On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 21:05:09 GMT, John Thompson
wrote:

On 2005-08-12, jim beam wrote:

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Lee:

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool steel fan....


Is there anything about Al that makes it "better" than steel besides fabrication
costs? I

yes - the ability to fabricate & use much bigger diameter tube and
therefore address shimmy through increased torsional stiffness.

So... what makes you think that steel tubing isn't available in larger
diameters? :-)

Dear John,

It is!

Or rather, was:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ... 4#long_descr

The tapered-end gaspipe of the classic Fury Roadmaster is 43
mm wide on the downtube and 38 mm thick on the top tube.

Each untapered leg of the fork is a robust 32 mm wide, the
same as the main frame tubes on my 1998 chrome-moly Schwinn
LeTour touring bike.

There is a slight weight and aerodynamic penalty, but as
Butch Cassidy remarked, that's a small price to pay for
beauty.

Carl Fogel