Originally Posted by
jnbrown
I am considering having a frame made by a custom builder and agonized over tubing choices.
The choices are 631, 725, 853, 853 Pro Team.
The pro team has thinner walls than the 725, which make sense because it's at least a little stronger which leads to better dent resistance at a given thickness.
I don't know what regular 853 costs, but I think I would go for that if it were my bike unless the upcharge is a lot. I really think the idea that thinner tubes ride better is somewhat overblown. But if you really want a more flexible frame, you probably will be happier on an 8/6/8 standard tube diameter frame. I agree that flexibility isn't too important, but lots of people don't like extremely stiff frames. Could be cognitive bias though.
Originally Posted by
unterhausen
I wouldn't mind building a pile of frames changing one little thing on each of them to see what the differences are, but, in the absence of that much money and time, I find that confirmation bias works pretty well. Tell me how you want it to ride and the tubes you want to use and I'll convince you that your tube set gives that to you. Yes, I'm a horrible marketer