Originally Posted by
dwmckee
Commentary is, well, yes commentary.
You can agree with it, question it, disagree with it, have your own opinions, ignore it and that all is welcome as well.
Unbranded chromoly tubing is, well who knows the quality... Reynolds, Columbus, Tange, etc. assures specific fabrication methods, PSI strength, precise metalurgical content wall thickness, tempering, butting quality etc. and assueres the buyer of the quality of the product. I have in fact seen a Trek steel frame bike (generic chromoly as a matter of fact) where the down tube failed with a fatigue crack all the way around about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom bracket at the internal butting. The frame looked like someone cut through it nice and neatly with a hacksaw. From experience it is my opinion that the quality of the tubing does in fact matter and name brand bicycle tubing is likely to be of better quality than generic tubing.
You are of course entitled to the opinion that generic tubing is just as good. Heck, Schwinn uses unbranded chrome moly so in must be pretty high performance stuff right?
Schwinn spec'd their bikes with double butted OS Tange tubing, Columbus SL and SP tubing, Columbus private label tubing, unbranded cromoly, and more. This is in just a 10 year period of the 80s and early 90s and doesn't even get into the 853 tubing used in the late 90s or other tubing thru the decades.
You showing a generic Schwinn sticker and takong a dig at the brand name doesnt prove that unbranded/generic/private label tubing is worse than branded tubing. Such thinking is lazy.
What matters is the tube's details- diameter and butting profile, basically.
You claiming 520 tubing is somehow better is just laughable because you don't know the details of each. They are the same material and the difference will be in something none of us knows- the butting profile. Even then, i doubt you would speak competently on which is 'better'.
As for your ramble about generic tubing breaking, surely you understand that such a limited example set is pointless to use for drawing a conclusion. Otherwise, any OPEN frames that fail would, by your reasoning, make OPEN frame utter crap and unreliable.
I fully agree with you that the quality of tubing matters. 100% agree. You have no idea what the specs are for the Reynolds 520 tubing though. Its just butter cromoly for all we know.
Black Mountain Cycles spec's their frames with 8/5/8 heat treated tubing. Its generic. Heck, its not just generic, but its seamed too(eek!) since thst hasn't mattered for over 30 years. Heat treated, 8/5/8, and generic. Whats not to like? Why would that be worse than 520/525 8/5/8 or 8/6/8 tubing?...it wouldn't be. Its heat treated unlike the 5 series too.
You made fun of the pannier setup, only to have multiple posters respond that its a legit setup.
You made fun of the tubing, only to be told both bikes have the same effective tubing for all we know.
You claimed a failed generic tube is reason to not use it, yet you defend other 1 off failures.
You tried to support your point by making fun of a company that actually did use significantly nicer tubing than what you cited, on models that were appropriately priced.
The Trek bike can be made fun of for so many better reasons than you cite. The tubing claim was a funny one at least.