What Your Bicycle Frame is Made From

Hold on tight – We are letting Steve dive deep into the bicycle geekery with this episode! Inspired by not one, but two, titanium frames which had to be returned to their manufacturers for repair, we're talking about about what bike frames are made of (steel, aluminum, titanium, carbon, oh my), including the pros and cons as well as care and repair. You also may be surprised by the material Steve thinks more bikes should be made from.

We also share an update on our PMC Unpaved fundraising (thank you), the benefits of wearing a helmet (even on the rec path), as well as a few favorite articles seen while scrolling.

Visit SteveTheBikeGuy to see photos of some of the bikes mentioned.

Transcript

Kristin: 0:05

This is Kristen.

Steve: 0:06

And I'm Steve, and you are listening to Cycling Together, a show of all about things, bikes, riding, and riding together.

Kristin: 0:12

We really waited to last minute to get this show done this week.

Steve: 0:15

The very last minute.

Kristin: 0:17

Since it's due tomorrow. Of course, it's only due in my head.

Steve: 0:21

It is. And you came up with a good topic last week. And as soon as you said it, I said, oh, I can just run with that. You can run with that. So yes, you actually might hear me talking more and more and more than you ever have this episode because I can just uh my uh yeah, I'll let my my mouth run on this one. Right.

Kristin: 0:41

We're gonna be talking about what bicycle frames are made of, and it is inspired by a rough month at the shop in that you had not one but two broken frames.

Steve: 0:53

I had one come in. Yes, and we know of another one, right? And it wasn't even a the first one that came in was just he brought it to me to ship back to the company. It wasn't even bought from me.

Kristin: 1:03

And we we're not gonna talk about those right now. Yeah, we're gonna that's the topic for today. What are bike frames made of?

Steve: 1:10

Okay.

Kristin: 1:11

Why we pick what we pick, how they break, how to care for them. But before we get to that, how do you like your new hat?

Steve: 1:18

Ooh, I like it. You know, you got that hat, and I thought was really old. Yes. Because either they chose a white fuzzy material in the logo there of the PMC hat that is either pre-dertified or it is I bought it dirty chose just the right color to make it look like it's just slightly dingy.

Kristin: 1:40

Yeah, it's that same material they have, like on a letterman jacket. And anyway, I bought it for myself because it is my 10th Pan Mask Challenge year. They even sent me a sticker, which means I'm gonna stress out about where to put it because I have sticker FOMO, which is I I don't like to put it on a thing because I might want to put it on a different thing. I need like 10 of these. Anyway, and the reason I bring it up is we are going to PMC Unpaved. In a few days. In a few days, and this will be your fourth PMC year, and my 10th PMC year. Fourth year of Unpaved? The fourth year of Unpaved.

Steve: 2:19

Okay, so yes, we've done it every year for Unpaved.

Kristin: 2:21

Yeah. But speaking of unpaved, we were doing a last training ride on Sunday. Where did we go? Where were we on Sunday?

Steve: 2:31

We went to a rail trip. The longest one in Rhode Island was 19 miles end to end.

Kristin: 2:37

Yeah. And it I mean had a pretty good ascent and then descent back. The reason I'm bringing it up is there were a ton of people on it on bikes, many of them on e-bikes. We'll use bikes in quotes. And not a lot of them wearing helmets.

Steve: 2:54

Oh, that's true.

Kristin: 2:55

Right? Yeah.

Steve: 2:55

And what did we see near the end of our Oh, yes, a guy on the ground bloodied. You said there was a lot of blood on the ground. I'm I wasn't. There was a puddle. There was a puddle. There was a puddle of blood on the ground. Obviously, the woman who was with him, I think, was a relative because the way she talked to him about sitting his ass down.

Kristin: 3:15

Sit your ass down. The ambulance is on the way.

Steve: 3:17

Yes, yes. I think it was that. Yes, the ambulance is on the way. Yep.

Kristin: 3:21

Yeah, and it's really tempting not to wear helmets on a rail trail like that, but I did look it up, and it turns out that riders wearing helmets have a 52% lower risk of a severe traumatic brain injury when compared to unhelmeted cyclic.

Steve: 3:39

It looked like the blood came from his head, and we know head wounds be a lot.

Kristin: 3:42

Well, riders wearing helmets have a 44% lower risk of death, they have a 31% lower risk of facial fractures, and they significantly reduce their likelihood of having brain surgery in the event of an accident. So this is my PSA, which is if you have friends who think that it's not cool to wear helmets, get on that. Okay. Anyway, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're gonna talk about bike frames.

Steve: 4:13

All right, let's do it.

Kristin: 4:19

All right, talking about what frames are made of. And here's what inspired me. So, as we were talking about, we had two frames that we one we knew of that cracked and one that was brought into your shop so you could ship it back to the unipacture. And it just got me thinking, as the non-technical person, about what frames are made of and why we choose the materials we do.

Steve: 4:47

Well, we're gonna go through all of the different frame materials. And we're gonna kind of go a little bit of history, a little bit of background, a little bit of why you're buying that frame and all frame materials can fail. You that's so every single frame material, and all right, so we're gonna talk about steel frames, aluminum frames, titanium frames, and carbon frames. And all four of them will have a failure rate. So, you know, it it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate, but it and it's and it's not common, but it happens. Right. Some people are just gonna have it happen.

Kristin: 5:24

The two frames we're talking about, we're not really talking about. They just inspired this conversation. Um, and we'll get to it at some point because I was asking.

Steve: 5:34

They were both titanium.

Kristin: 5:35

Oh, they were both titanium. That's right. Because I was asking, like, what should I be doing? What should I but but we'll get to that. So you want to start from the top?

Steve: 5:43

Yeah, let's start. Okay.

Kristin: 5:45

Steel.

Steve: 5:46

I'm gonna run my motor mouth here on this, I think. So, and I am not a material scientist, so if I do say something wrong, uh please let me know. Yeah, um, but we're gonna be just sort of really pulling down to the depths of my knowledge here off the cuff, and we're gonna be going all over this.

Kristin: 6:02

Okay.

Steve: 6:02

All right, so steel. Steel, the original frame material, basically. Uh where all bikes were for decades upon decades upon decades.

Kristin: 6:12

That makes sense.

Steve: 6:12

Right up through the let's say the well, I mean, right up till now, but the majority of bikes were steel right up through like the 80s. Okay. Right. And and we'll talk, we'll sort of say enthusiast bikes. Um, steel is an alloy. So a lot of time if you hear the word term alloy, usually it everybody's referring to aluminum of some sort. But all these metals are alloys. And alloy means it is a combination of different elements, different metals to form because I was like, Yes. Am I supposed to know what alloy means? To form the material, right? So, and for steel, you have they're all some sort of form of high carbon steel, but the most common that you might hear, and a lot of people will recognize the name is chromoly.

Kristin: 7:06

Okay.

Steve: 7:07

Right? So chromium moleb molebdominum. That's a hard word to say. Yeah.

Kristin: 7:13

Easy for you to say. It's okay, we're not even gonna worry about that.

Steve: 7:17

And so the combination of those two metals into the steel, which is uh and again a form of it you has iron, and there's steel is an alloy of iron.

Kristin: 7:29

Okay.

Steve: 7:30

Um that creates the properties that frame builders like to use for their frames.

Kristin: 7:39

And what are some of what it what are some of those?

Steve: 7:43

So steel can be and it can be combined and uh formed into a frame in different ways. Okay. Different welding techniques. Uh, and there's also lugged, uh, that was sort of how frames were originally made, where they'd be a cast lug at the at the junctions, and then the tubes were inserted into those lugs and then braised, which is essentially putting metal into those.

Kristin: 8:11

Is a lug like a coupling?

Steve: 8:12

Yeah, like a lug is like a coupling. Okay. But I'm here to I'm not a bike that's called lugs.

Kristin: 8:17

I'm here to interpret bike to English. Okay. There we go. So on a on some bikes, they had like a coupling. Yep. Like if if you were, if you were, well, I'm gonna use English for a second. Like if I was doing plumbing, I'd have two PVC pipes and they have a thing that connects them, right? Similar to that. Yes. And then they can weld them together. Okay.

