They didn;t create it. It is made in Taiwan.
I’d rather have an aluminum bike than any other material.
“I’d rather have an aluminum bike than any other material.”
Huh?
“C’dale almost went out of business.”
It was their motorcycle division that almost sank them. The bicycle division has always been profitable.
"I’d rather have an aluminum bike than any other material. "
Got back from our first group ride of the season last night on my new carbon/steel Lemond frame and thought to myself that I’ll never purchase an aluminium frame again. Noticed a huge difference in ride smoothness between the Lemond and my aluminium TCR.
I am not an engineer, but it’s my understanding that you can make a great frame/bike out of all the main materials( steel, Ti, Aluminum, and carbon) if you know what you are doing. Is aluminum dead - I doubt it. What may cause some problems is the price - it’s been very inexpensive for some time, but aluminum refining is VERY energy intensive and consumptive and as energy costs go up, so will the price of Aluminum.
I will say this about the bike industry as a whole. These days there are few leaders and many followers. Once a trend is started, whatever it is, just about everyone jumps on the band-wagon in short order.
Fleck
Until this carbon for carbon’s sake craze dies (and I predict it will)…
Do you think they said that about race cars, tennis racquets, America’s Cup sailing equipment, airplanes, orthopedic braces, etc., etc.?
I actually had a chance to ride a Synapse briefly and chat with the C’Dale rep. It’s a nice bike but completely unremarkable. For those speculating on the manufacturing process, it is a “welded” carbon frame, similar to a Kestrel. The obvious advantage is they will be offered in a full size range (7 I think). The Six13 seems like a much nicer bike, but I’m not sure how they will compare price wise.
Another neat thing C’dale will be doing this year is offereing a factory SRM system. It put the Six13 up around 8K though.
Thom
I actually work as an Industrial Engineer for Alcoa, we make all of the proprietary Al (Optimo) for Cannondale. I can tell the difference in Al is huge. The Optimo alloy is proprietary and since Alcoa owns nearly every Al alloy patent, the Tawain Al is basically a very cheap and generic 6061 tooling plate Al. The Optimo alloy is the lightest and stiffest Al used on any bike. Optimo is an aerospace grade T6 (tempered) alloy that is in a completely different category from 6061 tooling plate. Cannondale has spent a great deal of money working with and using Al to make the lightest and stiffest frames.
Is Al on the way out for Bike frames? Cheap Al from Tawain (Cervelo and Javalin) is being replaced by cheap carbon fiber from Tawain but as long as there is a demand for an affordable light and stiff frame Cannondale will continue to use Al in the frames. A Cannondale frame is so much stronger and lighter with less material than any other Al frame. Until the day comes when a carbon bottom bracket is as stiff as a Cannondale Oversized Hollowgram bottom bracket there will be a demand for Al.
Working for Alcoa I can definitely say there is a scare about composite materials taking over but R&D insists the technology improvements in Alloys will remain ahead of the curve for the next 5 years.
Also note I race on two Cannondale bikes, one Ironman 5000, and one Ironman 6000. I have not been on another bike that is as stiff in the bottom bracket as the Cannondale. When stiffness matters, the best pros will ride Al.
TJ Tollakson
Is that the same process that Scott uses with the CR1 frames?
Alloy won’t disapear, there are manufacturers who still make high quality steel frames, I suspect C’dale would develop into one such firm for alloy.
Thanks for the detailed information.
As I said, I am no engineer, I just ride the bikes. I have ridden all kinds in my time and no that you can make a great bike from any of the main materials that have historically been used.
Fleck
It was 100% their motorcycle division that nearly sank them. C’dale seems to have a dealer network rivalling Trek, and I see their bikes nearly everywhere.
I am glad that they did get the albatross off of their neck. C’dale does, indeed make nice bikes.
NiceTri - When you talk about differences in Al what are you actually talking about from a chemical perspective ( I am curious not looking to bash you).
Is one type of aluminum purer than the other?
When we talk about bike Al is it NOT elemental AL?
Some minor chemistry/and or engineering would be interesting for me (and probably a few others).
Thanks.
SETH
" When stiffness matters, the best pros will ride Al. "
I think the operative phrase is “when stiffness matters”, and Lance rode a blade in the tour TT’s before Trek made a specific TT bike for him. If lance was a gear masher and climbed hills under 80 rpms he would may want something stiffer (again when stiffness matters).
For example what are the cranks on Lance’s bike made from? Right now Al is so much stronger than carbon (however the gap is quickly closing) so when a material needs to be stiff, it is made from Al.
My new Cannondale has carbon cranks on it (reinforced with an Al core for stiffness).
There are plenty of great Pros riding carbon frames, those pros with a preference for stiffness will ride Al. Why would any pro ride Al if carbon was so much better? It’s a personal preference. Al=light and stiff with a very rigid ride. Carbon = light and flexible with a very smooth ride.
Obviously Larry has a preference for a nice soft ride. Nothing wrong with that. I prefer to ride stiff.
TJ Tollakson
In terms of ‘best’ pro, as defined by UCI points, LA was 8th in 2004.
Damien Cunego was 1st, and he did so riding a Cannondale.
This type of logic is what drives the cycling industry, much to the chagrin of marketing guys everywhere.
I have never said carbon was not here to stay, it is. I am talking about some of the sillier applications for it. I do predict that the carbon for carbon’s sake will die, however. It will force better engineering of aluminium and titanium for componentry.
Not to piss off the campy people (as I do love Campy, and feel that in many ways that it is superior to Shimano), but Shimano has managed to stay competitive (weight-wise) with Campy’s offerings despite the fact that they refuse to offer carbon fibre parts. Modolo should have taken over the world with their carbon fibre offerings years ago (had the lightest dt shifters made of carbon).
