Originally Posted by
shelbyfv
I don't understand the attraction of stainless for a bike frame. For the price, you could have Ti. It's not like regular steel frames are rapidly rusting away. Is there some ride quality beyond regular steel?
I agree this price is too high, surprising for Torelli. If it was Mondonico branded I would not be surprised, but I still wouldn't go for it. I have two Mondonicos but I bought them from private parties. I don't know who actually makes this XCR, but I'm sure it's not Mondonico since they closed. I would put Mondonico up there with DeRosa and Cinelli, but the Mondos up to the end of production 2005 were shop-made by Antonio Mondonico, and Cinelli and DeRosa today are ... what? Chinese carbon factory? I expect stainless tubing to be more $$ than other tubesets, but this seems over the top. Still, I'd probably go for a good used one.
Regular steel frames are painted, to protect the steel tubes against rusting away. Have your favorite steel bike sandblasted clean and buy a painted duplicate. Lock them up by the ocean to see how this works. Stainless resists rust corrosion without the added weight of a paint job. Admittedly, so does Ti.
It's the design of the tubeset - very thin walls, rather large diameter with butting profiles that are specific to each tube. It's supposed to be very supple, very responsive, and a good ride. I have a Mondonico in ELOS, one of Columbus' earliest thinwall oversize tubesets. If you read here a lot you might know that ELOS is thought to ride a step up from standard Columbus SL (as well, some say it doesn't matter). I have a Mondo in "plain Columbus" and one in ELOS, and the ELOS is certainly better IMHO. XCR is a more developed frame on that theme, thinner walls and larger diameter. So while it's lighter than an ELOS, it should be a better ride and performer than ELOS. The tubeset design is around 10 years old, but I expect these frames are near state of the art for lightweight steel, comparable to Reynolds 953 or the discontinued TrueTemper S3. The data panel says 1690 grams for a 56 cm frame. I think that's pretty light. The stainless alloy has the strength to withstand the dings and dents of riding while still having super thin walls.
The geo chart seems to match the old Mondonico geo, which Torelli used to import when "Chairman Bill" owned the company. Torelli also imported a lot of frames from other builders who were rarely specified. But one thing they usually did was to match the Mondonico geometries. This is obvious if you can find a Torelli catalog from 1981 through 2005, with all levels of road frame having the same geometry at least in the earlier years. It's not the way the product line-up works today, after checking one of the other road frames.
I think the chart they show was incompletely re-arranged. I checked one of the other ones, and I think it works like this:
The sizes should actually read looking down the first column. First column of numbers should be head tube angle, second is seat tube angle, third is seat tube length, fourth is head tube length, fifth is chainstay length, sixth is BB drop, seventh is fork offset (aka rake). The sizes should be labelled running down the left with 51 at the top. I don't think they are giving geo data for 48, 49, and greater than 54 for this frame model, and they don't give data for wheelbase, front center, stack, or reach.