imamac96

Hello all,

First, I'd like to say I've learned a lot from reading as much info on here as I can. It's helped me through two classic bike rebuilds.

Next, I wasn't sure where to post this, but here we go:
I'm building the Atomic Zombie Spirit SWB, and I'm using a Kent Roadtech 700 as the donor bike because I happened to find one on CL for cheap. The spirit is a welded steel square tubing recumbent with sourced donor parts.

If you research the kent a bit, you'll notice some have the "ALLOY" sticker on the top tube towards the seat, and some do not. I did not notice this until I after I bought the bike. I thought it was referencing the alloy rims. The frame material is clearly marked as "steel" on Amazon and Walmart. I'd post the links, but my account is still too new. It's a green and black bike that must not have sold a lot. The GMC denalis kind of overrun the Kent search results.

After taking off all components, I realized it doesn't look like steel. It looks like aluminum. It is NOT magnetic and has an aluminum colored surface on the inside and when scratched. I just wanted to grab a second opinion. Any other things to consider ? It sure as hell ain't Ti.

I already bought a few BB shells because I might use them later, but I'll just make a new headtube if I have to.

TugaDude

Aluminum

Canaboo

That really cleared it up.

CliffordK

If a magnet doesn't stick to it, then it is either aluminum, titanium, or an expensive stainless alloy, or perhaps a plastic composite like carbon fiber.

My guess is that your Kent falls in the former group with an aluminum frame.

Close-up pictures of the dropouts and welds would likely clear it up. Go to the advanced editor and click on the paper clip (attachments) to upload photos.

Aluminum frames tend to have thick, chunky looking dropouts. And all modern aluminum frames are welded, and generally have fairly coarse welds.

unterhausen

assuming the spec sheet posted matches the bike, it says it has an aluminum frame.

There aren't that many inexpensive steel frames sold now that are worth messing with. Used Salsa or Surly maybe.


Okay, looking at the Atomic Zombie Spirit SWB, I don't see the advantage of starting with a frame. As designed, all it uses is a head tube. I see some really horrible ones that started with a frame but changed the head tube angle. I think that idea is more work than just using the original design. Head tubes are easy to get, that's the only bike-specific part on those bikes.

CliffordK

The spec sheet that TugaDude posted lists both... and hence the possibility of confusion:

unterhausen

heh, stopped reading when it said it was aluminum.

But I'm going to go ahead and say any non-magnetic Kent is aluminum. Aluminum frames fro Asia are dead cheap, even the relatively high-end ones. I bet if the OP posted a pic, we could tell it was aluminum just from that.

TugaDude

I would take the description over the list below. The people that plug this stuff into the website likely don't know the difference. I assume, and I admit it is a big assumption, that the writer of the ad copy was given the correct info.

Canaboo

That's all I was pointing out.