The one thing with carbon that is different and makes it less acceptable in some respects for racing bicycles is that flaws in construction are not nearly as evident as they are in steel and aluminium (i.e. metals). Also, the impact resistance is not there, and to make truly amazing carbon fibre parts, it is very expensive. This aluminium endo skeleton/carbon exoskeleton construction could be bested in weight AND durability with better engineered aluminium.
What I mean about carbon for carbon’s sake? Things like carbon-covered items that could never be all-carbon in the real world. Remember this: race cars, airplanes, and other things like them are not 100% carbon. You would never see a carbon roll hoop or cageEVER, but I could se some company who was selling roll cages to weekend racers offering a carbon-covered roll cage. I also see when peoples’ carbon stems and bars are failing after only a couple of seasons or one wrong move with a wrench or something wanting their aluminium parts back.
Carbon is great for wheels, framesets, forks, and a few other items. Those will stick around. But people will tire of carbon this and that when better engineered, reasonably light al and ti parts come along. And some revolutionary tube sets will evolve for the metallic frame manufacturers. I don’t even think steel will die out completely.
Many pro teams still using AL including team Phonak.
This topic came up when Kenisis (or whatever it was called) first hit the market several years back. It faded. I don’t think Carbon will have the same fate. I think carbon will grow in market share but I also think there will always be a place for a good AL frame. I believe AL holds paint better than any of the other materials too.
That was actually a great quad that they made. Just never caught on with new innovation from Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki.
Seth,
Pure Aluminum is incredibly soft. No bike is made from pure Al, everything is an alloy. The alloy series are based on what is combined with the Al. The most common bike AL is 6061 and 7XXX series (7075, 7005), but some 2XXX is used in components as well.
By definition, the key alloying element in each of the nine groups is as follows: 1000 series = aluminum with purity of at least 99.00% (iron and silicon major impurities) 2000 series = copper is the key alloying element 3000 series = manganese is the key alloying element 4000 series = silicon is the key alloying element 5000 series = magnesium is the key alloying element 6000 series = magnesium and silicon are the key alloying elements 7000 series = zinc is the key alloying element 8000 series = other elements or special near-eutectic alloys 9000 series = not used at this time
For any given alloy system, the four-digit classification number may be followed by a letter and one or more numbers, for example 6061-T4. This letter is called the temper designation and it indicates the sequence of processes that the metal goes through to obtain certain properties, strength being one of the most important.
6061-T4, a wrought aluminum alloy with magnesium and silicon as the key alloying elements. T4 indicates that it has undergone solution heat treating and natural aging (room temperature) to a substantially stable condition.
Temper designations indicate the processes which an alloy goes through to develop strength and other properties.
The two main groupings of wrought alloys have different temper designations because they are strengthened by different methods.
Method 1: Thermal Treatment- Heat-treatable (HT) wrought alloys are strengthened by thermal methods and have temper designations which have a T (T=Thermal).
Method 2: Work Hardening- Non-heat-treatable (NHT) wrought alloys are strengthened by work hardening and have temper designations which have an H (H=Hardened by working). An O temper designation means the material in the annealed (fully soft) condition.
The heat-treatable alloy systems are the 2000, 6000, 7000, and some of the 8000 series. All the heat-treatable alloys are strong (because of their heat treatments) and are used extensively in aircraft and for other applications such as automobile body parts and of course bicycles.
I hope this helps with the understanding of Al. Al actually started as a rare element (the dome of the washington monument is Al because at the time it was rare). In 1866 Charles Martin Hall of Oberlin, OH found a reduction process (alumina (powder) is dissolved in molten cryolite and decomposed electrolytically) to commercially manufacture what is now known as Al.
Any specific question please let me know.
TJ
“I’d rather have an aluminum bike than any other material.”
I’ll trade you.
Not to be dogging you, but carbon is inherently stiffer than most materials. The difference is how it can be tuned by orientation of layers, core material (if one is used), number of plies, etc., etc. Carbon is not, by nature, elastic.
Would Marty Nothstein (with his 33" thighs) be on a carbon if it were soft? Of course not. His track bikes have been made of carbon for years. And OCLV bikes are plenty stiff for sprinting. They also get rid of a bit of road buzz.
I was playing around with carbon-wrapping stems for a short while. Enough concerns had been expressed by some that I did not offer any sort of service with that. I did some testing of my own on issues of galvanic corrosion (not a very sophisticated test; used saline solution immersion) and came to the conclusion that I knew what to do with insulating carbon from aluminium. I lent some of my stems to some engineering students and they concluded that the wrapped stems were nominally stiffer than an unwrapped stem; when testing one to the limit (one with seventeen layers of CF around the extension), the handlebar clamping mechanism snapped off (that was bare aluminium). I had decided not to carbon wrap stems prior to testing, but seeing that I could create dangerous stress risers (even after figuring out that I could chemically etch the al for bonding, as opposed to my mechanical etching) with stiffening the stem in the wrong places convinced me NOT to do it.
You can actually end up with a carbon bike weighing much heavier than it’s aluminium counterpart, and it will rattle every single filling out of your teeth. You can also build a carbon frame like a noodle. It all depends on construction technique. Al just rings more when flicked with your finger, and resonates when over imperfect road surfaces. That is not a good indicator of stiff.
And carbon-wrapped cranks (which is what your C’dale has) basically is a cheaper way to make them. Cat Carbon Bikes’ cranks (made by the friendly Kurths in Switzerland) are probably stiffer than ANY crank, save my Sweetwings.