FrenchFit 

Although my subscription ended years ago they keep coming. The big lay-out this month was ...steel road bikes. The article features a story by the BM 'journalist' riding a Record Ace in the Sea Otter, and a review of half a dozen steel bikes. Some quote like 'gliding over the potholes unlike the chatter coming from carbon fiber bikes...' Gag... it comes off to me as an attempt to pander to steel frame riders who laugh at BMs attempt to sell anything new and expensive to its readership... I'm sure it was painful for the editors to allow phrases like 'Surly Pugsley' & "Soma Smoothie" to contaminate the pristine pages of this rag.

rekmeyata

I stopped reading that piece of a crap magazine back in the mid 80's when they started to do heavy advertising, now they advertise so much product that they can't do a honest review of anything for fear of offending a advertiser.

thenomad

yeah, he kept mentioning the weight. Like 20 lb is really much different than 17 on a climb. The diffence is very small.
It was a mental thing for him, hill seems hard, must be the extra 3 lb! Riiiight.

Good to see steel reviewed but I was sick of the insane prices for 4130. So much more of a deal to do the same modern build on a high quality vintage frame.

zandoval 

And fun too...

frantik

most specialty magazines these days are literally only intended to sell ads. the articles are just there to distract you between ads.

Phil_gretz

Hold the presses! The new breakthrough frame material...steel! Concidentally, several of our paying customer companies are rolling out inferiour mimicry of once-plentiful, fine steel road bikes of a nearly-forgotten era. We could HIGHLIGHT this and do them a favor. Brilliant!

Wut?

qcpmsame 

Read the article, typical for BM. "Hey Raliegh and Bianchi (enter your choice here) how about buying more advertising, hmmmm?" They act like those weights are killing them, as said above, yet if they had a CF bike that weighed the same they would rave about the light weight and forgiving ride. Not worth the money I spent, for sure. Never buying BM again.

Bill

Pompiere

I thought the articles were there to explain the advertising, since many of the ads don't really say much about the product. The ads mostly say that you will be one of the cool kids if you have their product. The articles tell you which one to buy without saying anything bad about the others.

Last year, I decided that I wanted to buy a new bike. After researching specs and test reviews, I came to the conclusion that aluminum and carbon frames needed to have various things added to their design to reduce the vibration transmitted through the frame. Steel frames didn't need any of that stuff. I ended up buying a Jamis Quest and am quite happy with it.

rekmeyata

If a person today wants to know how certain bikes stack up against others their considering they should read the reviews on the internet from places like Road Bike Review where buyers have purchased and used a bike(s) you're considering, you'll get better info doing that, read BM for information about specs, but you could get up to date specs by going directly to the manufactures website, BM's specs are often 6 to 12 months old and the manufacture may have changed them. But in the end it boils down to how you like the bike that's why for a first time buyer it's important to test ride a bike to get a bike they think they'll like. Once you've been riding for awhile you trust your instincts more and can easily buy off the internet and not be worried if you got a good bike or not.

Sixty Fiver

I have heard about this new wonder material... steel huh ?

puchfinnland

steel? doesnt that stuff rust???

plastic lasts forever, why would I want a hand made steel thing when I can have a out of the mold plastic bike????

Shimagnolo

Uh, oh; Now you've done it; We're going to see more rants by the deniers that can't accept the fact there is actually a second substance in CF parts that bonds the fibers together.

rekmeyata

I have a steel bike I bought new in 84 and rode it in all sorts of weather and not a spot of rust on it. But it will probably rust away to powder over the next year or two.

noglider 

They can't advertise vintage frames.

The magazine deserves every bit of the criticism we're giving them in this thread, plus more. But it would be hard for a magazine to recommend finding and buying some vintage item. Not many readers would be able to follow through on the advice.

WickedThump

I read the article. After reading it I was gratified to have chosen vintage steel.

repechage

I can advise that dropping 14 lbs of white mass helps on the hills.

While out riding, so many of the carbon framed racers are in disbelief that I can keep up with them.
Little do they know it appears that once rolling a vintage bike is just as mechanically efficient, and with tubulars, might be better.
They have consumed the kool-aid.
Coming down to a tactical sprint... yes, give me the latest and greatest.
While rolling along, it matters little, other than you shift less with fewer cogs to choose from.

jfmckenna

Dirt Rag is the only magazine about bikes I subscribe to. It's a good one. And they always have a vintage mountain bike article every month

brianinc-ville

Well, it might be worth taking the long view: the overpriced new steel bikes of today are the vintage finds of 2032. Here's hoping that the same dudes who bought and didn't ride great steel bikes in 1982 are buying and not riding them now.

lotek 

And PezCycling has jumped on the bandwagon.
well not so much the steel bandwagon but the Vintage bandwagon.
https://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fu...me=Tech%20News
not a bad article, and mentions CR list and Velobase (yay Cuda2K! )

the only downside is more competition for vintage bikes at garage sales, flea markets etc.

Marty

noglider 

Bicycle Times is a good magazine.

I started reading Bicycling in the 70's. I liked it then, but I was a teenager then, too.

WickedThump

+1 Well said!

WickedThump

I just started a subscription. I like that it's bringing me up to speed on the latest and greatest.

wahoonc

Let me know when a cared for steel bike rusts out from under you...

I have a much abused and use Raleigh Sports that is 40 years old and still rolling, can't say that for my buddy's CF wonder bike, he broke a frame last weekend on a training ride... I hauled the beer to his house on my Sports to commiserate

Aaron

oldskoolwrench

All of the bikes in my stable have 4130 frame sets, except for ½ of my mountain bike. When I'm on my Moots
Mountaineer I get a kick out of guys riding Ti Moots frames coming up to me and saying "I didn't even know
Moots made Steel frames; is that new?" When I tell them that she's almost 30 years old they shake their
heads in disbelief.

With proper care a Steel frame will last... FOREVER. FOR-EVER... FOR-EV-ER.

rekmeyata

I still have one of kids cheap Walmart bikes when they were children, and that bike was left outside most of time where it got rained on and it's still not a rust bucket and it's about 15 or 16 years old. I could easily fix the things wrong with it and sell it as suitable cheap used kids bike. I know people around here that leave their kids bikes outside in the back yard all year round, and it rains and snows here, and yet their bikes haven't dissolved into rust powder either.

And Sheldon Browns favorite bike that he commuted on the most was a bike from the 1918's if I remember correctly, and it too wasn't a pile of rust powder.