One of my favorite hobbies is the outdoor sport, mountain biking. The feeling of triumph after climbing a long, rocky hilltop trail is like no other. There are also the teeth-chattering, shirt-flapping, winding descents. Hold that thought. Teeth-chattering? The comfort and quality of a ride is a big deal to any cyclist, regardless if they are on or off road. And teeth-chattering is definitely not an adjective that a cyclist would want to use to describe their ride. When a harsh ride is encountered on a bicycle, cyclists often make the common mistake of attributing the harshness of the ride to the material that the bicycle is made of. There is an old wives' tale that says that aluminum frames produce a body-jarring ride, and that steel frames yield a buttery-smooth ride. I have ridden both aluminum and steel frames on the same mountain trails, and never noticed a difference in how smooth or harsh the ride was.
When looking for a topic to post a blog about, the validity of that myth was the most interesting that I had in mind. I Google-searched the query, "bicycles + steel tubing vs. aluminum", and found an article written by Sheldon Brown, a man that I consider as the Internet's Bicycle Guru. (I often find myself reading one of his articles as a DIY guide to fixing my bicycles.) In this article, he says that the material is not to be blamed for discomfort (or praised for comfort). Rather, the troublemakers are things that the rider can choose. The common factors of discomfort that Brown points out are rider position, tire choice, saddle choice and bicycle geometry. He also goes into an argument showing that both materials can achieve the same desired riding qualities but with different tube diameters and wall thicknesses. I would dive further into the details, but I don't want to go overboard on this post and bore the reader about tube thickness, diameter and other bicycle frame what-nots. So there you have it. If you ever claimed that the stiffness (or harshness) of ride was because of the bicycle's material, you're wrong! But don't feel alone, I have made this mistake as well.
If you are interested in finding out more about frame materials and what qualities they produce in a bicycle, go here.
-George Wong
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