Aluminum is also easily repaired with only slightly more sophisticated equipment that can probably be found in most auto shops around the world now. And even if it can't be repaired in some podunk town in outer Wyrunthysonehorstwnistan, we live in the era of FedEx. No place on the planet is more than 2 days away from parts:rolleyes:

The cost to get aluminum repaired by a shop is SIGNIFICANTLY more according to the auto repair dude up the street (and that's in MEXICO brah).

If you want aluminum, may I suggest the Salsa Fargo? http://www.salsacycles.com/fargoComp09.html

Yes, I think the Salsa is better, but not for the price.


The problem I have with cheap is, you get what you didn't pay for.

surlys are cheap steel tanks that ride like.....bikes

I have 3 and love each one. I also have 8 other high-zoot bikes so i know what is what

QBP owns Salsa also:

QBP Brands

All-City
Track frames and parts born from the streets of Minneapolis

Civia
High-end bikes and products designed for practical everyday transportation

Dimension
Quality parts and fashionable, fun bike accessories

Handspun
First choice in wheels

Problem Solvers
Solution-oriented bike parts designed to resolve challenging mechanical issues

Salsa Cycles
Premium road, mountain and cyclocross bikes

Surly
Sturdy, no-frills road, mountain and cross bikes

Winwood
High-end specialty bike components and accessories

----------------------
anyhow the point is,

Surly bikes ride like bikes should, and don't break the bank, and are tough as nails

and they have the Pugsley, w/Large Marge, and Endomorph. which I have. this thing rocks all that can be rocked

For aluminum touring bikes, Cannondale is the only way to go;) On the same par as the LHT and they've been making them for 25 years. Lifetime warranty, too. The LHT (and the Salsa)...5 years.

Graveyards are probably very good places to stay. Though some may have caretakers or police patrols that frown on it.

Not aluminum, according to the specs. CroMo frame/fork.

So all the QPB distributed brands are under their full ownership, then? (I was not aware of this. I thought that QBP was just a distribution company to consolidate orders for shops.)

You really should read some of the journals up on CrazyGuyOnABike - specifically the guys touring South America. There aren't any bike shops that stock anything besides the crappiest 26" components around, and getting a FedEx (or ANY) delivery is simply impossible in many of the areas. You break a frame in some areas these guys have been to, you might get steel brazed somewhere within 50 miles, otherwise you're walking and hoping a bus comes by to get you to a town 300 miles away where FedEx will even go. And then you're looking at 5 or 6 days for FedEx "overnight" service, AND paying as much as a hundred bucks for the delivery of a few pound package.

Heck, I lived in a place in the continental US just back in the early 90s where FedEx only serviced when they got enough stuff to bother sending a truck - overnight delivery might take as much as 4 days, and that was from 300 miles away. The rate sheets all said "Overnight guaranteed...except to these places. There, we'll do our best to get it there, eventually."

A friend worked at a hospital, and he told stories of having medical supplied ruined because the supplier INSISTED on sending stuff FedEx overnight instead of USPS overnight. USPS did get there the next day - FedEx, well, maybe that week. The guy at the supplier simply didn't believe that there was anywhere FedEx wouldn't deliver to overnight.

I don't know if they still have such exclusion zones in the US, but it wasn't that long ago that they did.

Not always.

for instance BMC is strictly coming from QBP,. but BMC is BMC, not QBP

the others are owned and controlled by QBP.

Ever been to Baja?

There are auto repair shops in the little towns along the way... but the odds that they have TIG welding gear are pretty small... and FedEX... yeah it delivers... provided you already have an import permit for the materials you want sent to you. Otherwise you have to go to a main town (Ensenada or La Paz) and go through customs to get the parts that were sent to you.

Yeah we live in the era of the WWW and instant overnight delivery... unless you happen to be in a 3rd world location. And yes, being down there, indeed you are no more than a 2-3 day bus ride back to the US. But how much nicer if someone can just braze something for you that afternoon and you can continue your tour.

BTW I once busted a spoke while touring the southern US... It was two days before I got to a bike shop that had any real variety in spokes enough to have the 14 ga. spoke to fit my Mavic wheels with Phil Wood hubs... Schwinn type parts I could have had.

