Lamplight

When I tap a high tensile steel frame, it actually sounds like thicker tubing. I don't know any other way to describe it. Also look for large but paper-thin rear dropouts. That's usually a very good indication that the bike is lower-end.

Grand Bois

None of my road bikes have chromoly frames. I guess I'll set 'em out by the curb.

RK1963

If it lacks tell-tale decals, and if the fully-built bike weighs more than 24 lbs, and the bike was made in the 80s, and is sized between 56cm and 60cm, ---it may be completely made of Hi-Ten or, it may just have Hi-Ten forks and stays. In this size range, I would avoid anything over 24 lbs.

John E

Bingo!

This is how I finally sorted out longstanding questions regarding circa 1960 Capo framesets. Both of mine have standard 28.6mm outer diameter seat tubes, but the more ornate, definitely double butted Reynolds 531 frame takes a 27.2mm seatpost, whereas the less ornate frame takes a 26.4, which is entirely consistent with straight-gauge Reynolds 531. One can apply the same formula to French frames by allowing for the 0.6mm reduction in outer diameter to a "hard metric" 28.0mm. Thus, a double-butted Reynolds 531 French frame should take a 26.4 or 26.6mm seatpost (any of you PX-10 owners want to check me on this?), whereas a straight-gauge 531 frame should take a 25.8. A plain carbon steel frameset will generally take an even smaller-diameter post, as T-Mar noted. (My UO-8 takes a 25.6mm post.)

bbattle

Just do some research on the bikes you are interested in buying. If it's just for commuting or cruising around town, I would't worry too much about what tubing the bike has. You don't want to get ripped off and pay for Columbus EL when the frame is really just Hi-ten but nothing wrong with riding a Hi-ten bike.

alanbikehouston

It is pretty rare to see a "hi-ten" frame that is not part of a bike. E-Bay is not filled with "hi-ten frame for sale" ads. With a complete bike, the giveaways are the weight and the components. A 22 pound bike with Shimano 105 or Suntour Suberbe, or Campy drivetrain is NOT hi-ten. A 35 pound bike with cr@po components is hi-ten (or worse).

During the late 70's, early 80's, there were some Japanese bikes that made it difficult to tell. These were Fuji's, Panasonics, and Bridgestones that used "house" decals for their tubing. Some of these bikes weighed 27 or 28 pounds, and had fairly good components and wheels. Nice bikes, but the frames were not cro-mo.

I've always wondered about those 27 pound bikes "good" hi-ten bikes from Japan. It seems to me that the cost, at the factory level, of upgrading those bikes to cro-mo, and getting the weight down to 24 or 25 pounds would have been just a few bucks a bike. I guess the marketing guys didn't think cutting two pounds and have a "cro-mo" decal was gonna get them added sales that would justify raising the price of the bike a few bucks.

But, weight is the simple answer. If you are buying a steel bike in size 58, and it weighs less than about 24 pounds, you can be sure the frame and fork were made from high quality steel.

bbattle

Perhaps the Japanese tubing suppliers at the time weren't into cro-moly very much and importing Reynolds/Columbus/TrueTemper et al would've been too expensive for the mid-range bike.

I've got a Peugeot Iseran mixte frame of HLE that weighs ~4 pounds sans fork and paint. My John Howard frame(columbus SL) with fork and paint weighs the same. They feel different, too but it's hard to describe and without paint, the Peugeot frame rings like a bell when I tap it.

Bikedued

My main argument is that Carbolite and HLE are not the same steel. Some people seem to think so, but I believe otherwise. My P8 in carbolite in a 22" frame weighs more than my PH10 (HLE) with a 24-25 inch frame. Same rims and hubs too.,,,,BD

nania

ollo ollo
Is the Peugeot 103 carbolite hi-ten? How does Vitus 979 compare to Columbus SL and Reyonolds 531?

USAZorro

Vitus 979 is decidedly not hi-ten. It is very thin though, which makes it light and a bit more flexible. You'll either love it, or hate it.

Hi tensile steel is a different composition than "cro-mo" or the other variations of higher quality steel. In order to achieve acceptable rigidity as a bicycle frame, the tubing needs to be quite thick - which explains the weight, and why T-Mar's advice is the surest way of telling them apart when there's no sticker present. Chrome Moly can get away with thinner tube walls because it is much stronger.

mrmw

Nice link tells all with regards to material hardness...including

1. Rockwell hardness test
2. Brinell hardness
3. Vickers
4. Knoop hardness
5. Shore

https://www.calce.umd.edu/general/Fac...rdness_ad_.htm

Great info up thread about seat tube diameter. Makes perfect sense. Thank you.

tjspiel

My 54 cm HLE framed Peugeot is lighter than my wife's 52 cm Univega with a chromoly main triangle. Part of the reason is that the Univega is lower-end with steel Handlebars and chain rings. I already have replacements for those, I just have to get them on her bike. I'm really curious how much difference that will make. My guess is that the Peugeot will still be slightly lighter.

tjspiel

I don't know what the cost would be per bike, but consider that back in the 70' and early 80's everyone was riding road bikes, -including a lot of people that for the same money would be better served by having quality, reliable components vs having the lightest frames.

