I was looking at steel framesets on EBay and it is absolutely preposterous. 90% of them are old junk with crude lugs and dropouts on them and incorrect rear spacing for modern groups.

The few that are good or at least passable are priced so high you have to ask yourself if they've ever heard that bicycle sales are at their lowest point in 20 years.

Th covid-19 lockdown left people with no other choice for exercise so they bought all of their bikes in 2021 and this is the expected dead zone.

BUT, this is also the time when you can get good custom steel bikes from builders for good prices.

I have a couple of local shops that have started specializing in steel frames because they had customers CF frames break. Lawsuits are simply too much for a small business to risk.

This of course the point where Flunky swears that he has seen steel bikes fail catastrophically. As if he had the slightest credibility anymore.

While you can buy a new Waterford from Richard Schwinn that is lighter than the lightest steel I have (which is a half lb heavier than my 2018 Trek Emonda was and the same weight as my Trek Alpha is (aluminum bike with a carbon fiber fork) the weight penalty of a seriously good riding bike made of steel is minimal and Krygowski can tell us all about elastic limits of steel bikes that he has never seen and knows absolutely nothing about because he says so.

One of the oddities about steel bikes is that they like to take a safe material and make it unsafe with carbon fiber forks because they are cheap. An aluminum fork would be much safer and weigh almost the same thing but why would they install aluminum steering tubes on some carbon fiber forks and make aluminum forks with a STEEL steering tube?

This means that you are stuck with steel forks in steel bikes and often these are special order,. My Tommasini Fire for instance.

The two aluminum forks I have -both have steel steering posts. And the Specialized fork has the steel steering post glued into the aluminum fork body. Rather silly when you could heliarc an aluminum post into the fork body and machine them straight.

On Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 11:46:16 AM UTC-5, tommy babbled:
> I was looking at steel framesets on EBay and it is absolutely preposterous. 90% of them are old junk with crude lugs and dropouts on them and incorrect rear spacing for modern groups.
>
> The few that are good or at least passable are priced so high you have to ask yourself if they've ever heard that bicycle sales are at their lowest point in 20 years.
>
> Th covid-19 lockdown left people with no other choice for exercise so they bought all of their bikes in 2021 and this is the expected dead zone.
>
> BUT, this is also the time when you can get good custom steel bikes from builders for good prices.

Good luck with that....

>
> I have a couple of local shops that have started specializing in steel frames because they had customers CF frames break. Lawsuits are simply too much for a small business to risk.

Shops are getting sued for CF frames breaking? Andrew, is this something you've heard about?

>
> This of course the point where Flunky swears that he has seen steel bikes fail catastrophically.

HAH!!! sure I would sparky.....

https://thezenofcycling.blogspot.com/2008/05/hardware-il-campione-del-cantina-basso.html

https://thezenofcycling.blogspot.com/2011/05/look-what-cat-dragged-in.html

https://thezenofcycling.blogspot.com/2011/02/you-dont-see-that-every-day.html

> As if he had the slightest credibility anymore.

I have way more than you - though I realize that isn't saying much. :)

> While you can buy a new Waterford from Richard Schwinn that is lighter than the lightest steel I have (which is a half lb heavier than my 2018 Trek Emonda was and the same weight as my Trek Alpha is (aluminum bike with a carbon fiber fork) the weight penalty of a seriously good riding bike made of steel is minimal and Krygowski can tell us all about elastic limits of steel bikes that he has never seen and knows absolutely nothing about because he says so.
>
> One of the oddities about steel bikes is that they like to take a safe material and make it unsafe with carbon fiber forks because they are cheap.

lol...yeah, that's why....

> An aluminum fork would be much safer and weigh almost the same thing but why would they install aluminum steering tubes on some carbon fiber forks and make aluminum forks with a STEEL steering tube?
>
> This means that you are stuck with steel forks in steel bikes and often these are special order,. My Tommasini Fire for instance.
>
> The two aluminum forks I have -both have steel steering posts. And the Specialized fork has the steel steering post glued into the aluminum fork body. Rather silly when you could heliarc an aluminum post into the fork body and machine them straight.

You're an idiot. Shut the fuck up tommy.