I love Willier. Pics please please please
C’mon Mr Mandaric. Give us the whole lowdown.
Did I miss something? Who is Mr. Mandaric?
Ves Mandaric…He makes Yaqui tri bikes and Mandaric road bikes. He uses a lot of Scandium.
I have two scandium frames - and eddy merckx and a principia (they use scandium - but dont state it), in my opinion the scandium frames are much better than std aluminium. Same stiffness but smoother ride. I would buy scandium again. Definitely overwhelmed by the mass of carbon on the market.
My two scandium bikes are interesting to compare - the principia ia a 76 seat angle and 650 wheels - the eddy merckx is 700c with I think a 74.25 seat angle - both nbikes are roughly 52cc tt and dt. The Principia is a stiffer ride overall, but I think this is partly dur to the smaller wheels. The merckx is definitely an all out all day road bike - and I think it has beeb built to ride rough roads - as is eats the bumps - I am super confident on this bike riding downhill.
I am in no rush to get a carbon bike - as in my mind these my two bikes perform very well.
I am interested in the new durace wheels - these supposedly use scandium rims.
Felt makes the SC1 as well - check it out!
This is not a good picture but it is what I have at the moment.
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m156/scottmurison/IMG_0723.jpg
Please correct me all you material scientists out there if I am wrong, but my understanding of Scandium is that it is used as an alloying agent to get a better crystal structure of the aluminium. This makes the aluminium on the microscopic level more organized (take a look at the electron micrographs of the stuff…you can even find it on-line), and therefore stronger in a given plane (the one that you want if you are making a tube). I think that it also has the effect of reducing the possibilities of stress risers from imperfections in the crystal structure of the metal. What all this means is that you can then get away with either a stronger tube of the same thickness, or a thinner (lighter) tube which is the same strength. It is similar to the effect of adding in ceramics, which was popular only a handful of years ago. You pepper in just enough, and then you get the properties which you want. Anyway, this is probably a very rough picture of what is going on based on my readings from materials science publications (which can get pretty dry at times). One thing that I am surprised never caught on was AlBeMet and AirMet which are a Aluminium/berillium/copper, and Steel alloy respectively.
Stephen J
The Salsa frame was about 1/2 pound to 3/4 pound heavier in the size 18 than the scandium models from other vendors that were available at the time, but it was also sgnificantly less expensive - mine was $400 with my tri club discount. “Heavy” is a relative term.