On 4/22/2018 11:19 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 4/22/2018 8:43 AM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Today there was a guy with a kid bike and the
saddle post was stuck in the pipe. He said it
was because the frame was of "lättmetal", which
is literally "light metal" but Google translate
gives "alloy". To me it looked like aluminium
but then again I haven't seen anything.
Is there anything known as "light metal" in the
bike frame world that I've missed?

It almost certainly was an aluminum alloy. In English, the technical
definition of "alloy" is a combination of metals, or in some cases
including a bit of a non-metal like carbon. But in English bicycling
slang, "alloy" often refers to aluminum alloys.

A bit more detail: Pure aluminum isn't useful for bike parts or anything
else requiring strength. It's light, but quite soft and weak. But if you
add a couple percent copper, zinc, or other metals to aluminum, you can
get aluminum alloys whose strength to weight ratio is better than common
steels. That's what lots of bike components are made of.

Steel is an alloy of iron plus carbon and small amounts of other metals.
Titanium alloys exist and are occasionally used in some unusual bike
parts. Brass is a copper alloy, and I suppose you might find it in some
bicycle bells. But again, in the bicycle world if a part is described as
made of "alloy" it's generally an aluminum alloy.


--
- Frank Krygowski