Now I'll roll my eyes... :rolleyes:

I can understand wanting a steel frame if you're going to be touring in a remote place but for commuting in the wilds of Minneapolis or any other reasonably sized city/metropolitan area it's not going to make much difference if you're broken frame is aluminum or steel. Frame breakage isn't high on the list of likely mechanical problems anyway.

Currently I ride a steel bike in the winter and an aluminum bike with some cf parts the rest of the year. I don't have a strong opinion either way on aluminum vs steel.

Anyway as far as Surly vs BD goes, you have a lot of the same arguments (pro and con) when it comes to buying from BD vs buying at an LBS.

Suffice it to say that while you may be quite happy with a bike bought from BD, Surly has an earned a good reputation from commuters, utility cyclists, and touring types alike. My main problem with BD is that they bought the rights to use defunct bicycle brand names rather than working on building a reputation with their own brand.

A lot of people, myself included just find that steel rides better than aluminum.

Sure and that's fine. My own experience is that it depends ;)

I've put in a lot of miles on 4 different road bikes in the last 18 months. Three were steel, and 1 is an aluminum/cf combo. The smoothest ride was a steel sport touring bike with 28mm tires, but the next smoothest was a competition oriented aluminum/cf bike with 23s. Another steel bike with 23s and a similar geometry actually had a marginally harsher ride than the aluminum/cf bike. It's not all about the frame material.

hear hear.

I rode up the 2 a bit yesterday, ~35mi and 4.2k ft of climbing, but also about 6 pounds of exhaust in my lungs and 3-4 close calls of being hit by asshat drivers.

We can play "what if" all day long. And I'm sure someone will come up with some better horror stories than you and Itsjustme.:rolleyes: If I were touring in a third world country, I might consider a steel frame, however the idea that a steel frame is 'better' than an aluminum one because you might be able to get it fixed is in the same category as saying that STI is too delicate to use for touring. Frame breakage is pretty rare in any event and having the village smithy would be an iffy proposition anyway. I've had a steel frame fixed by a master welder who I trust with my life (he welds my pressure vessels) and he was amazed at how difficult it was to fix.

If you don't like aluminum frames, just say so. Some people like it and some don't. But I bet you have lots of aluminum parts on whatever you ride. We all do. Do you worry about that breaking?

I hope you learned your lesson about the spokes. I carry spares of my own;)

:deadhorse:

Beating a dead donkey?

I did learn my lesson about spokes... and frankly it surprised me to learn that even small towns in New Mexico and West Texas don't have a ready supply of various spokes... the shops I saw in those places were bikes/small engines/toy shops... sort of "do it all," but on a small scale. Of course they were just as wide eyed at someone touring the country on a bike. ;) ("you're riding where???")

And it is not the Al that I don't like... I have an Al bike with index shifters... it just ain't my touring bike. :D (MTB actually)

And yeah, indeed my touring bike has friction shifters. You got me there.

And yes, frame breakage is darn rare... more likely I'd screw up a deraileur or something. (have had those "blow up" in odd places too...)

Do take note however even the current Trek touring bikes are "just" steel.

The stuff I wrote was in direct response to someone's statement that "FedEx can get you stuff in 2 or 3 days ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET." It's not true. Not at all. I don't expect that I, personally, would ever get somewhere that it's not true, but you can't make blanket statements like that in a context where the person clearly really was talking about ANYWHERE on the planet including 3rd world countries.

I'd like to get steel myself simply because I can fix it myself, though I suppose if my aluminum frame breaks, it's just an excuse to go out and buy that gas conversion kit for my welder.

I don't think aluminum frames are any more questionable than steel- aluminum has been around for a while, and people know its properties. I'd feel WAY better about riding an aluminum bike than a carbon frame.

However, I still think steel is much superior to aluminum for one simple reason: comfort. Aluminum is a lot more rigid than steel, which might mean better performance in a road bike, but which also translates into a much more jarring ride over long distances. My steel-framed LHT isn't the perfect bike; it's heavy, maybe even boring, and will never win any races, but it's durable and really, really comfortable to ride, and if you're putting in a lot of miles on a tour, or even on your daily commute, that can mean the difference between true joy and utter misery.

I always thought a broken frame was an excuse to get another bike.