John E

Are you a rider or a collector? Most of us are, of course, both, but I am a rider first and foremost, a stereotype thrifty cheapskate of Scots descent second, a collector third, and a snob fourth. I find the early 1970s Peugeot AO-8/UO-8 frames to be remarkably light and enjoyable compared to other basic carbon steel offerings. Likewise, I gradually learned just how disappointing (leaden) the ride quality of my ca. 1970 double-butted CrMo Nishiki frame was. The real shock came when I broke the Nishiki frame and moved the components, including the Sugino Mighty Compe crankset and my prized lightweight Campagnolo-Weinmann wheelset, over to an early 1970s Peugeot UO-8, which I quickly came to prefer over the Nishiki. However, personal experience also tells me that a ca. 1980 Carbolite 103 frame is no match for any decent Japanese straight gauge or butted CrMo frame of the same vintage, which is as it "should" be.

I still think value seekers should consider mixed tubeset frames of the early 1980s, such as the Peugeot PKN-10 and the various Bianchi tre tubis. With a good butted moly steel main triangle, one cannot go wrong, even with seamed carbons steel stays and forks. For loaded touring, even a straight gauge moly steel triangle should not be automatically rejected as beneath one's dignity.

alicestrong

My main commuter bike is a 1995 Marin hybrid with a sticker that says it's "Marin Custom Tubing, Hi-Tensile tubing exclusive to Marin". What does that mean?

USAZorro

There was a lot of variation between Hi Tensile steel. Schwinn's (and others') 10-20 was really heavy. Raleigh's 20-30 and Peugeot's Carbolite were quite a bit lighter. Still heavier than the "good" stuff, but bikes like the Grand Prix and the U-08 weren't the tanks that Varsities and Murrays were.

bikerosity57

Look down the seat tube, and see if there is a heavy seam. More than likely, if you suspect cro-mo, seamless is a good indication you're right. Heavy seam? Probably mild steel.

cinco

And then there are companies like Ventura (about whom I know nothing) that go and screw everything up:



"Double butted hi-tension" tubing??? Seems like a wasted effort to me, but I still wonder who made it. The frame also has forged dropouts. Go figure.

John E

True. The Schwinn electroforged frame tubes had to be able to handle much higher production temperatures than their lugged-and-brazed counterparts. Ironically, some of today's moly steels would be compatible with electroforging, making a 25 lb. Super Sport a genuine possibility.

nick burns

Yeah, I was recently given a Panasonic DX 2000 that has a butted 1020 hi ten tubing sticker. I thought it was a bit odd too.

rmfnla

One of the tests we used to do for built-up bikes was to hold the frame by the saddle & the stem and push against the center of the crank with one foot.

A better-quality frame will have a nice springy feel while a cheaper one will not.

If you will be re-painting the frame you can drag a medium file across a bare spot without using any downward pressure. Cro-Mo is signifacantly harder than hi-ten so the file will glide; it will dig into the softer hi-ten.

fuji86

OK, the Ping test doesn't hold up as an acid test.

Bike 1: Vintage 1986 Fuji Allegro Road Bike thuds more than it pings anywhere on the tube and thuds as you get closer to where the piping is welded to another pipe. But it has the "val-lite" tubing and is a smaller outside diameter for a road bike frame, I have no idea what the pipe wall thickness is ? It's a 12 speed road bike (not that this has significant meaning other than it was a higher end Fuji in it's day and not the 10 speed road bike), but definitely labeled as triple butted Chromoly. This I bought at a bike store, not a local small shop, but an outlet type place with hundreds of bikes of various types. You could get anything from higher end bikes to cheaper department store level bikes.

Bike 2: late 1990's Fuji MX-200 Mountain Bike, labeled 1020 High Tension Tubing, this pipe is obviosly larger diameter and pings more than the vintage chromoly Fuji Allegro road bike. Again I have no idea of the wall thickness of that tubing. It's a 21 speed bike not that really matters ? In it's day, it was a lower end Mountain bike and Sports Authority sold a MX-460 that had higher grade components and quick release hubs for a Mountain Bike.

