Mountain Bike Reviews Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.
21 - 40 of 78 Posts
can i feel the difference in frame material? yep.

i hated the way my old aluminum frame rode. (2 seasons on it) my new Wednesday is way better! (first year)

is it a major difference? (aluminum vs steel) no. does it make a difference? depends on the rider, terrain, etc. With 4-5" tires providing a significant amount of insulation between you and the trail, the frame material is less important. but, on the handful of fatbikes i've ridden i can tell the difference in the way it rides. not so much about small bump compliance but a more "lively" ride character from the frame.
 
Save
Seeing as this is about fatbikes, not road bikes, I reckon the frame material has little effect, and your tyre compliance and pressures more effect.

However the fork makes a difference. It is long and cantilevered, so a fork that is excessively rigid fore and aft will be felt at the wrists IME, but that can be mitigated by bar and stem choice. The forks stiffness depends more on its construction than its material IMO.

I cannot comment on suspension forks because I wouldn't fit one to a fatbike.
 
Save
I'm sure that there is some difference - I am sure that if compared back to back, the tarmac was smoother than the allez (for example). To me, the difference just isn't enough to be a big deal, especially with 4-5" tires. There is no real replacement for suspension.

I am gonna build up a super light, rigid, carbon race fatbike soon - and it is gonna ride like crap. 22-23 pounds, but crappy haha.
 
If you talk fat bike , you'll probably run 4 inch and + tires , with lower pressure so because of the tire , you won't be able to tell any difference of feel any shock absortion difference because of the tires.
Unless you always run them at higher pressure......

If you're thinking smaller tires on 700 , 650 or 26'' then , yes , like other stated , there is differences. I personally prefer Ti as my main MTB.
Fat bike :I don't care because of the size/pressure I'm running , as long as I can have my Rolloff on it....
 
Save
If you talk fat bike , you'll probably run 4 inch and + tires , with lower pressure so because of the tire , you won't be able to tell any difference of feel any shock absortion difference because of the tires.
Unless you always run them at higher pressure......

If you're thinking smaller tires on 700 , 650 or 26'' then , yes , like other stated , there is differences. I personally prefer Ti as my main MTB.
Fat bike :I don't care because of the size/pressure I'm running , as long as I can have my Rolloff on it....
As has been stated before you can make any frame material feel stiff or not by changing the tube sizes. Early aluminum bikes were typically very noodley. It wasn't until Gary Klein and then Cannondale made them with fat tubes that they got the stiff reputation they have today. So no you can not feel what a bike is made from in a blind test. You can often guess correctly in the real world because manufacturers still often follow the Klein/Cannondale model. But fat tires or no it is totally possible, at least for many people, to feel the difference between a stiff frame and a flexible one. Not as big a difference as on high pressure tires but a difference for sure. It will matter to some but not to others. Only way to tell is ride for your self.
 
But fat tires or no it is totally possible, at least for many people, to feel the difference between a stiff frame and a flexible one. Not as big a difference as on high pressure tires but a difference for sure. It will matter to some but not to others. Only way to tell is ride for your self.
Like I said : if you run them at high pressure , yeah probably
I can feel the difference between my carbon road frame and my Alu road or between my Ti MTB and my Alu MTB , but on my Fatbike , with my Bud & Lou @ 5psi , I cannot see how someone could perceive any difference.
Maybe that's what my ex girlfriend meant when she said "You're not sensible enough" :)
 
Save
Ive currently got a rigid aluminum Fatboy and sometimes it rides pretty rough on snow trails that have been pockmarked by footprints.

AND

In the summer I think rigid fatbikes kind of suck for riding on trails that can be easily traveled by regular skinny tired bikes.
So why would you look for a softer ride in the least likely options? Just curious, as it's clear you recognize that a rigid bike rides rough, but you're looking at the frame material vs simply adding suspension.

You complain of steel being heavy, but you would ride steel with the additional weight over aluminum and a suspension fork with a similar weight.

Rigid does ride rough, in fact, they ride rigid.

Get a suspension fork, problem solved.

All this yammer about frame materials and compliance is silliness, a compliant frame would be a noodle and no one would ride it. Most frames are stiff as that is their purpose.

Pick your frame based on how you like your bike to ride.
 
Save
ime it's not possible to categorise ride quality in terms of frame material

I've ridden steel frames that've given me double vision and blotchy hands on the descents and steel frames that have that wonderfully springy feel that fires them out of corners and up and over obstacles

By the same token I've had aluminium frames where I've felt like a passenger and aluminium frames that've been weapons of trail destruction

Carbon frames that I could've ridden all week and carbon frames that've felt like noodles

They're all different.
 
Discussion starter · #30 ·
So why would you look for a softer ride in the least likely options? Just curious, as it's clear you recognize that a rigid bike rides rough, but you're looking at the frame material vs simply adding suspension.

You complain of steel being heavy, but you would ride steel with the additional weight over aluminum and a suspension fork with a similar weight.

Rigid does ride rough, in fact, they ride rigid.

Get a suspension fork, problem solved.

All this yammer about frame materials and compliance is silliness, a compliant frame would be a noodle and no one would ride it. Most frames are stiff as that is their purpose.

