Like the MTB world, foil frames are 10 to the penny and generally too stiff for a pleasant comfortable ride. In my experience they are dull but if power transfer is your thing then go ahead and pick up a bargain. A carpet fiber and foil bike doesn't have the durability / longevity in my mind. Top turn for getting steel.
Aluminum frames: the brown furniture of Cycling?
- Thread starter Grease Monkey
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This is always said about ally frames to me it is tosh. I have a aluminium orange MTB and it far more comfortable than my steel MTB's even when I had rigid forks on it.
I own a 1980/1 Alan that is comfortable. I also ride a Pinerello Monvisio in aluminium the ride on that is sublime. You can make a steel bike ride harsh or an ally bike ride harsh. There is more to ride comfort than frame material, alot more and it is mostly tyres ans tyre pressures.
I also ride steel bikes and a aluminium/carbon bike. All of them are comfortable and ride really well I have built them that way with a complementary slection of components to the bikes intended use.
Steel frame do break, so do Ti, so do alumium and so do carbon. One material is no more prone than another.
I own a 1980/1 Alan that is comfortable. I also ride a Pinerello Monvisio in aluminium the ride on that is sublime. You can make a steel bike ride harsh or an ally bike ride harsh. There is more to ride comfort than frame material, alot more and it is mostly tyres ans tyre pressures.
I also ride steel bikes and a aluminium/carbon bike. All of them are comfortable and ride really well I have built them that way with a complementary slection of components to the bikes intended use.
Steel frame do break, so do Ti, so do alumium and so do carbon. One material is no more prone than another.
TBH those half and half frames were really a gimmick that never took off. Not a huge benefit in rigidity over a full carbon frame, and not massively more comfortable than a full aluminium frame. I've also seen a few with failed joints between the carbon and aluminium. The only ones that really gave the benefits claimed were the lemond and specialised ones with carbon at the top and aluminium/ti at the bottomb rather than the front/back split. But they cost a bomb to make (massive scrap rates) and failed fairly regularly.
Then cheap carbon happened and the whole concept died on its arse.
Then cheap carbon happened and the whole concept died on its arse.
My Trek 2300 carbon main tubes (top tube, down tube and seat tube) and alloy everything else is still together and it is a perfect bike to ride. In fact is is very comfortable and the frame is stiff when my power put climbs. It just feel right. I now have the MTB version built up and I am waiting to ride that.
You see everything has it place and no one thing is better than the other they are all different.
You see everything has it place and no one thing is better than the other they are all different.
thanks for saying that about the 2300 im itching to get one if the price is right [or the specialised epic] I believe
the entire back ends are infact alloy and i wondered about what they were like up hill and glad you said they were good . of course they dont [like the c40] quite fit in with the modern cloned carbon which i will never get, purely to go against the grain, im not even keen on sloping top tubes what ever the material.
i saw those half /carbon frames as something else to try out on the road to insolvency, i was looking at a colnago 'dream' £350.i wondered were they pre or post oclv ?
the entire back ends are infact alloy and i wondered about what they were like up hill and glad you said they were good . of course they dont [like the c40] quite fit in with the modern cloned carbon which i will never get, purely to go against the grain, im not even keen on sloping top tubes what ever the material.
i saw those half /carbon frames as something else to try out on the road to insolvency, i was looking at a colnago 'dream' £350.i wondered were they pre or post oclv ?
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Aluminium has that cheap mass produced feel about it. Carbon has or is going the same route.
The flipside is that it enables us tight arses to build cheap riders.
The flipside is that it enables us tight arses to build cheap riders.
Erm, the 2300 is a completely different type of frame. Tubes bonded to lugs.
More in common with the old cadex cfm, alan and vitus frames of the 80s than the modern carbon tail/aluminium front frames from the late 90s.
I believe Principia revisited this concept fairly recently with a monocoque front end (Rather than tubes, lugs and glue) and an aluminium rear end.
More in common with the old cadex cfm, alan and vitus frames of the 80s than the modern carbon tail/aluminium front frames from the late 90s.
I believe Principia revisited this concept fairly recently with a monocoque front end (Rather than tubes, lugs and glue) and an aluminium rear end.
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