Modern steels- can they get any better?

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

What happened with Steeman frames?

He was making frames out of that Excel (sp?) tubing and many of them cracked in use. Steelman blamed the tubing. I think the tubing had too high a tensile strength and lower ductility and fatigue life/fracture toughness. Going from memory here. A friend of mine owned one that cracked.

[David Kirk]

Originally Posted by vespasianus

I always thought 953 was the perfect steel tube. Very hard and very thin but few people seemed to use it - favoring the XCR stuff.

With that said, I thought Reynolds stopped making 953 tubes?

It is an impressive tube.

Reynolds did stop production of 953 recently. Fortunately I bought enough it that I think I should be covered until I retire....or maybe until the replacement arrives.

dave

[David Kirk]

Originally Posted by MikeD

He was making frames out of that Excel (sp?) tubing and many of them cracked in use. Steelman blamed the tubing. I think the tubing had too high a tensile strength and lower ductility and fatigue life/fracture toughness. Going from memory here. A friend of mine owned one that cracked.

I did some work with Excel a very long time ago and found it prone to cracking if it was overheated or heated unevenly. It was light and strong but fundamentally flawed.

dave

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by David Kirk

The dent resistance of the tube is related to its hardness and ductility and tubes like 953 are very resistant to denting. In all the years I've been working with this stuff I've never seen or heard of a dented tube. It's an amazing material.

dave

Dent resistance is also related to wall thickness.

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by David Kirk

I did some work with Excel a very long time ago and found it prone to cracking if it was overheated or heated unevenly. It was light and strong but fundamentally flawed.

dave

My still all time favorite bike is made from Excell Podium and my fat butt hasn't managed to crack it. Hopefully I never will as it is truly the best feeling bike on the road I've ever had under me. I have seen a fair amount of talk though of them cracking and knew it was a possibility when I got it years ago.

[David Kirk]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Dent resistance is also related to wall thickness.

You are of course correct.

dave

[prototoast]

I guess one other area where there is room for improvement is price. I know labor makes up the biggest piece of a custom bike, but right now something like a Columbus XCR tubeset is about 5x the price of a Columbus Zona tubeset. Even if they don't come up with a material that's even "better" at the high end, just improvements in processes that could make the current top end stainless material more accessible could be a general improvement to the market.

[EB]

Originally Posted by prototoast

I guess one other area where there is room for improvement is price. I know labor makes up the biggest piece of a custom bike, but right now something like a Columbus XCR tubeset is about 5x the price of a Columbus Zona tubeset. Even if they don't come up with a material that's even "better" at the high end, just improvements in processes that could make the current top end stainless material more accessible could be a general improvement to the market.

I think the challenge here is - at least a little bit - physics and chemistry. Stainless steel contains substantially more chromium, nickel, manganese, and copper than regular steel. Those elements cost more money, and the higher relative content means higher cost. I don't know if there are differences in smelting costs related to that or not.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by EB

I think the challenge here is - at least a little bit - physics and chemistry. Stainless steel contains substantially more chromium, nickel, manganese, and copper than regular steel. Those elements cost more money, and the higher relative content means higher cost. I don't know if there are differences in smelting costs related to that or not.

How much of the cost of a steel frame is material, and how much of the cost is the labor and tooling to make a frame out of it? And do stronger/harder steels increase the costs of labor and tooling?

[EB]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

How much of the cost of a steel frame is material, and how much of the cost is the labor and tooling to make a frame out of it? And do stronger/harder steels increase the costs of labor and tooling?

Not something I know anything about. I just know that it contains 10.5% chromium and about 10% nickel. Iron ore is 110 USD/ton, chromium is about 2000 USD/ton, and nickel is around 16000 USD/ton. Nickel prices won't be going down in any conceivable universe given the use of nickel in LiOn batteries. That's a vastly larger material cost than CrMo steel which only contains 1% chromium and 0.5% molybdenum.

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

How much of the cost of a steel frame is material, and how much of the cost is the labor and tooling to make a frame out of it? And do stronger/harder steels increase the costs of labor and tooling?

When I got my stainless steel bike, the builder said that the fabrication of the stainless steel bike was more challenging than "regular" steel bike.

[OtayBW]

Two of my faves:
DeRosa Primato with EL-OS tubing and high trail, and
Pegoretti Responsorium with XCr stainless and beefy chainstays.

Geometry differences aside, these are about as different in ride characteristics as night and day. I love riding them both -skinny tires and all.....
That's all I need to know....

[RedRider]

It's the builder not the tubing! The final product is what's important much like a chef and ingredients...

[Hindmost]

Originally Posted by MikeD

He was making frames out of that Excel (sp?) tubing and many of them cracked in use. Steelman blamed the tubing. I think the tubing had too high a tensile strength and lower ductility and fatigue life/fracture toughness. Going from memory here. A friend of mine owned one that cracked.

Steer tubes were a problem. He had tubing samples tensile tested. They came in under spec.

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by KonaSS

I relistened to the podcast myself, as I find it very interesting. And if you never do any type of riding for performance where you are comparing yourself to other riders, I 100% get it. Ride what you like and enjoy it.

To be clear, the podcast is a conversation about a broad range of cycling performance, most of which centers on aerodynamics. So no specific studies were mentioned. The original premise was to compare Nibali's 2014 TdF winning bike to today's bike, but then they sort of veer a little off topic talking generally about bikes.

It is unclear how much is wheels and how much is the frame, but he says that a "stupidly round tube bike" (note-his words not mine) and wheels costs about 100W at 45k/h

Semi aero considered frame and wheels would be 85W

A "good frame and wheels" would be 68W

And with the newest UCI regulations, a newly designed bike like the Simplon Pride 2 would be 55W.

If you were riding box section rims, add 15W to all the numbers above. He also notes that at first disc bikes were less aero than rim brake bikes. But discs allowed wheels shapes to change (mostly wider) which allowed more aero gains so that disc bikes bikes are now more aero than rim brake bikes.

You don't have to ride your bike at 28 mph to take advantage of aero features. During the podcast, he addresses the importance of aero to the everyday rider. He makes the case that it is a bigger advantage to us regular joes than it is to the Pros.

It is a bigger advantage if you are on the course longer. For instance, the pro does a century in 4 hours and you do it in 6 hours, that means you are benefiting the for a longer period of time. Meaning, if aero reduces the power needed by 3%, you get a full 6 hours of 3% reduction which could add up to meaningful time.

His second point to this was that the slower you are, the more you will feel the crosswind effect (what he called sailing) and that the more aero features matter.

He does touch on all things from tires, wheels, kit, helmets, bars, frames, positions. If you are at all interested in riding for performance, it is a great podcast.

One way to look at the role of aero is with the Kona Iron Man. I might be wrong but I thought they have been doing the same basic ride at the Kona Iron man since the 1980s.

In the 1980's - at the very start of the event - they were doing the 118 mile ride in roughly 4:45 minutes. In the early-mid 1990's they were down to 4:20 and now they are down to ~4:10. So basically from the 1990's to now, the riders and bikes have gotten faster by 10 minutes over 118 miles- I think that is about 5 seconds per mile.

The fastest guy today is about 26.8 MPH and the fastest guy in the mid 90's was 24.8. If you consider them to be using aero bars, that would be about a 70 watt difference.

The bikes have changed dramatically and Tri bikes have much greater aero benefits compared to the typical road racing time trial bike - and compared to a normal "aero" bike, I bet it is almost that.

Now, lots of assumption here and I will mention that overall times have only come down by about 20 minutes since the inception. I am also only looking at the fastest times. The best analysis would be to look at specific riders who have done the ride over a number of years.