Once an aluminium frame has been welded, it will be heat treated to return the alloy to its full strength. A raw weld can be quite bumpy in appearance, but this is often smoothed down after welding for a cleaner look on premium frames.
Many of the latest aluminium frames also sport aerodynamic design features.Īluminium tubing is usually welded together to make the frame. High-end aluminium bikes are more advanced than ever and this process can help form complex shapes to influence the characteristics of a particular part of a frame, including weight, strength and comfort. Single-butted tubes are thicker at one end (for example, at the bottom bracket junction), double-butted tubes are thicker at both ends and triple-butted tubes further reduce the thickness in the middle of the tube.īutting is only part of the story and you’ll often see premium alloy frames described as “hydroformed”, which describes the process of adapting the shape of a tube using high-pressure fluid and a mould. Straight gauge tubes are consistent throughout in their thickness, with consistent properties to match. This means it’s thicker at its ends, where there’s more stress and you need more material for the joints to other tubes, while it’s thinner in the middle to save weight. Ribble Cyclesīike tubing, whatever it’s made of, is usually butted. It’s relatively easy to manipulate aluminium tubing to give it different properties along its length and aluminium tubes are usually butted, to ensure stiffness where it’s needed, and save weight where it’s not.īutting helps to save weight where it’s not needed, and improve strength and stiffness where it is. “It’s factors like the width of tubing and its wall thickness that are more important than their strength.” “All metals have quite similar strength-to-weight ratios,” Glen says. Every ‘recipe’ has slightly different properties.
Carbon fiber road bike code#
When it comes to aluminium frames, numbers such as 60 – the two most common aluminium alloys used – are a code for the additives (chiefly silicon and magnesium) that are mixed with the aluminium to form each alloy. Steel is itself an alloy of iron, and titanium is predominantly alloyed with aluminium and vanadium. In fact, all metal bike frames are made of alloys for the same reason.
That’s because pure aluminium would be much too soft to form into a bike frame, so it’s mixed with other elements to alter its physical properties. You’ll often see aluminium frames referred to as “alloy”. Aluminium frames are often referred to as “alloy”, although all metals used for bike frames are technically alloys.
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