Pick your frame based on how you like your bike to ride.
I don't want to deal with the maintenance and reduced steering precision of a single crown suspension fork like the Bluto. I simply wondered if a steel frame made the same difference in ride quality as it does on my other MTB's that are made from Columbus Thron or True Temper Ox tubing. This confirms my suspicions that the fat tires would mask any of the benefits a steel frame would provide in ride quality.

I really like steel frame bikes that are made from name brand tubing as they do ride really nice as MTB's or road bikes. Looks to me like it isn't the greatest material for fatbikes for how I use them.
 
Save
...Looks to me like it isn't the greatest material for fatbikes for how I use them.
Maybe not, but if you're riding in fatbike only terrain (other than snow) your bike can get bashed around a lot. Steel is better than a dainty lightweight bike for that.
 
Save
Discussion starter · #32 ·
Maybe not, but if you're riding in fatbike only terrain (other than snow) your bike can get bashed around a lot. Steel is better than a dainty lightweight bike for that.
Think about that for a second. Downhill bikes are made from aluminum and see far more abuse and wrecks than fatbikes and survive just fine. Your logic would dictate we should all drive CAT D-9 dozers to work because we might one day slide off the road into the ditch and the steel dozer won't be harmed unlike a dainty aluminum bodied Ford F-150.
 
Save
Maybe not, but if you're riding in fatbike only terrain (other than snow) your bike can get bashed around a lot. Steel is better than a dainty lightweight bike for that.
Umm...what? Are you claiming that aluminum bikes are failing from over-load failures?
 
Save
Think about that for a second. Downhill bikes are made from aluminum and see far more abuse and wrecks than fatbikes and survive just fine. Your logic would dictate we should all drive CAT D-9 dozers to work because we might one day slide off the road into the ditch and the steel dozer won't be harmed unlike a dainty aluminum bodied Ford F-150.
DH bikes don't really fit the category of dainty or lightweight do they though?

In general steel tends to fail gracefully rather than catastrophically, ie there's usually plenty warning.

(I have carbon and alloy bikes as well as steel. When it involves rough treatment, it'll be my Pug or 1x1 that gets used, eg chucking over 7' high deer fences or being dropped off a small cliff - all done as carefully as possible :) )
 
Save
DH bikes don't really fit the category of dainty or lightweight do they though?
If you pay attention, you can see the goalposts literally move.
 
Save
If you pay attention, you can see the goalposts literally move.
Surely that depends on what they are made from. Now Carbon Fibre goalposts... :)
 
Save
In general steel tends to fail gracefully rather than catastrophically, ie there's usually plenty warning.
I don't think you are being realistic about the types of failures that are encountered within mountain biking. True that steel may bend if subject to an overload, as it approaches it's ultimate load, but that's not how mountain bikes fail 99.9% of the time. They fail not because you cycled the frame to it's cycle limit, or because you subjected it to an overload situation, they fail because of a flaw, stress riser, corrosion pit or under-designed part that can not take the same load that was intended for the frame as a whole. This causes a small localized failure which propagates with each cycle, causing a fatigue crack. Eventually, it's either noticed or it fails catastrophically, as a crack, not an overload.
 
Save
I got a new CAAD12 last summer to replace my CAAD10 that was destroyed in a racing crash. Its ride is amazing and very smooth.
I actually think its smoother than my carbon Specialized Roubaix or any of my other road bikes.
I own 6 steel bikes also including a Rocky Mountain Sherpa touring bike and vintage steel Marinoni. I've got deades of riding experience on steel.
But this new Cannondale is one smooth machine. Don't knock it until you have ridden modern aluminum.
And yes, I am a retro grouch.....
 
I don't think you are being realistic about the types of failures that are encountered within mountain biking. True that steel may bend if subject to an overload, as it approaches it's ultimate load, but that's not how mountain bikes fail 99.9% of the time. They fail not because you cycled the frame to it's cycle limit, or because you subjected it to an overload situation, they fail because of a flaw, stress riser, corrosion pit or under-designed part that can not take the same load that was intended for the frame as a whole. This causes a small localized failure which propagates with each cycle, causing a fatigue crack. Eventually, it's either noticed or it fails catastrophically, as a crack, not an overload.
I should have qualified that remark a bit more.

A decent quality steel bike, properly made and stress relieved, out of butted mid grade steel, and properly maintained, etc...

My experience over decades is that steel bikes like that don't fail catastrophically, and that experience guides me in what I buy.

Cheap bikes are a lottery regardless of material.

However no amount of anecdotal evidence = data. :)
 
Save
Discussion starter · #40 ·
DH bikes don't really fit the category of dainty or lightweight do they though?

In general steel tends to fail gracefully rather than catastrophically, ie there's usually plenty warning.

(I have carbon and alloy bikes as well as steel. When it involves rough treatment, it'll be my Pug or 1x1 that gets used, eg chucking over 7' high deer fences or being dropped off a small cliff - all done as carefully as possible :) )
I should have known. When it comes to Surly and their generic Taiwanese "Natch" Cro-mo, good marketing takes over from common sense. I wonder if the cro-mo fork on my 1999 Univega Rover is also made out of "Natch" cro-mo? I should dig it out of the corner of my shop and put it on eBay? My ad will go - 1 1/8th threaded, quill stem, taiwanese generic cro-mo fork for sale, minimum bid $200, buy it now $250. "Natch"rally it will sell very quickly, Im sure.
 
Save
21 - 40 of 78 Posts
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.