Frame Materials

Bicycle have been made out of a wide variety of materials since their invention, David Wilson summarizes the history of bicycle materials in his book starting with wood and even hypothesizes about other materials bikes could be made out of in the future.

Wilson starts out in his book about how the first bikes were made of wood reinforced with metal until the mid 1800’s when low cost steel became available. Steel was used then and still is to this day however with variations in the amount of carbon and metals into the modern version of steels.

According to Wilson nickel was used in the late 1800’s as a first attempt in making a rust-less frame, this was followed by the use of aluminum as another rust-less frame material. Aluminum is lighter than steel but is not as strong, bike companies say that there are types of aluminum that are just as strong as steel if not stronger however Wilson points out that that is not true for bikes that are designed to take a bashing and heavy loads, such as loaded touring bikes.

These days titanium is also used as a frame material because of its corrosion resistant properties as well as its elasticity, density, fatigue limit, and weight which makes is just as stiff as steel while being considerable lighter and having the same or similar fatigue limit to steel.

Carbon fiber is the last material I am going to talk about. Carbon fiber is lighter than aluminum and stronger that steel however it isn’t the perfect material for bikes because, as Scot Nicol points out in his article on frame materials, carbon fiber not only is difficult to work with from a design standpoint but also tends to not show damage until its too late, so to speak, “carbon-fiber structures are not very fault tolerant (unlike metal structures), the design and execution plays an even more important role. And sometimes the fault is not in the design or execution of the structure - the fault may be a big rock coming in contact with the downtube. While the tube might not fail from such a large impact, the repercussions are usually hidden on the inside of the laminate, or within the laminate. Micro-cracks can then spread through the matrix, decreasing the ability of the fiber to transfer load. Metal tends to do a bit better in these situations - but you can make metal frames that break without warning, too”.

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• Boston, Bill. "Bicycle Fit." Cutting Edge Bicycle Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2010. .
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• Downs, Todd. The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance and Repair: For Road and Mountain Bikes(Expanded and Revised 5th Edition). 5 Rev Exp ed. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Books, 2005. Print.
• Nicol, Scot. "Ibis Cycles, Inc :: Materials 101." Ibis Cycles. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2010. .
• Wilson, David Gordon. Bicycling Science, 3rd Edition. 3 ed. London: The Mit Press, 2004. Print.