FrenchFit 

Commuter, Miyata Racer ('72). Dura-Ace / Shimano 333

auchencrow

My late 60's Ganna, more than any other bike, served to convince me that a bike doesn't have to have a designer tubing label to provide an exceptional ride. It "feels" very light, and responsive. The absolute antithesis of the cast-iron Huffy "Contender" that a good friend of mine has had since the 70's - a first Christmas gift from his (then) future wife, neither of which he can part with now.

redneckwes

One of my favorite rides, (It's now my brother's everyday bike.) Is a 1976 Raleigh Record in "team" colors. A basic frame can make for a really nice bike when combined with the right components!

dddd

That must be the model that I was thinking of, from the 1990's when titanium was fashionable.

Good save though, tag still on it, lol.

I've saved a few of the Murray Phoenix bikes that must have been sold a few years earlier than that one, and I recall the frames looked welded to me. I'll have to poke at the head tube joints of one and check for brass filler.

auchencrow

Thanks dddd, it was a good save for the little boy who ended up with it. Good thing I rebuilt it too - there was never any grease in it!

browngw 

How about a "high five" for five of my "Hi Tens". A Record, three Sprites including a Mixte, and a Sekine Mixte.

dddd

I think you just need five more in the clean fleet, with 20 or 24 more perhaps down in the cellar (depending on if it's 1020 or 1024 steel tubing).

Pistard

Lot of fun riding this one,,,,

browngw 

Some fun with numbers. Actually the four Raleighs are labelled Hi Ten 2030

Road Fan

Real nice UO-8, Jim!

I'm not going to guess at the actual alloy, though it's probably a milder steel like 1020. However, Peugeot did a lot of work to innovate with low-cost steel that was well below the heights of 531, Columbus Cyclex, and 4130 CrMo that were in the higher-end market. UO-8s have a great ride - they must have done something special to achieve that. Perhaps its a thinner tube, perhaps some different alloys, who knows? But back in the day Peug had a centralized high-production manufacturing facility integrating the steel mill, tube forming and sheet rolling, frame building, and bicycling assembly all under one engineering design and development team. It was perfect for making a cheap bike better without adding significant cost.

Or for transitioning to selling cars and motorcycles.

Road Fan

I'm sure we've done that once or twice.

Road Fan

Hi-Ten or 1020 do not imply low quality, just that as you said the strength to weight ratio of this steel is lower that of some others. But it is a carbon steel, so it's stronger than early steels. The result of high strength is (as Fiets said in an earlier post) for equal durability the tubes can be thinner. This makes lighter frame and one with a lower spring constant - it flexes a tad more in response to applied forces, such as bumps and pedal strokes. As the strength is increased wall thickness decreases until flexibility is excessive, may be at a wall thickness 0.5 mm or below. Then the tube diameter is increased (OS tubes) to restore rigidity. Probably today's state of the art is Reynolds 953 or TruTemper S3 with thickness as low as 0.3 mm. Very light, stiff due to big tube diameters, but there's a risk of easy denting. These steels have strength parameters several times greater than 1020.

Another quality factor is whether tubes are seamless or rolled up out of sheet and welded longitudinally. If there's no perceptible seam all's good. If there is one, like on the back edge of UO-8 fork blades, we balk at the appearance but some of us still think they ride ok.

Based on Raleigh's chart, 753 is about three times as strong as 1020, but S3 and 953 take that up another level. I don't have figures readily, but I know I've seen them on the Net.

SHOFINE

I was amazed at how nice my X-tra Lite World Sport rode!

turky lurkey

I had fun refurbishing this '81 Miyata 310 over the holidays with my Dad, gave us an opportunity to spend some time together in his shop while I was visiting him on the rainy Oregon Coast. He's not really much of a bike guy but he get's into it when I'm around, he likes to work on things in general and is happy to have an interest in mechanical things to share with me. We paid a little to much for it in project condition, but it was the only reasonable project bike within a 2 hour drive, and in the end it turned out to be a nice bike, which I will ride every time I visit (even though it is a bit on the small side for me). I believe this bike has high ten 1024 fork and stays. Definitely a fun, fast, and comfortable bike.

jimmuller 

With all the bike model names like Sports 12 or 510 or 1200 or whatever, would any manufacture ever name a model High-10? Or Hi-10? Or Hi-ten? Miyata might have. Or Fuji. But probably not.

old's'cool

Well, ten-ten (1010) is a low grade of carbon steel... don't think I'd want a bike named for or made from it though. I guess Miyata felt the same way.

FBinNY 

yes, 1010 is a low carbon steel, but I don't believe it was commonly used for bicycles. If memory serve (lots of years since) "gas pipe" bikes were made of 1020 steel.

For those who may care, here's a link to the USA (AISA, SAE) steel classification system. The first 2 digits of 4 describe the general class, and the last two the percentage of carbon (decimal shifted), so xx20 = .20% carbon.

I don't know what so called Hi-Ten steel might have been, or it could have included a number. Steels commonly used for better bikes include both higher carbon steels such as 1050, and a range of ChromeMoly steels of the 41xx format.

High end bikes were often made of so-called "triple alloys" such as nivachrome, nickle, vanadium, chromium.

browngw 

Canadian built 1983 Raleigh Sprite Mixte frame sticker shown. Similar on earlier 76 Sprites and 80 Record.

due ruote 

I don't have anything currently, but here's a Carlton Corsa that came and went. Nice rider. At least I think it's hi-ten - maybe there's a Tru-Wel expert lurking who can opine about the sticker remains. I also like Raleigh Gran Prix (just how does one make that plural?). They were what the cool kids had instead of Varsities.

FBinNY 

I doubt that this refers to a 2000 series nickel steel (AISI grade) for a few reasons.

The format is wrong (no hyphen in AISi grades), there is no AISI 2030, and the decal is a Ti-Reynolds decal, and they've always used their own proprietary numbers such as 531.

It might refer to a steel with .20-.30 percent carbon, or it might be something else entirely. Only their hairdresser knows for sure.

All we know is that Ti-Renolds want to say it's somehow special.

FBinNY 

Just speculating, but this might be a welded and drawn oven mandrel tube. Tru-WelD? ERW, might have stood for electric resistance welded. Who knows.

Metacortex

Schwinn's electro-forged bikes (Collegiate, Varsity, Continental, etc.) were made from 16ga. 1010 steel tubing throughout except for the bottom tube, which used even thicker 15ga. tubing.

FBinNY 

Thanks for the heads up.

dddd

Thinking back to what FB said yesterday(?), I do recall that many old American frames appeared to have the tubes simply plugged into a plain head tube directly, and I have long wondered where the weld was.
So, it does make sense that it was a brazed joint, so I guess hand-made?
So, with no fillet and with no lug, pretty fragile I imagine.
What about all the later ones though, sold at Kmart and such? Surely these couldn't all be hand-brazed(?).
I suspect heavy use of automation, firstly in the mitering or whatever that allowed brazing clearances to be held.
And at some point they all became simply robo-welded, with a stick feeding in a lumpy fillet.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, given that they are disposable bikes.

IknowURider

oh man that Record is awesome! I had a '72. The head tube separated. I felt like I lost a leg.