Steve: 8:38

Yeah, cool.

Kristin: 8:39

That's one way.

Steve: 8:40

We'll use welding as uh catch all for joining the pipes, sure. Okay. Joining the tubes.

Kristin: 8:45

We do not need to go that deep into how the heat was applied.

Steve: 8:50

Right. And so the and then the manufacturers who made these steel tubes, you're a fan of um what's the show we watch? Yeah, Forged in Fire. So if you're a fan of Forge and Fire, you'll you kind of learn all about steels and and the different types of steels and the heat treatment is the big thing, right? And so these steels are all heat treated by the companies that make them. Okay.

Kristin: 9:22

And also known as tempering.

Steve: 9:26

Yes, right.

Kristin: 9:27

So see, I do watch that show.

Steve: 9:30

Right. And so, based on that, based on the on the alloy of the steel and how it was heat treated, then certain techniques have to be used to weld the material together. And so not all steels can be combined together, like okay.

Kristin: 9:48

But to go back to why the builders like it, they like it because Well, steel is an easy material to work with. There you go. Yes. Okay.

Steve: 9:58

You can fix mistakes, you can decouple welds, you can, you know, it's not hard to drill your shapes through the tubes and so forth with normal machine shop tools. And it's cheap and readily available. Okay. And so that's that's basically why, and that and that's why today custom frame builders tend to work in metals and steels. Okay. Because they can do all of these customizations fairly easily. I'm gonna air quote because it takes a lot of skill and technique.

Kristin: 10:33

But but compared to like laying carbon, or when we get to that.

Steve: 10:37

Right. Let's get into a little bit of the a little bit more of the background, I guess, in terms of the the company. So the big names that you might have heard were are Reynolds, Columbus, True Temper, and Tonge. Uh, which is spelled T-A-N-G-E. I think it's a good one. It's a Japanese company, and not many people realize it's perfectly.

Kristin: 10:59

Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm safe to say you lost a good percentage of the audience at True Temper and Tonge. Well, you lost me. Yes, Reynolds and Columbus, I've heard of. Yep. Surlee is what no? What is mine made out of now?

Steve: 11:14

Your surly is made of steel, but that's they're they're not up, they're not a steel manufacturer. Oh. They just are a bike brand that makes out of steel.

Kristin: 11:23

So you're saying Reynolds makes the steel?

Steve: 11:26

Reynolds makes the steel.

Kristin: 11:28

Okay, wow, we're we're going deep.

Steve: 11:29

Got it. And it's not the same Reynolds as, say, like the wheel company.

Kristin: 11:35

Okay, I was gonna I thought you were gonna say as the aluminum foil company.

Steve: 11:39

Oh, actually, that might be the case. I don't know that for certain, but I that actually they might be subsidiaries of each other. Okay. Okay. When the steel tubes, you can have straight gauge tubes. So so imagine just a straight steel pipe. Okay. Right? Yes. The wall thickness is the same throughout. Yes. And and that's just a straight, that's what we considered a straight gauge pipe. Okay. And then what they can do is they call budding. And so when you have a budded tube, they actually take away material, usually in the middle of the tube. So the middle of the tube is thinner and the ends are thicker where they're joined together with the next tube. And then other companies would try to do sort of funky things. So Columbus SLX tubing, which is what I lusted after in the 80s, that is actually rifled. So it has a spiral pattern down the inside, and that, and so, and and it's actually like inside and on the metal, and that actually made it stiffer and stronger.

Kristin: 12:45

Okay, I'm gonna make you take a step back for me. So Reynolds and Columbus make the tubes. Yes. And they make bikes, they do not make the biggest, or they sell the tubes to somebody else to make the bikes with. Okay, thank you. I've caught up with you. Okay.

Steve: 13:00

They sell the tubing that other that that frame builders companies make the bikes with.

Kristin: 13:05

Got it. Thank you.

Steve: 13:06

Okay. Okay. My steel um, my steel kona, my uh, which was which was handmade in California in '93, that's made out of uh Tongay tube.

Kristin: 13:20

Are you telling me that when you were in high school, you were lusting after a certain type of steel? Yes. Not a certain type of bike. You were like, oh, Italian. I love funneled steel, baby. Yeah. That's what you were like, look at that tube. Yeah. It's been rifled.

Steve: 13:41

Oh, yeah. And they had the little sticker that said, you know, Columbus SL or Columbus SLX. And you know, you and so you'd meet riders and you're like, and you'd look down and you're like, oh yeah. You'd have a little bit of sticker envy on what steel tubing they had. Yep.

Kristin: 13:59

That's amazing.

Steve: 14:00

Yeah. So most people recognize steel frames as because the the tubes are so skinny.

Kristin: 14:07

Yes. Okay, yes.

Steve: 14:09

And it's nowadays when you compare it to everything else, they're they're very skinny. You they almost look weird and out of place in some cases to people because of how large aluminum and carbon frames are. And steel can be tuned to to how you want it to ride. And so the diameter of a tube, and this is we're gonna get into this with each uh uh with each material here, but the diameter of the tubing reflects the stiffness of the tube as well as sort of the the the different shapes and profiles that they give it, like that rifling inside and so forth, or they'll ovalize one section at the end in one direction because the forces are certain in a certain way.

Kristin: 14:59

Can I have a sidebar? Yes, stiffness, do I want my bike to be stiff?

Steve: 15:06

Yes, but not too stiff. So there is and it depends on what you're doing. So there is um there's an Italian maker uh called uh Pegaretti, and he made a bike called the Big Legged Emma. And so this was out of steel, and it was out of really big tubing, really fat tubing, and it was unbelievably stiff. Okay, so steel is it actually does have a reputation for riding really nice because there was always they had found this sort of magical size, tubing size and shape and profile that just made it very it it it soaked up the road very well. Okay, even back in the day with narrower tires, right?

Kristin: 15:55

Right, skinny, skinny tires, right?

Steve: 15:58

So, um, but yeah, like that big light ammo was very, very stiff. It was kind of a criterium bike where you didn't really care about long distance comfort, you just wanted out of the corner hammering power and stiffness.

Kristin: 16:12

Yep. That's what I'm always looking for. Right. Sorry.

Steve: 16:20

Okay, all right. So so that is sort of where where steel is at. It it's still used today, it is actually an excellent material. The downsides, as you were saying, it can rust. So some frame builders will treat the inside of the tubes where it's a bare where it's bare, uh, and they'll coat that to help prevent rusting. Surly does that now.

Kristin: 16:43

Oh, okay.

Steve: 16:44

Um, and you can also spray inside with um certain um like T9, actually, um, which people some people use as lubricants, is actually really a corrosion inhibitor. Oh. So that works really well to um prevent rust inside tubes. And they do actually make stainless steel. If people are asking, do they make stainless steel frames? Yes, Reynolds makes a stainless steel tubing set.

Kristin: 17:10

Oh, if I had I have a Surly, I have my Wednesday, is that should I be checking for rust on her and or should I be regularly spraying stuff inside her?

Steve: 17:26

Not unless it's a situation where you think the bike is getting wet often and doesn't have a chance to dry. If you live near the ocean, then steel can be more of a problem. Okay. I mean, everybody knows about metals, I guess, near the ocean. But otherwise, it doesn't tend to be too much of a problem. If you scratch the frame through the paint, through the the the primer down to the bare metal, then touch that up as quickly as you can because it will rust.

Kristin: 17:55

Yeah. Okay. And how does it, since since we're talking about braking, if it gets a big hit, right? Is it's repairable? Like what's its kind of repairability?

Steve: 18:09

Yes, a skilled frame builder can repair a steel frame, not every brake and every spot of the bike. And then of course the cost is up to you whether it's worth it. Right. And in the area where it has to be repaired, obviously it's gonna lose all its paint and so forth. Because that has to be a strip back. But it is re it is repairable.

Kristin: 18:33

Okay.

Steve: 18:33

Yeah, and you're and and repairable in the way you're replacing the section of tubes.

