https://www.evanscycles.com/...ad-frameset-EV293855

Aluminum frame, carbon fork blakes with aluminum steerer, sloping top tube frame geometry.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

IIRC the Specialized Allez has an aluminum steerer tube.

That's it, nothing more sexy than that? I was thinking I'd prefer titanium or steel. Any options there?

Officina Battaglin. Sexy is their middle name.

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I may not be fast, but once I get going, it is hard to stop me...

Dean bikes makes full titanium bikes and forks.

Ti certainly looks cool but has its challenges as a material. It's not as rigid as aluminum for starters. I met someone with a Lynskey that had twisted tubes and oversize head tube which is done to workaround the issues.

My Ti - tri frame I call it the wet noodle. It's ridiculously flexy. Real head-turner, light and a fun "show" bike I guess you could say.


The best Alum bike I've ridden is by the legendary "Frank the welder". He does frames for Spooky bikes among others. I have a 10 year old Spooky and the thing is unreal for everything from pedal energy>road, handling and ride feel. It's an outstanding bike. I raced it 4.5 hours over hellish terrain on 30C tires. I was looking at the Spooky Dune to apply wider tires for next year's race but it looks like they are scrapping the route.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

But if you're avoiding carbon forks, what else is there?

I would look on eBay for a specialized E5 aluminum frame, you should be able to find an S Works model for about $400 I bet simce it's an old model.


Next option- if you want steel. Milwaukee bicycle company. Good stuff and it's not mainstream. More of a custom bike. I own 2 and everyone I know that has one loves it.

If your not afraid of spending money and you want a killer bike, have Dave Wages from Ellis build you a bike. His experience came from Waterford Cycles that makes custom steel bikes and is well known. Waterford was a spin off from the Schwinn Paramount bike and is owned by Richard Schwinn. Dave went on to win tons of awards for his frames. Can't go wrong.

If you prefer steel, just look up cross / gravel / adventure bikes. Plenty of steel bikes in that segment.


Salsa Vaya comes to mind.

Actually, Ti is a little over 50% stiffer than aluminum. It all comes down to the engineering (tube diameter, wall thickness, etc). Aluminum is cheap and easy to work with, Ti isn't, so along with a much lower demand there isn't the same range of tubing available...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

Karl.n wrote:

But if you're avoiding carbon forks, what else is there?

If you can get a hold of them, I am sure you could spec an "FTW" (Frank the welder) fork in it. It's a life-timer bike. I'd take one over anything market carbon actually.


http://www.wearespooky.com/mulholland

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

True - I designed a product/we work with a Ti alloy and it's stiff, tough but can be nasty (eg. cracking ).

Alum is far more organic I guess you could say, less weight per volume - closer to wood or carbon-like than Ti. Obviously well suited to bike applications.

Alum can be harsh. I had a Rocky Mountain Alum bike I could have tossed that clunker in the trash, sold it for $300 good riddance.

My Argon E80- is alum, great riding bike as well. I use it for city or pool rides if it gets stolen so what.

But the Spooky is on another level. It's my favorite right now.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

Prior to Cannondale and Klein, aluminum frames had the reputation of being wet noodles. I don't think I've ever ridden a smoother bike than a Vitus 979, but if I got out of the saddle I could ghost shift 2 gears...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

Someone mentioned Dean:

http://www.deanbikes.com/forks.html

Bamboo bikes? Calfee Bikes

Magnesium bikes? Pateka Bikes

have you looked at Moots bikes?

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

fa590 wrote:

I'm looking for a compact (think specialized geometry as opposed to traditional road geometry) road bike frame/fork. must meet the following criteria....No carbon fiber. Finding a frame that fits the request is easy but I'm finding all fork these days have carbon steering tubes. Aside from a custom solution can anyone point me in the right direction? I don't much care about weight or even material, just so carbon. Thank you!

Independent Fabrication makes very sweet bikes:

http://ifbikes.com/

http://www.bobjacksoncycles.co.uk/

There are a lot of steel, titanium, or aluminum options for the frame, but you're right that finding a fork is going to be the challenge. Aluminum forks are hard to find, and don't generally ride particularly well. Titanium forks are probably even harder to find, usually very expensive, and also don't generally ride very well. Steel forks should be pretty easy, but may look wrong when paired with anything but a steel frame. Just curious, why no carbon?

For clarification, do you not want a carbon fork or are you ok with a carbon fork without the carbon steering tube?

Carbon forks and handle bars - fantastic damping of road vibration to the hands. I switched my Pinny to a Most carbon bar and just love it.

Also - best sounding acoustic guitar I've played to date is the Rainsong all-carbon. Thing is amazing.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

Ummm...technically, Ti as a material has ~50% greater tensile modulus (i.e. "material stiffness") than aluminum. Steel is ~2X stiffer than Ti, and ~3X stiffer than aluminum.

This is why to get decent stiffness in a Ti or Al frame, the diameter of the tubes needs to be expanded as compared to an equivalent steel OD. This is to take advantage of "geometric stiffness". If you make a bike with Ti tubes using steel tube-like diameters and wall thicknesses, yeah it's going to be "flexy"...but, the same is true of aluminum, and more so.

In other words, if you have a flexy Ti frame, it's not the material stiffness that's the problem, it's the tube size/shape selection that's the issue :-/

As I've always said in regards to bike frame materials though: "It's not so much the material...but what you DO with it, that counts." ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

I bet you didn't have indexed shifters on that bike though...I rediscovered recently on my old steel '86 Bianchi that it would ghost shift when out of the saddle if the indexing of the DT shifters is turned off ;-)

One of my favorite MTBs was an aluminum framed Diamondback Arrival...it was built with relatively small diameter tubing and was noticeably less "harsh" off-road than my previous steel bike. I was really bummed when it was stolen from me during grad school :-(

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

If you don't mind carbon fork blades (the fork is alu crown, steerer, and dropouts), find yourself an old Cervelo aluminum Soloist/S1...one of the best all-around road bikes I ever owned.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/