Tube butting equals a faster bikes

Serotta and others have always made claims that butting the tubes can do wonders for the frame. Serotta have consistently claimed that they can manufacture stiffer and more comfortable frames than their competitors by butting and shaping their tubes more. In fact, Serotta triple butts the main tube on many of their top end bikes. This manufacturing technique stands in contrast with what most top end frame builders are doing these days. The elite frame builders like Moots, Colnago, Parlee and others are using larger diameter tubing to achieve the stiffness, strength and torsional rigidity of their frames. They use butting to reduce the weight of the frame but they don’t make any claims about how butting and shaping the tubes will do wonders to the way the frame rides.

Well, it turns out that Serotta had it right all along. A research team at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena California worked with a local frame builder to build the ultimate titanium bike. They butted the main tubes 7 times and shaped them in four different places. They tested for torsional rigidity, stiffness and lateral forces and concluded that using butted and shaped tubes are much more effective at transferring power to the drivetrain. But the real test was when they had 3 separate cycling teams test ride the frames. Their racing speeds on averaged increased 5 mph with the butted frames as compared to the controls. They also claimed that the butted frames were more comfortable and compliant when compared to the controls.

This proves serotta’s claim that they build the lightest and highest performance Ti frames available. If I would have known that, I would never have purchased a Moots. It appears that the serotta sales team and the jerks on this forum who worship serotta ti frames were right all along. Oh well, it just goes to show that April 1st is not the only day of the year for fools. I’ll just keep on riding my beloved Moots Vamoots SL wishing I had a serotta ti quadruple butted frame. Dang!