Kristin: 18:39

Well, that's what I was trying to think is it sounds like it would be maybe easier to fix in some cases a steel for because of all the things you just talked about, being able to weld it and yes.

Steve: 18:53

And should we go on? You want to continue on to titanium since it's also a metal first?

Kristin: 18:58

Sure. When did they start using titanium?

Steve: 19:01

Titanium, really, I'm gonna say reaching back, I guess 90s is when titanium came into play. Yep. And uh Russia is actually a very large, um, they have a lot of titanium mines, so they they were in the believe in the 90s, they were providing all of a sudden there was a flood of titanium into the market, and so companies were starting to experiment more with it. Okay, yeah. Um, so so titanium is very much like steel. A lot of the properties that we talked about with steel apply to titanium. You can have straight gauge tubes, you can butt the tubes to make them lighter, you can shape the tubes to make them stiffer, you can oversize them and all that kind of stuff. Titanium has the big, big advantage of being corrosion proof, basically.

Kristin: 19:58

Oh, is that why you see so Many more naked titanium bikes where most steel bikes are painted.

Steve: 20:06

There was a there was a time where I think a lot of not a lot where people were tended to paint titanium frames. Yeah. Uh because they wanted a certain color. And I think it's kind of come back from that. I rarely see people type paint titanium now. Uh and just leave it bare. Yeah. And you of course you can finish it. You can you'll see like sort of that dull gray uh titanium. You'll see you can actually you can polish titanium up to a mirror finish where it looks like it's chromed. Yep. It takes uh like tens upon tens of to of man hours to get that kind of polish. Maybe even a hundred man hours to get that. It's it's a highly labor-intensive process.

Kristin: 20:48

Like by like oh buffing and so forth with different yeah, different abrasive grits over time. Yeah. It's like going for a facial.

Steve: 20:56

And now titanium alloy, now titanium alloys, there's generally two. There's what's called you might see on the sticker, 6-4-3-2, and that is aluminum and vanidium. And so that's what's mixed in with a titanium to give it the properties and the welding capabilities that are needed to make it into bike frames. Most of that, all those titanium alloys were developed right here in Massachusetts. Oh. Yeah. Decades ago. Yeah. For it for military and aerospace applications.

Kristin: 21:26

It seems like a lot of the boutique brands use titanium.

Steve: 21:34

Titanium is a it's a great material. It uh it also costs more than steel. We should add that. Okay. Uh because I think there's a there's a extra value added to the customer that they they they perceive. Titanium. Titanium bikes tend to be looked at as a lifetime bike. The fatigue resistance is super high.

Kristin: 21:56

Okay.

Steve: 21:57

It's higher than the it's higher than the steel, it doesn't corrode. Uh if you get a scratch in it, you just take a scratch bite pad and buff it out, and it's so for those reasons. Now, the funny thing is, is that of course things change in the bike industry. So if you have a titanium frame from a couple decades ago, it is probably still perfectly good. But do you want a frame that still only fits 23 millimeter tires, that doesn't have disc brakes?

Kristin: 22:27

Right.

Steve: 22:27

You know, so that might now have the wrong geometry that you need to do.

Kristin: 22:31

From the standpoint of like the quote unquote lifetime.

Steve: 22:34

The lifetime, right? Right.

Kristin: 22:35

But any frame is gonna be any bike you buy.

Steve: 22:40

Yes, but we're gonna get into aluminum next, and aluminum will never be that because it just it it will fall apart before.

Kristin: 22:47

Oh, okay. Well, that's um, so do we have any titanium bikes? I do. Do you you have a Laman, right?

Steve: 22:55

That is partially titanium in between steel, titanium, and then aluminum carbon. Let's talk about the hybrid period.

Kristin: 23:06

Well, do you want to talk about the hybrid period yet? Or do you want to talk about lunar aluminum first and then how they all come together in a couple of enemies and then we'll talk about the hybrid period. Okay, because we kind of skipped aluminum. Like it went from steel to aluminum.

Steve: 23:23

Yeah. Wellum's a metal. I should say the the yeah.

Kristin: 23:27

The two, yes, similar metals. But in in in kind of the cro chronological order of popularity, it went steel to then aluminum.

Steve: 23:38

Right, that's what I was gonna say.

Kristin: 23:40

Then titanium went from steel to aluminum. So we s we jumped chronologically when we went to titanium. We probably should flip them around. No, we're fine. Okay, it's totally fine. It made sense from a metal standpoint, but now I'm turning us back on in time. Steel was popular, aluminum started aluminum started to become popular. Why?

Steve: 23:59

We could say it the other way, aluminium.

Kristin: 24:01

No, we cannot. We are not English. I'll be adding Adidas right after that. Okay, tell me about aluminum.

Steve: 24:10

All right, so aluminum came in in the 80s, and at first, oh I'm I'm sure somebody was experimenting in the 70s, but let's just talk production bikes, right? In the 80s.

Kristin: 24:23

When Steve started lusting off after them in the 80s.

Steve: 24:27

Actually, yeah, definitely in the 70s, but not really. Consumers were not really buying until the 80s. And at first, so there were a couple brands like Allen and Vitas that made aluminum bikes out of skinny aluminum tubes, like the same size as steel, and into lugs that they bonded together. So they basically glued the aluminum tubes into cast aluminum lugs. And while I'm mentioning they're they're glued in, typically any of the frames where the the tubes are glued into the lugs, often that glue is I'm gonna use the generic term glue, but usually that's stronger in many cases than the than the tube itself.

Kristin: 25:13

So if it's gonna break, it's not gonna break.

Steve: 25:15

Usually it did not break at the bond. I'm not gonna say people didn't have that, but usually did so. But because those tubes were so skinny, those things were noodles. All right. So that's what they would you would describe them as as a noodle. They were very, very flexy, right? So you'd get up out of the saddle and and you'd have significant sway of the bottom bracket laterally to say the top tube.

Kristin: 25:40

Well, that doesn't sound very comfortable or fun or safe.

Steve: 25:43

Well, it was well, no, comfortable, I suppose it would be very comfortable.

Kristin: 25:47

But I was thinking it's swing.

Steve: 25:49

Yeah, it just didn't feel like an efficient bike in that part. And then Cannondale came along and made those massive aluminum tubes.

Kristin: 25:59

Okay.

Steve: 26:00

Right? And it was the size of those those tubes which gave it the rigidity. So and I mean, boy, like when when you saw a Cannondale back in the day and the down tube was just the size of a beer can, you know, it looked odd to everybody. I mean, it was completely different. Yeah. And but it brought the stiffness back into the frame. As it turns out, it brought too much stiffness because those bikes also rode then harshly.

Kristin: 26:37

Okay.

Steve: 26:37

They were they were too stiff.

Kristin: 26:39

Got it. So there was a process of figuring out the right circumference.

Steve: 26:45

Yes, and the right alloys as well, because there are a lot of different alloys of aluminum. You can mix a bunch of different stuff. And so generally there's 6,000 series and 7,000 series that are used in bikes, but then there are different variations of those within the 6,000 and 7,000 series that are used.

Kristin: 27:05

Does aluminum do they do the same thing that they do for steel and titanium, like shaping them or drilling them?

Steve: 27:14

Yep, that can be it can be butted, it can be shaped. Aluminum is usually highly shaped. And now there's also a thing called hydroforming. So they're basically using high pressure uh water to form the tubes and shape them in the way they want, get the butting the way they want, any sort of spiraling or anything like that.

Kristin: 27:36

Okay.

Steve: 27:37

Um and so like so, for instance, you would ovalize the tube at the bottom bracket to tend usually so it's wider left-right.

Kristin: 27:49

Oh, so it doesn't have to be a straight tube. It can you can like they can shape it into whatever they want for aerodynamic circle.

Steve: 27:58

That oval resists left right lateral forces as you're cranking out of the saddle more than the round tube would.

Kristin: 28:06

Okay.

Steve: 28:06

And then of course, they had to then pinch the tube at the head tube in order just to have it fit against a head tube because forks and stems didn't change, so they had to sort of maintain the same head tube size, so the tube had to pinch down to that to that head tube.

Kristin: 28:25

Are we primarily talking about road bikes that this was all happening in, or or were mountain bikes following the same kind of thing?

