Bike Forums - Steel Vs Aluminum

[QUOTE=cyccommute;15000751]

Quote:

You are still missing the point. Steel is cheap compared to aluminum due to the economies of scale. That's why you find it on cheap bikes, in car panels and car parts, in bridges and houses and buildings, etc. Aluminum would be better for some things like car body panels because of the weight savings but once you start using it on the scale that automobile manufacturers want to use it, you'll have to start refining it from ore which drives the cost up tremendously. Car manufacturers could burn though our stockpile of aluminum very quickly. Your dream of us all riding steel bikes would quickly be realized

First of all, I don't dream of everyone riding aluminum bikes. Most of us who live near coastal areas would most probably fair much better with aluminum bikes, than steel ones.

Also, I think that aluminum has served road bike racing very well in the past and it continues to serve many racers well, though CF seems to be supplanting aluminum in that regard. Aluminum has also been quite useful and much appreciated in downhill MTN biking. However, CF promises to take over that particular sport, too!

Quote:

Aluminum, by the way, is found in many more minerals in the earth's crust than just in bauxite. Clay, feldspar, tourmaline, ruby, corundum (the sand of 'sand paper') and turquoise are all aluminum containing minerals. Wikipedia lists 189 pages of minerals that contain aluminum. Bauxite just happens to be the one that is easiest to get the aluminum out of.

Yes, I know____ Cyccommute!

It's just that the only way that we can readily free the aluminum metal from a practical standpoint, is from its ore called, bauxite. That's where we actually get our aluminum from when it's not being recycled. It's not unlike iron in terms of being bonded to atoms of other elements to form various compounds. However, unlike iron which we extract from a variety of iron ores, we seem to only be able to extract aluminum most profitably from its bauxite ore. That doesn't preclude or restrict aluminum from being chemically bonded to other minerals or ores.

This is my last transmission on this thread about aluminum vs steel.