonneuring frame out of any steel I wanted. A fourty year old box of Reynolds 531 got the nod, and as far as I am concerned there is and was no better choice for the bike. Except that SL, SLX, Kaisei 022, or True Temper Verus all would have been identical to it.