Steve: 28:32

No, we can talk about both road or mountain. Okay. Yep. Certainly more road because mountain bikes were really just sort of coming into it in the late 80s. Yep. Um, yeah, but more road.

Kristin: 28:45

And aluminum is lighter.

Steve: 28:48

So aluminum has the corrosion resistance. It's not gonna rust on you.

Kristin: 28:52

Okay.

Steve: 28:52

And it is really light. Yep.

Kristin: 28:55

Um so then we can get into And we should say when we're talking about corrosion, we're really just talking about the frame because there's still other metal bits on these bikes that just talking about the frame. We are just talking about the frame.

Steve: 29:08

So all of these uh bikes, all of these metal bikes, so the steel and the titanium and aluminum, they all have fatigue limits. And so you can think about this, just take a like think about a paperclip. And if you take a paperclip and you start bending it back and forth, back and forth, and then it snaps, right? Yes. That is basically uh what we're talking about with the fatigue. And so all of these, all frames flex and twist and bend in in small amounts constantly as you're riding them. And so what you're doing is you are just like a paperclip, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Okay, and aluminum, that fatigue resistance is very low. So they will crack after over time. Okay, and after I really actually sort of a certain amount of use, um, that aluminum just has hit the fatigue point and will and will crack.

Kristin: 30:04

Is there so they're not lifetime certain areas of a bike of an aluminum bike there are more prone to the cracking?

Steve: 30:14

Usually it's the junction up by the head tube. Okay, so where the down tube meets the head tube, and in fact, a lot of times you'll see gusseting under there, which is basically another extra piece of metal welded underneath. Yep, but it can happen anywhere.

Kristin: 30:27

Okay, yeah.

Steve: 30:28

And steel and titanium also have a fatigue limit, it's just very, very high, and usually people will never reach it in their lifetime.

Kristin: 30:36

Right. Which is why maybe there are more old steel bikes kicking around than there are old aluminum bikes.

Steve: 30:43

Yeah, like it, you know, an 80s cannonale, uh don't like don't buy a used cannon from the eighties or nineties. Okay. Uh, because you you just you don't know how much it was used. Right. And yeah, it's it it could its life could be done.

Kristin: 31:00

Okay. Bikes get, I keep saying, getting traumaed. Bikes have moments where they have been hit. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Whether and whether it's because you ran it into your garage, of course you did that and damaged the car. Bikes were fine. Or another rider hits you from behind or you crash, right? So we talked about steel is quote unquote fixable. Titanium, we now we're sending, we have two bikes we know of that are fixed. Fixable. How fixable is aluminum?

Steve: 31:33

So if aluminum is not fixable. You okay. You cannot, you cannot fix an aluminum frame.

Kristin: 31:39

Okay.

Steve: 31:40

And so the reason for that is because of the the properties, the heat treatment of the aluminum, and then the way it's welded. So it actually has to be welded. I believe I believe it's TIG welding, and it has to be done in an oxygen-free environment.

Kristin: 31:55

Okay.

Steve: 31:55

And you can't. So if you apply heat to say re-weld a new tube in, you ruin the heat treatment of the tubes next to it. Got it. And then that so that's why it can't be fixed. Um the aluminum tended to be tends to be quite thin, those big fat tubes. Yep. And so if you hit it on something hard, aluminum will tend to dent easier than titanium or steel.

Kristin: 32:27

Okay.

Steve: 32:28

But if I were to go just by my sort of history and knowledge of seeing things, I would say steel is the most resistant to denting, then titanium, then aluminum.

Kristin: 32:41

Okay.

Steve: 32:42

Um in terms of that. Now, a lot of times a dent in a frame is no big deal. The frame is perfectly fine to ride. Yeah. There are times, depending on where the dent is and how big the dent is, where it could be unsafe. Right. You've you've compromised the integrity of that tube.

Kristin: 33:02

Okay. Yeah. Which brings us to carbon.

Steve: 33:06

Well, are we gonna do the hybrids?

Kristin: 33:09

So the hybrids. Yeah. Okay, that's great. Let's talk about hybrids. Okay, so you have a bike downstairs. Yes. It's an old Lamond. I've got multiple hybrids in the house. Uh are they all the same kind of things? No, all three different.

Steve: 33:25

Tell me about your hybrids. So why at you know, when companies were going to aluminum, okay, um, that was still a little bit um expensive. They didn't quite have the expertise and so forth. I mean, again, Cannondale was sort of at the forefront of that. Yep. Um, so my first uh bike that I have was from about nine, the hybrid one was about nineteen eighty-seven. So it was a Raleigh Technium, a name many people might be familiar with.

Kristin: 33:59

This is in our house right now. It's in our house right now. Okay, awesome.

Steve: 34:01

The Raleigh Technium was a bike made out of aluminum tubes for the main triangle. So the top tube, the seat tube, and the down tube were aluminum tubes. They were straight gauge aluminum, right? They were bonded into chromoly steel lugs with chromoly rear end with this with the with the seat stake.

Kristin: 34:22

Is the bike Anders is riding? Oh, okay. Yep, you converted it into an e-bike. Okay, so great. Why did they do that?

Steve: 34:31

So this was a case of trying to meet a price point with but also making the bike lighter.

Kristin: 34:41

Got it.

Steve: 34:42

Right? So it it was sort of okay, here we now aluminum is coming up. People are looking at one aluminum bikes, maybe. Let's do this thing. And this was actually made in Washington State by with using Boeing tubes by, I believe, this is a Raleigh. That's right, right? Right. And I believe by by Boeing employees, I believe.

Kristin: 35:02

When how old were you when you bought this?

Steve: 35:06

15, 14, 13. Wow. 15? Okay. 14, maybe, yeah. So um, so that's so this is where the the companies started to mix metals.

Kristin: 35:16

Right. Right.

Steve: 35:18

Okay. Um, and then and what did you think of that?

Kristin: 35:22

Like what what workout? Did that do what it was supposed to do?

Steve: 35:26

These tubes are fairly skinny. They are, and when we talked about the skinny aluminum tubes, this bike it rode quite nice, but it's kind of a noodle. It it has very little stiffness, lateral stiffness.

Kristin: 35:39

It's perfect for what it's being used for right now, which is for our son to commute back and work.

Steve: 35:44

Yeah, commuter bike.

Kristin: 35:45

Yeah. Okay.

Steve: 35:47

All right. Uh then we'll get, so as we started to get to the carbon age in the 90s, this is where carbon was expensive. And but some companies were starting to make full carbon fiber bikes, but it was very expensive. The expertise wasn't there.

Kristin: 36:04

I was gonna say we haven't talked about carbon yet.

Steve: 36:05

Should we talk about carbon now? No, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna continue with the hybrid so we can move into carbon.

Kristin: 36:11

Got it.

Steve: 36:12

So, and so it what came out first is not the the unique shaping abilities that we have with carbon now, where you're basically creating whatever shapes you wanted in a mold. Okay. You had carbon tubes, that's it. So well, well, limited shaping. So, what companies started to do was use a little bit of carbon in their steel or aluminum frames in order to uh part of it was marketing. Part of it was because engineers want to engineer, you want to tinker, and you wanna try different things. So the carbon was bonded in to the other frame materials. So I have two Lamans. One is adopt them like puppies. Yeah, one is carbon, it's a it's a carbon rear end. So um um the seat stays and the chainstays are carbon. This one's fully painted, so it's a little hard to tell. Okay. Into an aluminum front triangle.

Kristin: 37:17

Oh, is that the baby blue one?

Steve: 37:19

That's the blue and yellow one. Yep. The blue and yellow one. Yep.

Kristin: 37:22

I'm not sure I'm aware of that one.

Steve: 37:23

Then I have a Tete de course, which is so that is carbon uh tubes in titanium lugs. Yes, I'm aware of this one. That is a like I that the bike is just unbelievable. It's unbelievable that they made that bike.

Kristin: 37:43

What is unbelievable about it? It's very pretty. It is a good-looking bike.

Steve: 37:49

It's um a lot of fabrication from this is this is when Trek owned Lamond.

