Anybody riding Scandium ?
 

Was wondering if anybody out there is riding a Scandium frame and what you think about it ?

I just ordered a Salsa Bandito and am waiting for it to get to LBS.

Cheers.

I dont but from my research Scandium is just aluminum with a Scandium additive to make it lighter and stronger. So say it has a 'softer' ride than just plane old alum.

"Easton SC7000 Scandium tubing is actually 7000 series aluminum alloyed with Andhurst's scandium. The alloy itself isn't any lighter than other aluminum alloys but it's much stronger and more resilient. Since Aluminum tubing loses strength easily when flexed it has always been thicker or larger and therefore more stiff. The Scandium-aluminum alloy can achieve the needed strength with less material and smaller tubing. It's the smaller tubing that gives you the slight,complient flex found in steel frames.
The resulting frames are stronger, more flexible and are said to be as light as 2 1/4 lbs! They are also much cheaper than titanium!

50mileman,

Let us know how you like it. I've been looking at Salsas and am considering getting one in the near future.

Thanks,
Draft

My ol' Kona ***** was the 2000 model - in scandium. I thought it was great! Excellent on long rides, comfy, yet stiff enough for climbs. Placebo? Perhaps, but every little bit helps...

I know a little about Scandium bikes as my buddy has a Brodie Spark, but it is too big for me to ride as I am height challenged !

He agrees with the ride benifits comming from a dual suspension bike saying that it really takes the edge off that old back of his, and since I am not getting any younger it seemed to be the way to go.

Seems to be a lot of better stuff comming out of Tiawan these days as far as frames go - looks right on for the money, about
$600 U.S. dollars from QBP.

Going to build it up with racing in mind, done 16 twentyfour hour races in the past 6 years so I know what works for that type of event.

Thanks for the advice.

TOminator has covered i thing everything that goes with scandium as an alloy. It is a shame in my opinion that they dont produce regular thickness scandium tubes in order to produce a bombproof FREEride frame without the weight penalty. Instead only frames with paperthin ultralite tubes are produced only for xc racing...as far as my knowledge goes.

Yannis.

scandium is a rare element that is combined with Al to make stronger Al alloys

first used by the ussr in their fighter aircraft. i believe russia/ukraine is still the main source

very expensive stuff to produce due to the amount of ore that must be processed...over $7000/lb i believe...also used to make light weight large caliber revolvers (357/44)...they are a handful

Freeride bikes are already expensive enough. I would hate to see how much a rare metal combined on a freeride bike would jack the price up to...