i'm not an expert, but this guy was.
Aluminum vs. steel
Hey y'all, I'm not so good with that kind of stuff so i figured I'd better ask. I'm playing on a 80s Bianchi steel road frame now but recently used my street bike for polo and except for the obvious disadvantages such as gear ratio, brakes etc, the geometry suited me very well. It's a specialized langster 2009. I've decided to convert it into a new polo build, but a friend of mine said today that aluminum will snap after the first bigger impact. I know some people using aluminum frames, but what are your experiences? It's clearly better weight wise. Any comments?
Cheers!
i've seen more steel frames break than aluminum. i've played on a superlight aluminum frame for a few years now, no problems.
Thanks guys, then I'm going from a road frame to the langster!
langsters make nice polo bikes, except for the tire clearance...
i think the 09 langsters all came with carbon forks. so yeah, either way i'd get a new fork.
They did! But i thought about it actually and already ordered an aluminum fork as well :)
The carbon fork gets transferred onto my future street fixed.
Hey guys, just wanted to thank you again for your feedback, after switching to 09 langster almost 2 weeks ago my performance went up 20%, while the pleasure from the play went up 50% !!!
LANGSTER polo bikes FTW!
I've passed up on some Al frames because of lots of the things I've heard second hand, but come to think of it, I personally don't know of anyone actually breaking their Al bike. Perhaps I bought into the dogma. The Sheldon Brown article was a good read. I love that site.
Hmmm... I'm already plotting another build. I should refrain... but I somehow doubt I will. Wishing I had not passed up that CX frame with the vbrake posts... damnit...
I've only broken one aluminum frame and it was after a year of playing rear disk brake and the seat stay broke away from the drop out. I prefer steel for no real scientific reason otehr than I have couplers and more friends who can fix steel than Aluminum. I've seen a lot of people play with aluminum bikes and in the end, a bike is a bike.
I've got a langster comp from 06 not for polo . You'll feel super quick I know for sure. That's a really nice bike to polo with though... The aluminum does seem bendy on mine but youll have to do something major to mess it up.
I've been beating the hell out of my voodoo bokor since 3/2010. I'm on the lighter side @ 155lbs though. Like a rented mule I beat on this frame.
Steel frames snap too! Didn't Eli from LA snap his steel frame at worlds?
The coolest part about a steel frame is that most of the time you can repair it if there's a failure. Aluminum frames ... not so much. There are some seriously burly aluminum frames out there that will outweigh a steel frame of the same size.