Kristin: 37:56

Okay.

Steve: 37:57

And so to think that Trek made this bike, so they it has a titanium head tube with extending lugs for the top tube and the down tube, with cutouts in them.

Kristin: 38:09

Yes.

Steve: 38:10

Um, sort of just decorative cutouts, then they bonded in carbon tubes into that. Um, but the whole the whole upper spine is carbon. And this is card of this came from when they were Trek was one of the first to make a full monocoque, which is sort of one piece carbon frame. Okay, and they took sort of that upper portion of their of their one piece frame, and then you come down to the bottom bracket again, it's titanium, and you have titanium dropouts and a titanium uh seat stays with yeah, and so is it like almost reverse of the other bike? A little bit, okay.

Kristin: 38:48

Yep, interesting. And how did it ride? How does it ride? How did it ride at the time?

Steve: 38:54

Rides phenomenally. Okay. Yeah, I love the ride on that. You still ride the bike. The only problem with that bike is that it was made in an era where 23 millimeter tires were the norm. Right. And nobody was riding anything bigger, right? And so that's all it fits. And so if it were to fit 28 millimeter tires, it would be sublime.

Kristin: 39:14

And that's really not something you can do because that's a whole brake situation. Yeah, no, it's just the the frame clearance. Yeah, yeah.

Steve: 39:22

So, and then as the expertise became better, um you then started to see more and more that that sort of hybrid two metals went away and everything became single material. And yeah, and you got into the full carbon frames, which we can talk about now. The high end is carbon really a high end material, like is carbon is w I would you would probably consider it the high the highest end material. Yes. Some could argue that custom titanium is the highest end material.

Kristin: 39:58

Yep. But That's uh so how do they you you alluded to it. How do they make carbon frames?

Steve: 40:07

You can still, and there are still companies that make carbon frames by bonding carbon tubes into carbon lugs. Okay. All right, in that sort of old process. And so Col Col Nago is a is a big Italian company. I believe they they were really well known for making these the lug carbon.

Kristin: 40:25

Okay.

Steve: 40:26

And look was another one who made lug carbon. And both those frames have just real big followers. Some people say that was the best, okay, um, the best way to do it in terms of the ride feel. And I believe Cole algo might even still make one lugged, but almost everybody's gone to basically a full mold process where you don't see any lugs. Technically, tubes can be joined and so and so forth, but you're never gonna see that. Usually it's all laid up in a in a steel mold, and often sort of halves of the frame, and then the two halves are bonded together.

Kristin: 41:07

Um in the carbon. Yeah, what is carbon? Like, what is it?

Steve: 41:13

Yeah, it is car, I mean, when you think of a carbon fiber frame, you know, some people might even like just basically think of it as almost like a plastic, but carbon is a thread. It is a it is a carbon thread, it is it is as fine as a thread. Okay, and they weave these these threads into a fabric, and then that fabric is basically um impregnated with resin.

Kristin: 41:43

So a lot of carbon- It's like when they fiberglass the sides of boats or something. Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of that kind of process of like building.

Steve: 41:51

So some so there is a carbon called pre-preg, pre-peg, which means it's pre-impregnated with uh goop. With yeah, with resin. And so then that will that resin, because the whole thing goes into a an oven to bake, and then that that resin will then basically um uh liquefy and then and then smooth out and then harden.

Kristin: 42:14

Wow.

Steve: 42:14

But okay, when you think about a carbon frame, it is not all just carbon, a significant amount of it is resin.

Kristin: 42:23

Okay.

Steve: 42:24

And in so sort of keeping all of the carbon fibers together.

Kristin: 42:29

Okay.

Steve: 42:30

And the way that bikes are made with carbon is they're they're laying down those those mats of carbon fabric in different orientations. Like a person.

Kristin: 42:44

Like a person that is doing this is every carbon frame handmade to some extent.

Steve: 42:49

Basically, in a way, yes.

Kristin: 42:51

Wow.

Steve: 42:51

They are very, very labor intensive, which is why most of the carbon manufacturing has left the United States and is elsewhere.

Kristin: 43:00

Right.

Steve: 43:01

Because of the because of the labor costs involved.

Kristin: 43:04

Okay.

Steve: 43:04

Right. So, yeah, so it's layer upon layer upon layer, and then what's happening is they're they're laying down the carbon fibers in the direction, different directions. So if you think about a carbon uh basically a carbon strand, it has, and you lay those out in one direction, yeah, it's going to only have stiffness in a certain direction and not in the other. So you have to, yes, you have to overlay in different directions to in order to get the ride quality that you're looking for. And and so nowadays that's done by computer analysis and modeling and so forth.

Kristin: 43:44

But there's still some person with just layers of of carbon fabric who are following whatever this thing is and then applying shellac.

Steve: 43:53

Yeah, you'd be a lot of times you'll see you'll see them sort of laying in carbon, like laying a brush down with stuff, putting in a layer new layer of carbon. Okay. Yes.

Kristin: 44:02

Wow.

Steve: 44:02

Yeah.

Kristin: 44:04

And why do we like carbon?

Steve: 44:06

So carbon has almost all of the attributes, the best attributes of all the other materials. So it does not corrode or rust or anything like that. There's no metal. It has infinite fatigue strength. So basically, a carbon fiber frame is in a lot people don't tend to think about it, but it is in a lifetime frame in many ways. Okay.

Kristin: 44:31

Um, because it's not going to doesn't have the paperclip thing. Exactly. Okay.

Steve: 44:36

Yep. Um, you know, it's it's and it's oh, and it's super light. And it can be tuned to how the designer wants it to ride.

Kristin: 44:47

Tuned, meaning stiffness. Oh, yeah.

Steve: 44:50

We want it really stiff, we want, or we want it really compliant, or we want this part of the the bike to be stiff, the this part to be compliant. Okay. Um, and it can be shaped as it any way you want. Um, a lot of times that's just for how they want it to look right.

Kristin: 45:08

As long as it's still strong, but okay.

Steve: 45:10

So the only downsides are the cost.

Kristin: 45:13

So the only downside? How does it take a hit?

Steve: 45:16

Oh, so carbon is very, very, very strong. Yes. And it can and it can take exceedingly high hits. A lot of times the same force of a hit that would dent all the other ones will do nothing to the carbon. But there is a you know, there is a basically point at which the force becomes so great that it will crack the carbon. Right. So it's either do nothing or crack it. Right. Right? There's a no hell.

Kristin: 45:45

There's that, there's either I'm fine or it's catastrophic.

Steve: 45:50

Yeah, well, so but but it can microcrack and then those can spread, if you will. So in some cases, it can it can take small cracks so you don't know about, but right.

Kristin: 46:00

I just remember you had a customer who bought a carbon road bike, then he took it out for his first group ride, probably his first ride, and someone ran into him. Yeah, another rider in the back and smashed the rear. Yeah, the seat, I think the seat stay crashed.

Steve: 46:21

Seat stay crashed immediately. He got hit hard and crashed, I believe, right?

Kristin: 46:26

I don't remember if he crashed or if he just got hit hard. I mean, he maybe should have crashed. I don't know if he did. Well is repairable.

Steve: 46:35

Yes. That's the other thing. It is repairable.

Kristin: 46:38

Not by you, not by but by special people like Yeah.

Steve: 46:42

Uh well, so we're here in Massachusetts, we send uh I send everybody to hot tubes. Yes, and and they re do a phenomenal job of repairing carbon. Not every brake is repairable, but most that we see are.

Kristin: 46:56

And how are they doing that? I mean, are they just re-bonding it or is he building up like how does he do that?

Steve: 47:03

Yeah, he's basically uh uh you know sanding down the area, applying uh carbon fiber to that area, you know, wrapping it in different ways, right? Uh with with pre-impegnated carbon and then baking it. Okay, right, and then and then finish sanding it. And that's yep. So the the bike has to be completely stripped down to nothing on it, the bare, bare frame, because he's baking it. And the whole frame or just the whole frame. The whole frame. Yep.

Kristin: 47:34

What if he bakes it with paint still on it?

