vespasianus

That comment is silly. In fact, if you look at lot of titanium bikes, they are much heavier than you would think - and thus, the weight difference between the two materials is not major. And the hardness of SS is similar to "regular" steel (XCR).

mstateglfr 

Oh, its completely absurd. Basically any material, if not up to spec, creates the chance it will not perform well. Steel, aluminum, carbon, titanium, etc. Its why there are various types of each material in this world- they each perform differently for given uses.
Just like if a stainless steel frame uses steel that isnt up to spec, if a carbon frame isnt up to spec then that sets the rider up for disaster.

noimagination

(post deleted)

(My apologies, I succumbed to the dreaded BF "see an erroneous statement and immediately post pointing out the error without checking to see if anyone else has already made your point"-itis. My bad.)

guy153

Are they rusting from the inside? If water got down the seat tube it could be collecting at the bottom.

Bob Ross

They do seem to be rusting from the inside...but the question remains, how is the water getting in to the seat tube?*
And why isn't it just draining out of the bottom bracket drain hole?


*Not sure how plausible this explanation is, but it's certainly one of the more interesting suggestions: Someone once posited that road spray from the front wheel was getting forced into the S&S coupler ...and they mentioned that some framebuilders intentionally install this coupler backwards specifically to alleviate that problem. But I'm not sure I can convince myself that this is a likely candidate, given how rarely we ride on wet roads, and how much grease is slathered all over those S&S threads.

guy153

The hole in the BB shell below the ST may not be big enough so water can pool around it. Do you have fenders? Rain can spray up behind the seat and just drop into the seatpost. Depending on the design of seatpost (it's more the low cost steel ones that are just open at the top).

Bob Ross

But if that were the case I would expect the BB shell to be rusting also, no? It isn't, on either bike.
It's just that short stub of the down tube, below the S&S coupler but in front of the BB shell, that's rusting. On two different bikes.
Weird, huh?

guy153

Sorry DT/BB rusting, I thought you said ST/BB. I guess water could be getting in through the bottle cage holes or even finding its way down the DT from the HT (that junction is also vented). But hard to see how much would get into the HT-- it would have to go through the bearings!

The BB shell might be rusting on the part you can't see: its outer surface where it joins the DT. It's made of very thick metal so would take a long time to rust through. Whereas the DT will only be 0.9mm or 0.8mm thick at the join.

Steelman54 

Stainless steel has pretty much about the same stiffness as steel so performance will be about the same. It all comes down to design and build, right? Personally, I'd go with steel not stainless steel, I have not seen any pricing but suspect a good premium will come with the stainless tube set. OTOH, if you like the polished finish then go for it, but don't expect much difference over steel. Keep us posted.

merlinextraligh

Chrome plated Paramounts back in the day were beautiful bikes.

A stainless steel Waterford make a great homage

guy153

The actual tubes are about 3 or 4x the price. But framebuilders often charge proportionally much more for higher-end tubes than they actually cost. In this case it would be justified though as those stainless tubes are quite a bit harder to work with: extremely thin, hard to cut (and therefore wear out tools) and you need a back-purge to weld it.

vespasianus

Again, most of the SS is not any thinner than regular steel. Columbus Spirit can actually be had thinner than any of the XCR stuff. That is the main benefit, it is as light as regular high end steel but a bit thicker and thus resists dents and such better.

And it can be lightweight (relative!). This is my bike and is 8.5kg. Granted the EKAR group helps as do the carbon bars and seatpost but I have seen plenty of Ti bikes that are well over 9.5 or even 10 kg with similar specs.

guy153

XCR is 0.6/0.4/0.6, which is the same as Spirit. I don't see any Spirit that's thinner. But you can get Reynolds 953 a bit thinner (0.5/0.3/0.5). In the case of 953, it's a bit thinner than 853 "Pro Team" which is 0.6/0.4/0.6, but the actual metal is insanely strong so yes you would get better dent resistance.

The problem at this level is coke-canning. Generally if the diameter is more than 50x the wall thickness you end up with a bit of a coke-can 0.5mm is exactly 1/50 of 25mm, about the traditional TT diameter (1 inch) and you can get 953 in that size (although the wall on that one is 0.58/0.38/0.58 for some reason). In theory 953 is so much stronger than 853 you could go even thinner wall. But if you did you would need to increase the diameter to get decent stiffness back, and then you would be well above the 50:1.

Yes there really isn't a huge amount of point bothering with these stainless tubes.



Nice bike! Yes the difference in weight even between "low end" Columbus Cromor and Columbus XCR is pretty minimal. You're talking about 0.3mm shaved off the tubes basically.

vespasianus

Thanks. Honestly, I was a little surprised at how light the bike came out. I was expecting closer to 9-10 kg.

If you look at each tube separately, there are differences, but I agree, they are small. The thinest XCR top tube is 0.6 - 0.4 -0.6, which is the same as the Spirit top tube but the down tube and seat tube, are slightly different with the thinest section being 0.45 in the XCR and 0.40 in spirit, which I agree, are small differences.

And I would agree, while SS has some benefits, a good painted steel frame makes a great bike and is a lot cheaper than the alternatives.

And while this is in German, this was a comparison of some regular steel, stainless steel - both Columbus and Reynolds, and Titanium bikes. Take it with a grain of salt as geometry plays a huge different role with how a bike will ride but they have frame weighs that will give you a general idea of what bikes will come in at.

https://www.roadbike.de/rennrad/7-ra...roadbike-test/