Information to classic highway bike metal body tube producers and kinds – Frugal Common Bicyclist

Metal varieties are sometimes talked about when discussing high quality classic bikes and typically trendy bikes.  The massive names in metal are Reynolds out of the UK, True Mood from the USA, Tange from Japan, and Columbus from Italy.  Every model has many various grades of metal. 

Reynolds

Reynolds is likely one of the largest names in bicycle metal and has a really lengthy historical past.  In 1902 they printed their first bicycle tubing catalog.  All their steels have a 3-digit quantity.  Because the quantity will get larger, they may typically have a greater power to weight ratio.  There are lots of different elements in body design, so the metal doesn’t assure a fantastic body.  However if you're searching for a motorbike, producers used the higher steels for his or her greatest bikes. 

520 and 525 are cold-worked chrome-moly metal.  I consider they're the identical, besides the 520 is made in Taiwan.  These steels have all the identical properties as 4130 chromoly steels.  That is type of the underside of better-quality steels.   

531 is a manganese-moly cold-worked metal.   It has been used for some mid and most upper-end metal bikes for a very long time.  Schwinn Paramounts used 531 metal for many of its historical past up till the 80s. 

631 is a seamless cold-worked air-hardened metal.

725 is a heat-treated chrome-moly metal.

853 is a seamless air-hardened heat-treated metal.

931 is a precipitation hardening stainless-steel.

953 is maraging stainless-steel.

True Mood

True Mood was probably the most recognized US producer of bicycle tubing.  I consider these had been used for a lot of Trek and Schwinn bikes.  In 1990 they had been purchased by Huffy.  They've since been purchased by one other firm and stopped making bicycle tubing in 2017.

S3 Tremendous Energy is tremendous mild, tremendous robust, and tremendous experience high quality.  Final metal tubeset.

OX platinum was their strongest tubeset utilizing aero-space grade air hardened metal.

Versus Warmth Handled is heat-treated 4130.

Versus metal is stress relieved 4130.

Supertherm Metal is robust and light-weight for BMX bikes.

Tange

Based in Japan by Yasujiro Tange in 1920, they've a protracted historical past of constructing tubes.  Listed below are a few of their tubes I consider listed from the most effective to the least good, the lightest are on the prime:

Status Tremendous Lite – high-tech handled double butted tubes for highway racing.

Status – seamless double butted tubes for monitor/highway racing.

Tange 1 – double butted tube for monitor/highway racing.

Tange 2 – double butted tube for monitor/highway racing/touring.

Tange 3 – double butted tube for heavy responsibility touring.

Tange 4 – single butted tube for touring.

Tange 5 – plain gauge tube for touring.

Infinity – double butted tube for highway.

Tange 900 – double butted tube for highway.

Tange 1000 – double butted tube for highway.

Columbus Tubi

Based in Italy by Angelo Luigi Colombo in 1919.  For a very long time, they had been the primary competitor of Reynolds in Europe.  They're now owned by Cinelli.  These guys have had numerous completely different tubes so listed below are a number of of them:

SL – Tremendous Leggera double butted OMNICROM alloy.  Most well-known Columbus tubing that competed with Reynolds 531.

SLX – designed for skilled cyclists.

XCr – seamless, stainless efficiency tubing. 

Spirit – triple butted OMNICROM alloy.  Chilly-drawn seamless tube.

MAX – triple butted OMNICROM alloy.  Chilly-Drawn seamless tube. 

ZONA – all-purpose Hello-Resistance tubing.  Triple/double butted 25CRoMo4.

Spirit HSS – excessive power formed.

CROMOR – double and single butted Cromor alloy. 

Different Tubing

1020 – that is an entry or possibly decrease mid-level tubing.

4130 – many bikes will use simply the 4130 chromoly labeling.  It’s type of the usual now, that is what Surly makes use of.

Chromoly – one other type of generic labeling, I consider these are normally some sort of 4130.  Usually spelled otherwise.  Cro-moly. Chrome-moly.