Originally Posted by
elcruxio
With all that you still have the audacity to write that you do not put down people who ride or are fans of steel bikes. Their arguments do not matter because they're religious zealots? Cool beans.
The first part of my comment was with tongue firmly in cheek. It is reflective of the attitude of anti-aluminum people, however...as pointed out in the second part of my post.
I have not put down anyone...well, not put down anyone who didn’t start the put downs. You have made similar arguments towards aluminum that are equally as baseless. Aluminum has proven itself as a tough material capable of withstanding the (rather minor) rigors of bicycling over the last 40 years.
You use steel spokes though. Why not aluminum? They should be better right?
You are just grasping at straws now. If you can play tricks with the tubing diameter of the frame tubes, you can make a light frame out of aluminum that is strong. You can’t play the same game with a thin wire. Aluminum would be a very poor choice for a spoke unless you actually made it so that it weighed as much as a steel spoke which would mean at least 3 times the diameter at the spoke head. That would also require new hubs to fit the 6mm wide spoke plus larger flanges to be able to fit the spokes around the hub. And it would necessitate changes in rims. All of that would add up to extra weight or taking a trade off of less strength.
And for your “yabuts”, I never said that steel doesn’t have its place. I just said that aluminum has its place as well.