Steve: 47:38

Oh, it's not so high that the it hurts the paint. Okay. Um, so and the repair can be quite reasonable in terms of the cost. It's the repainting part of the phone. I was gonna say So I've had a bunch of customers who are like, yeah, I don't care if that area is black now. Yes. Um, or you get lucky and that area was black to begin with, right? Right.

Kristin: 47:59

I was gonna say, I've seen a couple of these bikes where the repair was done and they chose not to have it paint. It's almost like a badge of honor, like it got it got fixed by hot tubes, right? Right. But they do do an amazing job of the repaints if that's what they're yeah, their painting is phenomenal. Is there any more uh materials you want to share?

Steve: 48:17

There are other bamboo. Yeah, there are other weird materials. We can talk to talk about just the other sort of weird materials.

Kristin: 48:23

Bamboo's cool.

Steve: 48:24

There are bamboo bikes, right? Um wood, we're gonna call put bamboo into wood. Okay. Wood is a composite material. Uh not many people think about it like that, but it is a composite. Okay. It is sort of the nature's nature's composite material. And in a I mean, wood is amazing. And you can make, you know, nice bikes out of wood.

Kristin: 48:48

They're heavy and you know, you can't get quite more like just to say I can, like I have a bike made of bamboo. Yes. Okay.

Steve: 48:58

Um, there are other alloys out there, so you can make bikes out of magnesium.

Kristin: 49:03

Okay.

Steve: 49:04

Um, and there are other, like you might hear of scandium. That's uh scandium.

Kristin: 49:09

Yeah, it's another weird form of aluminum, I believe. It's like it sounds like adamantium. Yeah, you're just making up words now. Okay. So we talked about how bikes can break because of trauma, right? They get hit before we run them into years.

Steve: 49:27

Yeah, so like the only time I've ever seen I've only had one customer who whose carbon frame broke not from a heart impact.

Kristin: 49:38

Okay.

Steve: 49:39

And uh, and that was it was the lightest, lightest carbon frame that this company made. Okay. Used by the professionals probably for one season only, and then they got rid of them.

Kristin: 49:52

Yes, disposable, fantastic.

Steve: 49:54

Yeah, and so a lot of companies will push the envelope on how light and thin they make these carbon tubes. Yeah. And and that's sometimes what happens.

Kristin: 50:04

Well, that's what I was gonna ask. So there's there's trauma, which of course you can't avoid, that that just happens. Yeah. And then there are manufacturer issues. You just started talking about one with this carbon. I feel like you were talking about titanium the other day, and sometimes these cracks can form because through the through the manufacturing process?

Steve: 50:27

Yeah, so both steel, well, no, actually, all the the three metals. I do listen. So all the three metals which are welded or or joined, and there's also fillet brazing, but uh they're you know, they're joined in a certain way using heat, and that heat can cause issues in the tubing, which creates a weak spot. Okay, and that's where they can fail.

Kristin: 50:56

So it could be a weak spot away from where the heat was or kind of like adjacent.

Steve: 51:02

Again, they're uh the the where the tubes are joining, yeah, they have to apply the heat. Right. And so you can actually get a uh a weak spot in the tube that was joined at the connection, and that's where it can fail.

Kristin: 51:17

Okay.

Steve: 51:17

So, and that's um sometimes that's the fault, I suppose, of the welder, other times it's just bad luck.

Kristin: 51:27

Yeah.

Steve: 51:27

Yeah.

Kristin: 51:28

Is there the thing I kept coming back to as we talked about frames breaking was what I as a rider should do to check my bikes? Like, you know, how how like or should I be checking my bikes, or is my is my mechanic checking my bikes for cracks? Like what traumatic failures of the of the frame?

Steve: 51:57

If you have a steel frame, then I would recommend every I don't know a couple years to to spray the inside with some sort of uh frame savering.

Kristin: 52:07

How would I do that?

Steve: 52:08

Spray do I just like there well you would actually pull you could pull a fork so you can get into the tubes through the head tube.

Kristin: 52:14

Okay.

Steve: 52:15

Um a lot of steel frames are have tiny little holes at the back end by the dropouts, and those are actually uh drainage holes we pulsed. Oh. And so you can actually kind of get a straw of up of a spray can into those to spray up in there, uh, down through the C tube, obviously, up to the bottom bracket. You're just trying to get it to coat, coat everywhere in there.

Kristin: 52:36

Okay.

Steve: 52:37

Look for any rough spots. And other than that, you know, you're probably gonna hear a creaking or something if you have a crack. Yep. Yep. And you know, but I mean if a steel bike is on the work stand, I'm not looking for cracks in it. I you know I my normal process of cleaning and working on things might find something, well, often will, but I'm not I'm not speaking. You're not inspecting purposely inspecting cracks. No.

Kristin: 53:05

Okay.

Steve: 53:06

I cannot think I've ever seen a steel a failed steel frame.

Kristin: 53:14

I'm sure someone's gonna be able to do that.

Steve: 53:16

There are there are certainly out there. Yeah. But I can't, I don't think I've ever encountered one. Okay. Um, so titanium. Yes. So, yes, titanium people have definitely had failures. It is a much harder material to weld. It takes a lot more skill, a lot more technique. Um it is it is definitely a hard material to weld.

Kristin: 53:40

And that's so it maybe is a little more prone to manufacturing.

Steve: 53:44

And that's why yes, and and and because of the the heat treatment and so forth of the tubes, yes, it it's just it's it's just more difficult to to not have uh issues that you can't see when the bike is completed.

Kristin: 54:00

And it can come up, I mean, some of these issues it's not necessarily immediate, right? Like one of these bikes was several years old before the crack followed.

Steve: 54:10

Yeah, one was many, many years old, and the other was uh about what five, and the other one was two, I think.

Kristin: 54:15

Oh, okay. So neither of these, it it's not necessarily instantaneous that that they crack. Right. Okay.

Steve: 54:22

All right, right. It is it is a a spot which now has a much lower fatigue level, and therefore it has to get to that point.

Kristin: 54:30

Got it. Yeah, got a weak paper clip.

Steve: 54:32

Right. Okay. So the big thing about titanium is that it reacts with other metals. And in bikes, we use a lot of aluminum parts. And titanium and aluminum don't like each other.

Kristin: 54:47

Oh, that's fun.

Steve: 54:48

There's a whole chart you can actually compare uh how close metals are to each other on this chart, and then the further away they are, the worse they're gonna react. Yeah, exactly.

Kristin: 54:57

Okay, so Shakespeare thing.

Steve: 54:59

Uh and this applies somewhat to steel, but but more so to titanium.

Kristin: 55:04

Okay.

Steve: 55:04

Uh and so specifically uh CPOs, and it also reacts to carbon, funny enough. And I think it's probably reacting to the resin in carbon.

Kristin: 55:12

Oh, all right.

Steve: 55:13

But um so but C POS and bottom brackets uh are the big, big things to watch for in titanium. So it's recommended that those get removed seaposts once a year to get grease. Oh, okay. And bottom brackets, I would say once every three years.

Kristin: 55:36

So the grease just perf creates a barrier between the titanium and the other correct.

Steve: 55:43

I'm actually using uh an anti-C compound, which is a form of grease with different materials in it. Okay. Um and that prevents the two from arguing. Um yeah. It's kind of called galvanite, galvanonic corrosion. Um so I have like, yeah, I mean I've seen bottom brackets and titanium frames just where the only thing left were the outer cups that you can see visually, and all the aluminum screwed into the titanium had just become dust.

Kristin: 56:18

I was gonna ask, who with loses the argument between titanium and the aluminum loses. The aluminum. So the titanium frame was basically fine. Yes, it just ate the aluminum parts.

Steve: 56:29

And you don't want your C post to get stuck into your titanium frame.

Kristin: 56:33

This is how I describe things. Parts are eating each other. Right. Okay. And how about so that's titanium how about aluminum frames? What should we do to Well, we we've already decided they're destined to fall apart.

Steve: 56:49

You you know, it's it takes a long time.

Kristin: 56:51

It takes a long time.

Steve: 56:52

I mean most of the women thousands upon thousands of miles.

