Whats your steed :?:

[HelenD123]

One steel tourer, one alu hybrid. I much prefer the ride of the steel, although it's a little unfair to compare them as the steel is a much more expensive bike. It just soaks up the bumps better.

 

[Young Un]

Steel MTB

My Roadie and my Track Weapon are both alu with carbon forks

 

[Keith Oates]

2 x full carbon
1 x Carbon with Alu
3 x Aluminium
2 x steel

But they are not all in one place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ben M]

It was all alu, now it has carbon forks and seatpost.

 

[JtB]

Wow, I am a little surprised that so many are running such an obsolete material. I had expected that alu would dominate, but thought that steel would have been a minority material.

Me too, I thought steel was too heavy for a modern bike. My road bike (a 1977 Carlton) weighs in at a massive 15kg.

 

[HelenD123]

Me too, I thought steel was too heavy for a modern bike. My road bike (a 1977 Carlton) weighs in at a massive 15kg.

My steel tourer is 12.6kg so I'm guessing there must be even lighter steel road bikes out there. It's noticeably lighter than my alu hybrid.

 

[Davidc]

Me too, I thought steel was too heavy for a modern bike. My road bike (a 1977 Carlton) weighs in at a massive 15kg.

Getting the specific figures for alloys used in bikes is difficult or impossible, however:

There are several strength measures for materials, in the case of bike frames tensile strength, torsional strength, shear strength and stress fracture resistance are clearly important.

The figures available online for common alloys suggest that structural steel alloys are typically around 3 times as strong per unit mass (weight) as aluminium alloys.

Most of a bike frame is providing strength, rather than sheet material etc.

(The same observation gives titanium alloys as significantly lighter than both, and carbon fibre composites as much lighter again.)

Aluminium structural (& frame) tubing is generally thicker and bigger than its steel counterpart to compensate for lower strength, so there is more material used. Steel is about 2 1/2 times as dense as Aluminium, and there has to be enough of it there for welding and machining.

In pactice, when I've looked at the figures there's not much to chose - I presume the bits in bold above, and other factors, cancel out.

Decide which you personally prefer and use it!

I don't think steel or aluminium alloys will ever again feature much in the high end and professional market as neither can compete on weight or probably strength with new materials.