Bike 3: I know it was the $ 250 on-line special, it's a Vilano Track Bike, but I'll ask you reserve an open opinion on it. Advertised as generic Hi Ten Steel, it pings like the Mountain Bike but not as loud a ping, yet a louder ping than the Allegro chromoly road bike, but the pipes aren't nearly the same diameter as the MX-200's and yet larger diameter than the chromoly Allegro. SS/FG, it's the lightest of the 3 bikes by far.

https://www.roadbikeoutlet.com/single...k-bicycle.html

Where am I going with this information and observations ? Well, all 3 bikes have a very responsive road feel, but they also run different sized tires and vary for air pressures (60 psi for the MX-200 on 26 x 2.10 Kenda knobbies, 105 psi for the Allegro on 27 x 1 1/8 Forte GT2 Kevlar tires and 100 psi on whatever brand 700C x 25 (26.5 x 1") tires) and all 3 are aluminum rims, which also have varying dimensions for width and since I didn't provide the MX-200's rim size, it's a 26 x 1.50 rim. Would these bikes have appreciably different ride characteristics with different tires, perhaps ? That covers quality of ride and road feedback.

Moving on from that, back to the frames, they all ping, I know what Fuji has put together because it's labeled as a type of metal. I have 2 High Ten Steel frames and vintage chromoly (chromoly might have changed since 1986, different alloys of chromoly too, so I can't say one way or another, but val-lite was a chromoly game changer in it's day or so Fuji marketed it as such ?) that have various frame tube diameters and unknown, perhaps varying wall thickness of tube. But like glasses of water with differing levels of water, pitch can change when you tap it with a metal spoon. And that's what my assertion is here, you really can't tell because the tubing will ping and thud at various points of the frame. Those pipes will produce different pitches, it's the concept behind a pipe organ at a church. And that's yet another variable/factor in this, the pipes are also differing lengths.

The chromolly resists denting better than the other 2 Hi Ten bikes frames, but I take care not to dent any of them, And outside of what I've seen of the Hi Ten frames, there might be a dent here or there, but was that done at the factory or the store or in delivery by UPS ? Because I've never dropped any of these bikes, nor dented them with an object. Scratches, yep they have them, but that's paint finish and nothing is down to bare metal. I buff out those scratches, clean and wax too, so the finish is very close to factory fresh paint and finish is as smooth and high a quality as when I rolled it off the showroom floor at the store or it was delivered by UPS. Zero frame rust. So at the end of this diatribe, you can't really say which bike frame material is more durable. The Allegro is 24 years old. The MX-200, I recall getting that between 1997 and 1999, so it's 11-13 years old and the 2010 Vilano, it's a couple days into my possession, but how old is it really, weeks or months from the day it was manufactured ? Seeing how it's Hi Ten Steel like the MX-200, bet it lasts as long as the MX-200 ? Barring a major catastrophe, I bet the Vilano frame lasts with the Fuji's frames ? I won't say it's as nice as the Fuji bikes, but certainly a relatively permanent lifetime of serviceable quality.

Sorry for the long post, but better is debateable and dependent upon too many variables. I could be handed a $ 5,000-7,500 bike and the Vilano be given to Lance Armstrong and he'd beat me everytime. Would I ride a $ 500-2,500 track bike better than the $ 250 Vilano, hard to say, but I had choices, I went with the Vilano and as I tune the bike up, cheap or not, I'm pleased with it so far. Like a new car I'm learning about it from the contact of the road on up to the extremes of the bike. And that's another point, tuning a bike is important as well. Tolerances for higher quality components make tuning seem easier, but it's still a process of trial and error, where the last guy that assembled and maybe tuned the bike left it for you in the transfer of ownership.

bikerosity57

Now for the real confusion: all steel tubing if identical in specifications (length, wall thickness, butting, tapering, etc..) will have almost identical performance properties. A well made frame made of hi-tension steel should have similar riding characteristics, and similarperformance properties. However, Chrome moly, and Reynolds 531, and Columbus (cro-mo) steel has higher tensile strength and so can be made much thinner and lighter making an over-all lighter frame without losing strength. There is absolutely no reason why a well made bike can't be made of hi-ten steel. However only a few were.
My brother put together a bike for his wife using a San Tropez frame made from hi-ten steel, and good quality Shimano components.It looks like a Motobecane Grand Jubile, with black and red paint. It rides very well, and is a classic looking sport touring bike. She's ridden it for many years, and has always been happy with it.

David Newton

For the original poster, you should know what bike you are buying, due diligence is easy around here.

I think some of the Japanese companies like Bridgestone in the early-mid 80's made quite an art of mixing tubing sets. How they determined at which price level to migrate to higher spec. materials, considering factory methods and numbers built, baffles me.

Straight-ga Cro-mo main frame, tapered stays, and hi-ten forks, gauged correctly, make quite a great riding bike, outside the realm of racing.

unterhausen

no, at a given geometry, all steel is equally rigid within a percent or so. The issue is only with strength. So as long as you don't get to the point where the yield strength of the tube is exceeded, the thicker tube will be more rigid.