Whats the real reason Alu's the most popular frame material?
When looking for my first bike last year not knowing to much about frames i went for a Allez sport thinking Alu is the best option for me know one rides steel anymore and i can't afford carbon fiber. Don't get me wrong it a great bike, but looking on it now i should have bought steel. Looking at the spec of steel and alu entry level bikes there is nothing in it on weight less than a kg. So why is everybody alu obsessed? This got me thinking no one cares who made the alu for the frame? Steel frame the first thing we ask is what tubing Reynold Columbus etc.. This i think is the real reason manufacturers have convinced us to go alu so they can produce there own tubing at a fraction of the price they would have to pay for branded steel tubing. Independent fabrication make a reynold 953 frame at 1.1kg on a 57cm frame.
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I think you have answered you own question.
Try buying the Independent Fabrication frame on an entry level Alu frame budget though.
See my answer belowNone of the above should be taken seriously, and certainly not personally.0 -
haha yes true! But even reynold 5 series bikes are coming in at 10-11kg. you can pick them up for entry level is prices. Thats the same weight as my Allez.0
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A cheap aluminium frame (what the allez is!) will provide a better ride than a cheap steel frame.
A kilo is 10% of what would by the majority of people on here be considered a heavy racing bike. Also with that weight difference, you are comparing a good quality steel bike with an aluminium bike. The old gas pipe bikes that I grew up with in the 80's were even heavier.
A good quality steel frame will set you back the same if not more than a cheap carbon frame. http://www.bobjacksoncycles.co.uk/defau ... 2r8ccibfs5
A stainless steel bike frame is just as expensive as good carbon frame. http://www.roadcyclinguk.com/bike-revie ... /3315.html
Also, aluminum alloy standards are well defined giving a good supply of tubing that will provide known characteristics.
Finally, both metals oxidise but whilst Aluminium Oxide is non-porous, Iron Oxide (rust) is porous so steel bikes will continue to oxidise (rust) until there is nothing left.0 -
Don't get me wrong it a great bike, but looking on it now i should have bought steel.
I don't see where you are getting to that conclusion? You seem to conclude there is not much difference between steel and alu but without elaborating on the specific areas of comparison made, apart from weight (although your argument is not exactly objective and comprehensive there). Not trying to disagree with you, but a bike manufacturer will pick a material for a whole host of reasons (some valid and some not).
I have frames made of alu and one of steel but the bikes they make up are very diffferent so I cannot compare the frame material of one with another. It would be interesting to try a bike with the same kit and frame geo but with different material (alu, carbon, steel, bamboo) and see what the differences were but each material has many different flavours so the testing would be endless...and probably end up as subjective anyway.0 -
I'm sure what i'm getting at either! lol. What i was trying to say i think is that maybe all the big brands stopped making steel not because its old fashioned or alu is lighter or better its because people would only buy steel if the tubing was made by reynold or Columbus.0
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The reason that aluminium alloy gained popularity was that the Chinese / Taiwanese geared-up to produce them is significant quantity, very cheaply. For a while there was a perceived value of new, lightweight alloys over steel - and the marketing boys had something else to get pant-wettingly excited about. The downside was that high-quality alloys require specialist welding and heat-treatment facilities and actually aren't that durable or lasted that long.
A few tried titanium, but it's expensive material and requires a degree of skill to fabricate properly and therefore limits volume production - you can't just run a night shift using semi-skilled labour to push the button.
Then the likes of DuPont and Toray came up with a way of making carbon frames for about $100 in big factories and the marketing people got all excited again...
Now of course, with cheap Chinese frames flooding the market with little to differentiate them, the marketing boys are having to dream up the next great thing...so you either pay stupid amounts of money for something very light or how about artisan-built, steel frames built by craftsmen?Make mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..0 -
I have noticed the Chinese carbon frames on ebay. Is there not much difference in one of them and a £1k brand name one just marketing? Are the entry level bikes just bought of the peg from a manufacture in Taiwan the branded?0
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The key point with aluminium frames is tooling - quite simply, in the 1990's the major companies manufacturing bikes (and there are far fewer of them than there are bike brands, as most are made by three big companies in Taiwan) invested in the tooling for mass producing aluminium frames. The tooling is very expensive (which is why only a handful of small custom builders use aluminium), but once in place, it allows fairly cheap frames to be made.
The primary reason is that aluminium is more suitable for automated mass manufacture - steel needs higher skill levels in the welders, and steel in an inherently more difficult material to work (its much more difficult to get fancy tube profiles with steel than aluminium). Once the investment was made, it was possible to make a very high quality aluminium frame much cheaper than an equivalent quality steel frame.0 -
Alu is cheap, low cost frames can be quite light and the larger tubes appeal to the 4x4 mentality.0
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if i remember correctly i aluminium is cheaper to recycle, it melts at a lower temperature than steel.0