Whats up everybody. Wow, its been a while since I've been here. Alright I need your help, my buddy bought a Specialized M4 and uhhh.... what the hell is an M4?! I can't find a review for it. I've seen reviews for Specialized M4 hardtails, but its not a hardtail its a dually with air. On the pivot points it says "S-Works" on it but thats the only kind of identification I saw. I was just curious if you guys could tell me a little about it. Thanks.

I believe that M4, M5, etc refers to the way in which the frame material was manipulated during the manufacturing process.

Quote from some 2003 Specialized promotion literature:

"M4 Manipulated Alloy frames. M4 is a unique aluminum alloy with great characteristics for making a bike:

Strong - 24% more than 6061 aluminum (ultimate tensile strength)

Light - excellent elongation (formability) characteristics allow tubes to be formed with thicker sections in higher stressed areas and thinner walls where stresses are less

Durable - exceptional fatigue strength means M4 will hold up to years of hard riding"

I found out elsewhere that it was a Columbus tubing product custom-made for specialized based on their Starship Series tubing. In a quote from totalbike.com, they had this to say about it:
"It contains silicon and magnesium as main components apart from aluminum, and there are also little percentages of Cu, Mn and Zn. All this means a 6000 series alloy that is very resistant to high temperatures the way few millimeters far from the welds the tube reaches its highest mechanical alloys."

The full article is here:
https://www.totalbike.com/web/article...ing_test1.html

Hope this helps.
D. "More-than-you-wanted-to-know" Minor

Mine is "A1 Enhanced Aluminum," whatever that means.

If it says S-works it was a top of the line frame in its time so that's cool.

...and Gastro knows cool!

That's right. I do know some cool people. you are by far the coolest.

Nooooooooooooo, not the manure pic again!!!!!!!! I'm gone for a while and this is how I get treated?

You've been gone? I hadn't noticed.

Cold, man, cold.

Settle this on the 14th? I want to ride Black from the very top.

You want me to grab a camp site?

yes please.