Steel Frame Set Material Comparison

http://www.bgcycles.com/new-page-1/

This might be labeled as "A Tale of two frame tube sets" and I, at
least, have referred to the story a time or two with out being able to
locate the original article.

I came across it this morning by accident and thought it might be of
interest.

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Cheers,

John B.

On Saturday, May 27, 2017 at 4:25:45 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
http://www.bgcycles.com/new-page-1/

This might be labeled as "A Tale of two frame tube sets" and I, at
least, have referred to the story a time or two with out being able to
locate the original article.

I came across it this morning by accident and thought it might be of
interest.

I also found this - I think it must be pretty old though.

what is the hierarchy in the world of steel tubing for bike frames? Here’s a generalized overview/ranking (low to high), using the popular Reynolds line to represent the higher quality steels (Wabi uses the types indicated in bold):

Hi Ten: very inexpensive, and very heavy, the lowest quality level of steel used for adult bicycle frames
Cro-Mo: higher quality alloyed steel, lighter weight than Hi Ten
Butted Cro-Mo: lighter still, probably the most widely used tubing for mid priced ($650- 750) steel fixed gear bikes. It comes in many, many names, and is usually what’s used in “proprietary� tube sets from many bike manufacturers, to give it a less generic sounding name.
Reynolds 520 (note- all of the Reynolds tubing listed is butted): Reynold's version of the standard butted Cro-Mo, their entry level butted tube set
Reynolds 631: the next level up, air hardened, with higher strength and thinner wall thicknesses available
Reynolds 725: next level up, air hardened and heat treated, with thinner wall thicknesses available
Reynolds 853: very high end steel, thinner still, and lighter
Reynolds 953: a variant of stainless steel, this one rivals Ti and carbon fiber on weight, but with the ride of steel
Columbus Spirit Niobium: similar in weight to the 953, the Spirit is one of the lightest steel tubes sets available