Kristin: 56:54

I was gonna say, most of the women that I ride the PMC with are don't worry about your aluminum bikes. They're on aluminum bikes. Yes.

Steve: 57:02

But their aluminum bikes are no more than 10, 15 years old.

Kristin: 57:05

Yeah, okay.

Steve: 57:06

At most, right? And I wouldn't necessarily worry, I wouldn't worry about that.

Kristin: 57:10

Got it. But is there anything they can do to either is there anything they should be looking for on those aluminum? Like how do aluminum frames break from fatigue?

Steve: 57:23

That's just time. It's just time.

Kristin: 57:25

And again, it's in those places that we talked about.

Steve: 57:27

Yep. And and usually you'll start to hear a creak. Okay. Um, which is the which is the giveaway. They don't these metal frames don't tend to just catastrophically fall apart.

Kristin: 57:37

This is my question.

Steve: 57:38

They tend to develop a crack, which then starts to propagate and get bigger and bigger, and the frame, and usually you're gonna start to hear this. Is why it's important to pay attention to weird noises on your bike.

Kristin: 57:50

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Or as you wash it, you might notice.

Steve: 57:54

So aluminum doesn't have a problem with aluminum bottom brackets. It's aluminum again, you have to grease them, and anything can stick to each other over decades. Okay. Um, the biggest thing is about seat post uh aluminum frames, you want to make sure you kind of get keep those greased.

Kristin: 58:10

And carbon.

Steve: 58:12

And carbon.

Kristin: 58:14

So how does carbon get along with aluminum?

Steve: 58:17

Carbon actually does n it does not get along with aluminum all that well. And again, I think it's the resins. So carbon itself is just neutral, right? It does not react with other chemicals. Like Switzerland. And for the most part, the resins that they use are also very neutral.

Kristin: 58:37

Okay.

Steve: 58:38

Um and and they don't react with with other chemicals, but you'll often see on carbon frames that are a couple decades old where they might have used an aluminum frame sto uh housing stop or something of that nature, that you'll see a lot of sort of um bubbling of the clear coat around that, and a little bit of uh of uh white, you know, it's basically the aluminum is starting to oxidize.

Kristin: 59:07

Um carbon, so so in the argument in the fight between aluminum and carbon, carbon loses?

Steve: 59:14

No, carbon carbon's still fine. Carbon's still fine.

Kristin: 59:16

Yeah, it's the aluminum that's having you just don't want this stuff to get stuck in there, is what I'm hearing, right? Like you want to be able to take these bits out, and if they corrode too much, they could get stuck.

Steve: 59:28

Yeah, some of this though is also age and just uh um aluminum's uh exposure to the elements over time as well.

Kristin: 59:38

Well, there is something about just in general, we're talking about taking care of our bikes, right? Keeping them in a friendly spot, maybe not in your garage all year round for fifty years and expect they'll be fine.

Steve: 59:53

A lot of garages can be fine, but yes, if you have a very humid environment in your garage, right. One. I had this classic Pinnarello that had been sitting in a very, very damp basement for a decade.

Kristin: 1:00:13

Okay.

Steve: 1:00:14

And it was it was destroyed. Yeah. So it it rusted. It rusted out like it just the the the moisture just got to it from probably the inside out. But um Yeah, very sad.

Kristin: 1:00:30

It's very sad. Uh okay. And so carbon w if you do get in a crash, is there anything you should look for? I mean, obviously b obvious breaks, but is there anything you should be?

Steve: 1:00:47

Yeah, so carbon is where you actually have to to be careful of with a crash and impacts and so forth. While I said it's strong, it's um it is, I would say, also more susceptible in certain cases on the on the very thin parts. So, you know, not a direct hit hit necessarily on straight onto a tube. Right. Right, but the seat stays can often be very spindly and very thin. Yes. And so those can uh those are a weak spot for many carbon frames in terms of impacts. Okay. And carbon will can fail sort of instantly and suddenly and catastrophically. Okay. Um a a crack in the carbon that you it might be very minor that you can't see, and then suddenly it encounters a big force and boom, it just the whole thing shears and goes. Okay. Um so this is where pay attention, it will creak again if you have a small crack. But this is where you sort of pay attention to any of those noises. Okay. And you know what? If you if you do crash on it, you really need to inspect it and look for cracks. Okay. Uh you know, that the the sound test is a big one.

Kristin: 1:02:07

What's the sound test?

Steve: 1:02:09

So you if you tap on the tubing, okay. Um, say with the end of a screwdriver. Okay. And you sort of get this dink dink dink dink dink dink. It when you hit ne get near the crack, it'll be like more of a thud. So it'll be dink dink dink dink, donk, dink, dink, dink, dink, right?

Kristin: 1:02:27

Make it up by ring tone.

Steve: 1:02:29

Uh now that that tone changes as you get near the ends of the tubing where it might be thicker, where it's joined with another tube. So you're really looking for that that tonal, that distinct tonal change.

Kristin: 1:02:42

Not like if it's gradually going from one end and that feels like a normal progression, that's fine. But if it goes from tink, tink tink good, yes, that's not fine. Right. Okay. You and I, when we were talking about this topic offline, I said I had read an article called Six Reasons Why Your Next Bike Should Be Steel. And you agreed that more bikes should be made out of steel.

Steve: 1:03:08

You know, steel can actually be made quite light. Todd English is a guy who makes incredible steel bikes. Some of the the the craziest stuff you've seen out of steel, uh including very, very light stuff. It can be it's inexpensive, it can be made, you know, any way you want. And yeah, there's a there's a lot of reasons why maybe steel should be looked at again for use in bikes. It and it's recycle. So I guess we could talk about that. So how we disclose of a broken frame? How do you get rid of a broken frame? I mean, metals metals are recyclable.

Kristin: 1:03:52

Okay.

Steve: 1:03:53

Um, you know, your aluminum bike frame will become soda cans in a couple weeks.

Kristin: 1:03:58

Um, for a minute I thought you meant mine, and I was like, what do you mean?

Steve: 1:04:02

We're not taking mine away. Hold on now. I mean, aluminum is the most widely recycled metal in the country, right? Um, it's easily done and it's and it's yeah. I like that. Okay. Carbon is not recyclable. There are companies who try to do it, and one could say we really should just be sending these to asphalt plants that get ground down and thrown into the asphalt badge mix. Okay. Um, at least that would keep them out of landfills and so forth. But yeah, it's it's really not recyclable.

Kristin: 1:04:38

Huh. Interesting. No, I mean, I think it's I I will admit when I think steel, I think my Surlee. My Surlee is a big ass fat bike, so I don't think light. But I it was an interesting article, and I think so.

Steve: 1:04:54

Surlee's tubes, I don't know who makes them, they don't do they do butt some of their tubing. Yeah. But these are not all the highest level of steel tubing in terms of trying to get up get it light. Right. Right. Which which does take more um expense to to shape the tubes.

Kristin: 1:05:14

So a steel, a high-end steel bike wouldn't actually be an inexpensive bike, but well, nor is uh anything.

Steve: 1:05:22

They're talking custom building, and that's why it's it's not because you're getting it made to tailor to you.

Kristin: 1:05:29

But it could it be in the same price range as a custom titanium bike or a custom Well custom steel is cheaper than custom titanium just because the material costs less and this labor is the same.

Steve: 1:05:40

Uh actually, the labor is actually even a little less because the welding is steel and the welding uh materials is less than the titanium, but okay.

Kristin: 1:05:49

Is there anything else you'd like to talk about about the materials on a bike? I feel much more informed. Good. I do.

Steve: 1:05:57

I just pulled all that out of my hat. So hopefully that was helpful.

Kristin: 1:06:02

You pulled it out of years of experience and a deep curiosity that makes you read the entire internet all the time. I mean, and I I think it just shows the fact that you can t that at some point you as a teenage boy was coveting a certain type of drilled steel.

Steve: 1:06:24

Fluted.

Kristin: 1:06:25

Fluted, fluted, rifled, rifled, I think speaks to this not being entirely out of your tushy.

Steve: 1:06:34

And I still, you know what I have, I I still have a steel Lamond. Um that is made out of that's made out of Reynolds 753, and which was their sort of best tubing set. Um, and that bike rides just so nice.