Which is okay because they spec steel steerer tubes on their forks.

One big reason I bought a LHT is the shorter top tube than my touring bike. :p Oh and it's stiffer yet more comfortable than my alu touring bike. :D

I also waited a month for a Fedex 5-day delivery in Canada (2-day was not offered). There are plenty of places in "1st world countries" with no bike shops around and no 2-day Fedex or UPS. I've even seen places where stores were closed on sunday. :p

Depends on the entire bike,not just the frame. My daily commuter is a Novara Safari;alloy frame,cromo fork,26x2" tires. Rides sweet. I had a Kona Sutra;all steel with 700x37 tires. Commuted on it a couple times,and it didn't ride any better than my Safari,so it got sold. The Safari also rides smoother than my Coda,which is steel with a carbon fork. No doubt do to the 120psi 28mm tires.

And that was kind of my point. Steel has its advantages. So does aluminum. As someone who regularly rides both, I think it's a mistake assume that a steel bike is always going to give you a better ride. You may end up passing over what could have turned out be the perfect bike for you.

All I'm saying is that to my butt my steel road bike rides better than my aluminum one. Which is why I sold it.

No, no, no.

I don't want to turn this into a steel v. aluminum debate (thought that train may have left the station) but everytime someone says "aluminum is more rigid/harsher/etc than steel" they open up another ignorance vortex on BikeForums.

It's tubing diameter. Aluminum is 1/3 the stiffness of Reynolds 531...however, increasing tubing diameter 50% increases the stiffness of a tube by nearly a factor of 8. That is why aluminum bikes tend to be stiff and light...at 1/3 the weight of steel, you can make oversized tubing to get a frame that is 12%-15% stiffer than a steel frame, at the same weight as that flexier steel frame. To get corresponding frame stiffness out of steel, it would be insanely heavy, or you'd have to draw the steel to "beer can" thinness.

No one would accuse an early Vitus aluminum bike of being anything other than a noodle.

Aluminum can be made in smaller diamters to tune the ride. Steel could be made in large (and heavy) diameters to make for a harsh ride. Go find a Cannondale CAAD 9, squeeze the seat stays, then come back and tell me about "stiff" or "rigid" frames.

If you want to look smart, next time you ride an Aluminum frame with a harsh feeling, tell someone about the harsh large tubing diameter ride of the bike. Any engineers present will likely applaud at your knowledge of materials and tubing construction. The other philistines will simply persist in believing that the harshness is simply a function of the material.

Well, it IS a function of the material as the frame needs to be engineered with the material in mind. Aluminum has a very low fatigue life compared to steel. At it flexes it fatigues and then cracks. For this reason they have to use large diameter tubes to make it as stiff as possible (and stiffness roughly translates into a harshness) to make it's life as long as possible. Now you can do a little tuning - e.g. the seatstays on that Cannondale where you let it flex in a direction where it doesn't cycle a lot (e.g. laterally on those seatstays) but it's limited as to how much you can do. That's serious engineering and one of those areas that really separates a cheap frame from an expensive one. Or you make a flexy cheap frame and just let it break after a couple of years. I bet that Cannondale you speak of is very stiff vertically if not laterally. It's gotta be or it'll break down from flexing on every pedal stroke. Laterally it only flexes sometimes - on bumps and such. Vertically it'll try to flex on every pedal stroke.

The old Vitus frames are an anomaly as they flexed at the lugs. So it's the joint that's flexing and not the tube. That's the difference there - and why those frames last a long time. (that's my theory anyhow)

This is one of the big advantages of Carbon - depending on how you lay down the layers you can tune it to be stiff in one direction and flexible in another.

The other complication is that some steels are stiffer than others. Aframe built with oversized 853 can be super harsh. A 631 frame will never be harsh no matter how lousy the design is. So yeah, "aluminum is harsh, steel is not" is not an absolutely true statement but the average steel frame will offer a softer ride than the average aluminum frame. And that's a fact, Jack. ;)

:popcorn:

NERD FIGHT!

OK, no slide rules. No mechanical pencils. No drafting squares. Concrete mathematics only, no theory. Calculators ready, I want a nice clean fight.

I don't think Surly's are that special?
Who thinks there special?
Lots of others I would consider over a Surly anyday. And have.