Steel Mountain bike frames

Lucky Luke

I've noticed on several threads people mentioning steel framed mountain bikes as being desirable for some reason . Why is this ? My wife uses a steel framed mountain bike occasionally (it's the one bike of her three we feel safe to leave locked up in town) but it weighs a ton . A real clunker it is so I for one fail to see its appeal other than you can leave it and not worry about it getting stolen . So why the interest in such bikes ? Anyone care to explain ?

ddraver

read decent steel frmaes

i'm thinking of one, apparently it gives a different feel from harsh unforgiving aluminium, and can be built just as light

alfablue

Maybe your wife has a cheap Hi Tensile steel frame (sometimes labled as Hi-Ten). This steel is truly heavy and awful. Its what £70 superstore bikes are often made of.

Steel bikes made from Reynolds tubes such as 853 can be almost as light as aluminium, and can provide a much more compliant ride.

You also get narrower tubes which I think look better.

Here is an example of an 853 mtb - I love it!

custom-freak

they don't have to be that decent, i picked up an old cro-mo hardrock frame from e-bay a couple of years ago for £5 to use as a singlespeed winter hack and have just rebuilt it with lx and deore components as a mtb with a rigid fork, it is surprisingly light and is a joy to ride (and i won't be too worried about breaking it)

Steel rules!

Cf

alfablue

custom-freak wrote:

they don't have to be that decent, i picked up an old cro-mo hardrock frame from e-bay a couple of years ago for £5 to use as a singlespeed winter hack and have just rebuilt it with lx and deore components as a mtb with a rigid fork, it is surprisingly light and is a joy to ride (and i won't be too worried about breaking it)

Steel rules!

Cf

Agreed, 853 (or even 953) are very desirable, but I had many happy years cycling on a GT Bravado 4130 Cro-Mo, it was light and comfy.

Lucky Luke

I'm pretty sure it's some kind of Reynolds Cromoly tubing . I'll have a look tonight . Could it be K2 possibly ? Does that mean anything ?

custom-freak

you may find that a lot of the weight is in the crankset, the cheap steel ones weigh a ton, a swap for a lighter one (deore or something) will help a bit, other lighter bits like alloy seatpost , wheels,bars and stem can help, i was a bit picky when i built mine and went for as light as possible without losing strength

Cf

passout

Alu vs steel: I used to ride a steel specialised and once borrowed a Rock Lobster (see above). I found both to be 'skippy' on fast challenging descents - Garbun pass 'springs' to mind. On less challenging descents they're fine. I now find aluminium far less so - it's more predictable and doesn't have such a mind of it's own some how. I guess some would descibe a light steel bike as fun & lively to ride and it's certainly different in feel to alu. However its alu every time for me. The extra stiffness of alu can mean better cornering and certainly better climbing. Alu can be more punishing but I find it more rewarding too. Of course steel is becoming more expensive too. A matter of personal taste I reckon - no rights are wrongs on this one - but they are suprisingly different from each other.

Bianchi Boy

Both of my MTB's are steel. My RSP is 853, and very good.