Kristin: 1:06:51

Which one is that?

Steve: 1:06:53

That's the baby blue one.

Kristin: 1:06:54

The baby blue one is is steel. All steel. It's a beautiful bike. Yeah, see? So I'm gonna go back to you did not just pull this out of your ear.

Steve: 1:07:05

I would like to see more. There are a few, but I'd like to see more steel full suspension mountain bikes. I would love for more experimentation with that.

Kristin: 1:07:18

Is that a thing that you could DIY your own steel mountain bike frame? This feature?

Steve: 1:07:24

Yes. There are home frame builders who make their own frames. There are well, there are there are if anybody's interested, you can go take a frame building class and learn how to make a steel frame yourself.

Kristin: 1:07:35

Ooh, Christmas present. It is that um I see a new a new category for Forged and Fire. Bicycle frames. Get on it, guys. All right, let's take a break and we'll come back with a couple of scene while scrolling. Okay. We haven't done scene while scrolling in a while. Not for lack of scrolling.

Steve: 1:08:04

Lots and lots of scrolling going on.

Kristin: 1:08:07

I'm gonna just share some good news. I don't think there's a lot of commentary that is going on with this, but I read an article that riding a bike is associated with a 19% lower risk of all-cause dementia and 22% lower risk of Alzheimer's disease compared with taking non-active travel modes, such as a car, bus, train. And apparently, physical activity has long been associated with lower dementia risk in multiple studies, but the 2024 Lancet Commission identified it as one of 14 factors responsible for preventing or delaying approximately 45% of dementia cases. I am of the age right now where I do sometimes worry about my brain.

Steve: 1:08:55

I mean, you know, you keep those neurons firing, right? And they have to explain. Right.

Kristin: 1:08:59

So I'm doing my crossword puzzles now, and I'm doing, you know, I tried not doing a great job of not doom scrolling, but it made me happy knowing that my bicycle might be protecting my brain.

Steve: 1:09:14

Oh, there's a lot of thinking going on when you're on a bike.

Kristin: 1:09:17

Yeah, it doesn't say why, other than just physical activity, but I do think just in general, physical activity is just good. What do you have?

Steve: 1:09:26

What do I have? Oh, I saw a bike radar article this week on our worst upgrades.

Kristin: 1:09:33

Right.

Steve: 1:09:34

And I thought, hey, you know what? And I and I it was interesting when I looked at that.

Kristin: 1:09:38

They asked like their writers, right? It was like eight of their writers from Bike Radar. Like looking back in time, what are some of the dumbest things you spent money on? Yes. Yes.

Steve: 1:09:51

Yeah, and and a lot of it is weight weenie stuff. That was one guy who's I would say fortunately, anybody who hasn't heard heard the term weight weenie, it's um there's actually a really popular website called waitweenies.com. But it is all about the different parts and all the things you do to make your bike lighter. And as you make your bike lighter, the amount of money it takes to make it even more or even more lighter. Yeah, even more lighter, even lighter, uh, just is exponential.

Kristin: 1:10:26

It's declining returns. It's very, very we talk about this with when buying bikes, right? Like you you have you get you have like base bike, and then if you $500 more, it's can be huge difference. And $500 more dollars could be huge difference, and but then you reach a point where you're like, okay $6,000 and $6,500, not a huge difference.

Steve: 1:10:48

Not a huge difference, really. Same $500, very little difference. Yeah.

Kristin: 1:10:52

So is it the same, it's the same with weight weenie type stuff?

Steve: 1:10:58

No, I mean no, it's just more that it costs a ton of money to save, start saving grams. Right. Right. So once you've already started to save the big stuff, yeah.

Kristin: 1:11:11

Is there a point where your bike can be too light for just everyday riding? I'm not talking about like millions of big big big big big bikes to ride up, say, Mount Washington. Like I get that those bikes should be light, but like your day-to-day bike, is there just a point where you're like this I'm actually negatively impacting my experience?

Steve: 1:11:31

I will bring up a other recent video I saw from GCN. Okay. Where they took they they made a very, very light road bike with some of these really expensive weight weenie parts, and they took it to Alp Duez to try to get this one guy to break the climb record. Okay. And the bike failed. Basically.

Kristin: 1:11:56

Fall apart underneath them like a cartoon character.

Steve: 1:11:59

We were just too light. When I mean they're too light, they just didn't perform. They like they would they fail, they break, they like there were there was a case of, and I think they made a follow-up video, which I should watch. Can we make our ultralight bike like rideable by changing a few parts and so forth?

Kristin: 1:12:18

Should we put some of the heavier parts back?

Steve: 1:12:20

So so I guess theoretically, based on that, yes, you could be too light because you're down into you know carbon fiber chain rings, which which are a millimeter thick and that kind of stuff.

Kristin: 1:12:31

It is like the first thing people do when say someone comes up to me and like, oh, I really like your bike, they'll pick it up. It's like the first thing I've got to do. Everybody in the shop picks up bikes, or my road bike, or whatever. It's the first thing people do, and it's like, do we know what we're getting for? We're just like, woo, like that's so much. And people ask me, like, what is this way? And I'm like, I don't know. It weighs about this much. Yeah. So that's interesting.

Steve: 1:12:58

I mean, the only other controversial thing that was in this one article um about regrets is is gravel helmets. One guy brought up a thing. He said, Why for gravel do we all wear road helmets? So this guy was like, like the brim on a mountain bike helmet is brilliant. It's keeping the rain out of my face, it's keeping the sun out of my eyes. Yeah. Why are we using road helmets for gravel?

Kristin: 1:13:22

We've even started referring to road helmets as gravel helmets because we don't really sell road bikes, but we sell road helmets. So we started calling it that. Yeah, and I kind of agree with him because he was like, and I know someone reading this is gonna yell, well, that's what the little caps are for. But if I want the airflow of the helmet, I've ruined that with the little cap. Yeah. When he went on to say, Gravelers, you've embraced mountain bike tech already, disc brakes, grippy tires, tubeless setups, as I've been banging on for for years. So now it's time to embrace a mountain bike helmet. My mountain bike helmet's a little aggressive for gravel. That's my only thing. It's kind of big.

Steve: 1:14:08

See, I that's my feeling too.

Kristin: 1:14:11

Yours in particular, because yours is the new Enduro style.

Steve: 1:14:14

Yeah.

Kristin: 1:14:14

And I think that's kind of like they're chunky. So we're gonna just need a I need a hybrid helmet.

Steve: 1:14:23

Hmm.

Kristin: 1:14:23

I need a helmet.

Steve: 1:14:25

We need a road helmet with a little brim.

Kristin: 1:14:26

With a little brim. And not that dumb thing Scott put on one of them. It was like just a little clip-on brim. It's a little band.

Steve: 1:14:33

It's not big enough to be useful, but it actually, if they if they extend it, exactly just a little bit. It would actually be really good.

Kristin: 1:14:42

This is when we need a 3D printer printer.

Steve: 1:14:45

Oh right. That would be perfect.

Kristin: 1:14:49

Who do we know of the 3D printer? You're absolutely right.

Steve: 1:14:51

Uh-huh.

Kristin: 1:14:51

Wait, is that the helmet? No, that's not the helmet I wear. That's the other helmet.

Steve: 1:14:54

Because that's actually a great helmet.

Kristin: 1:14:56

And they just this stupid little headband that you just lose. But if it was just a little bit bigger. Oh, yeah. Look at something right here. All right. Well, I think that's enough for for this week because I gotta get this edited and up. And we have 14,000 things to do before Unpaved. Cycling Together with Kristen and Steve is a production of Steve the Bike Guy, an independent bicycle shop in Eastern Massachusetts and Sunday Marketing.

Steve: 1:15:28

If you like the show, please leave a review or share with a friend for show notes, links, or to leave a comment, question, or topic suggestion, please visit cycling together.

Kristin: 1:15:36

You can follow the shop on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok at Steve the Bike Guy. Thank you for joining the ride.

Steve: 1:15:44

Alright, we'll see you next time.