;-)

I was just enjoying the irony of this comment, given your name!

I hoped there were more folks like you with both magnesium and carbon frames.

My guess is if extruding and welding were easier, you'd see a lot more Mg frames. With more frames and more competition, Mg might very well compete with carbon.

What I don't get is the Segal Mg frame is heavier than some aluminum frames. For example the Spooky Skeletor is 1 kg, my Podio is 1.2 kg (56cm), and the Segal frame is listed at 1.18 kg (54cm). So there really isn't too much weight savings with the frames that I found, definitely no where near the weight of carbon. Granted, there is supposedly better vibration damping, but if that was your only concern then just get carbon, because the costs should be comparable because of the processing costs associated with manufacturing Mg.

I do remember that from an old chemistry set. Very explosive!

Wow! What he said exactly.

Kinda funny that the Zinn dogs carbon fiber for its potential to catastrophically fail, and belittles its ride quality as no better than magnesium, then on the Fassa magnesium framed bike page, it's pictured with a carbon fork.

http://zinncycles.com/Zinn/?page_id=127

Alpha Q is one of the very few mfgrs that offer forks with really long steerers,
which Zinn needs for the long headtubes on his tall frames.

Unless thats where you keep that book.

Paketa's Magnesium tandem +/- 20 LBS.

No.

thems fightin' words! you TA right jim? let's be honest, some of the kids are pretty dumb.

You can get a Paketa magnesium frameset for $2350. That's a good chunk of change, but not totally ridiculous.

They really should change the ugly yellow bike on their website.

http://firesteel.com/

"Developed for the Swedish Department of Defense, Swedish FireSteel creates a 3000º C (5500º F) spark. This is done by moving a metal blade slowly across the FireSteel, a magnesium alloy rod that is built up of 7 metals (good for roughly 12000 strikes)"

Theoretically if you were use Shimano SPD steel cleats, accidentally unclipped and kicked the bottom tube. It is plausible that you could ignite something on fire...perhaps your over priced Pearl Izumi cycling specific socks.

The older mag fire starters were virtually pure magnesium, that was soft enough to be shaved with a knife. The newer ones are harder like the Firesteel.

Magnesium has a higher fabrication cost, because of the dangers of flammability. Titanium welding is likewise and expensive aspect of fabrication due to the argon gas environment.

Titanium is an expensive material; however, manufacturing something out of Ti costs way more than steel or aluminum.

I'm guessing it would feel similar to the stronger 7000 series Al bikes.


Griffen Bicycles went out of business last year. They used to make metal matrix composite bikes. Boron nitride fibers in an aluminum alloy matrix. Aerospace all the way. Specialized made a few models as well. Has anyone ridden one of those?

yes, i'll admit it. a good 1/3 of the columbia undergrads are pretty idiotic & i have no idea how they ended up here.

as for you billy, are you taking cues from 10 wheel now?

http://i.tsn.com/i/photos/20090921/124681.gif

Magnesium as a frame material? Marin's top of the line was Magnesium a few years ago, Pinarello had magnesium (as others have mentioned) and i've also seen Merida Magnesium frames on eBay (Merida is the OEM for Specialized I believe, but don't sell under the Merida name in the US).

As this thread reaches its end, my hope was to bring out the folks with both carbon and magnesium frames. Sadly, there was only one, but he had some good information. After owning aluminum and steel, I love my bike. How it stacks up with my future carbon frame, I don't really know. So be it. Thanks for the thoughts.

I've been on these frames for the last five years. And for what it's worth, none have caught fire.


http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1279652663

Wow, that downtube is huge.

So you can put a gruber motor in there?

;-)

That's in the seat tube, which looks normal.

The bike looks great and I'm sure Paketa does a great job. You might find that the material selection is somewhat secondary to their bike design as a whole. There are certainly many ways to produce a good riding bike.

P.S. It looks like you could stand to tilt your saddle up a bit.

It's an interesting story. They started by importing their frames from an old Russian rocket factory. Hence Paketa, which supposedly means "rocket" in Russian. Zatopek's Litech frame is probably from the same factory.

All tubes are now being extruded in Denver and the bikes are designed and built locally. I know one of their previous owners pretty well - solid, salt of the earth human being. I'm sold on their bikes.

It's the Time RXR that's taunting me.