ChillGrean

What do people know about this? I picked up a Raleigh Marathon (Raleigh USA) frame up for cheap last week, and the sticker says 575SL (Super Light) triple butted chromoly. How does this differ from the 501/502/555 (w/ or w/o sl) tubing, or how does it compare to 531? It "feels" super-light, lighter a 501 or even than my 531 Gran Course, but I'm guessing the latter is just my imagination. I don't have a scale to compare (nor do I want to dis-assemble the GC just to find out.) It seems that "Marathons" were made with both 502 and 575 at different points, and I'm having trouble finding "575sl" on the web.

Thanks for any imput!

unworthy1

Kurt, the Raleigh expert, will see this and he should know, he seems to understand the Raleigh USA stuff. I'd guess that since it's "triple butted" that these tubes were drawn by a Japanese maker like Ishiwata or Miyata. And so they certainly could be lighter than 531 regular or 531C, too. 502 would be a heavier tube, I'm surprised they'd make the same model bike from such divergent materials, but perhaps they got a good deal on the tubing and significantly upgraded the specs...or just the number on the decal.

alanbikehouston

Cro-mo is cro-mo, which is cro-mo. All of the production grade cro-mo used for making tubes for bikes was more or less the same stuff. The designer could vary the tube diameter, the wall thickness, and the sort of butting he wanted, or didn't want. In the end, an average size frame (size 56 to size 58) might end up weighing somewhere between three pounds all the way up to six pounds, depending on the designer's objectives.

And, it is not true that a three pound cro-moly frame was "better" than a six pound cro-moly frame. Each of those frames was made for a specific sort of rider, and a specific purpose. The frame that was ideal for a 150 pound Pro rider to use for a week of racing through the mountains of France would be a terrible frame for a 250 pound rider who was planning to do "loaded" touring on dirt and gravel roads and paths. And, of course, the frame designed for loaded touring would have been a horrible choice for the Tour de France.

So, I'm glad that my Centurion Pro Tour weighs 24 pounds "stripped" of lights, racks, and bags. If a steel framed loaded touring bike weighed much less than that, it would indicated the designer did not understand what loaded touring involves.

ChillGrean

All the more reason to find out exactly how this differs from 501/02/555, etc. Anyone else know anything about this type of tubing?

cudak888 

Sorry to say that I haven't a clue as to what the equivilant of Raleigh 575 is, although, having owned a 1986 Raleigh Olympian mixte constructed of this tubing, I must say it is very strong (I've never ridden another mixte with frame even comparable in stiffness), and it is also very light, in the sense of Reynolds 501 or 531.

Definitely a quality tubeset, no matter what it actually is...

-Kurt

ChillGrean

OK so I have more info in this if anyone is still interested. I stripped the 575 frame down and weighed it on a (not very precise) kitchen scale - it came in at about 5 and 1/3 pounds. I've also got a 70s Raleigh Supercourse frame (Straight-gauge 531) which I weighed, and that frame comes in at about 5.6 pounds. Don't know how the 575 compares to a butted 531 (how much does a butted 531 typically weigh?) but it seems like a pretty nice frame that can be gotten for low cost due to its 80s/chomomly attributes.

edit: both frames I weighed are of the 23.5 size