Steel road bikes, who has one?

[zia]

Thanks for posting this. I just upgraded my aluminum frame to steel (identical geometry). The new frame arrives in a month, and my fingers are crossed that it was worth the expense! I am attracted to the durability of steel. My husband's mountain bike frame cracked after 20 years, and it was just a matter of welding it back together. And he's good to go for another 20 years! My aluminum frame cracked (it was just 2 years old, less than 1,000 miles!), which has soured me on that material, a bit.

I've also heard the ride is great, especially over longer distances.

+1 for the Jamis bikes. They are a pretty good value. I ended up buying my first road bike used, but a Jamis was a close second. I have fantasies about finding a great steel frame at a yard sale and building it up myself... may never happen, but I do find old steel frames so beautiful.

[Wahine]

I personally do not have a steel bike but my BF runs an on-line bike shop that deals in a lot of steel. He loves it and says that a good steel bike rides better than carbon although it is heavier. I have co-worker that just bought a bike from him. This is her rain bike, it's a Soma Double Cross. She says that she thinks it's a nice to ride as her carbon Specialized Ruby.

The BF says that Soma is really good quality workmanship and materials for the price. He does custom builds - you order the frame through him and he builds the bike up with whatever you want. But a build by him would likely be out of your price range. He could build a Soma for less than $2000 but not as low as $1000. But you might be able to get a complete bike from an LBS for around $1000.

Here's his website if you're interesting in just looking at what kind of steel frames are out there that might not be the typical brands you see in an LBS. Click on frame inventory on the left and the chart can be reorganized by clicking on any of the column titles... for eg top tube length (TT) or price.

Hope that helps.

[Biciclista]

Wahine,
none of those bikes are our size!
what's up with that? I found one frame smaller than 50cm!

[Wahine]

Wahine,
none of those bikes are our size!
what's up with that? I found one frame smaller than 50cm!

Those are the frames he has in stock at the moment but he can order other frame sizes and depending on the frame, can get them in usually within a couple of weeks. The frames he has in stock are actual inventory in his shop and are frames that he thinks are really good deals that he has bought on close out from suppliers. That's part of how he keeps his prices down even though he's a small shop. He has built a lot of bikes for smaller women but most of that is done all as special order because those aren't usually frames he can get discounted from suppliers and he doesn't have the room to keep a lot inventory. He also spends a lot of time on email or the phone working with people to find the right bike or build for them.

Thanks for asking.

ETA: I just went on the site, pulled up the frame inventory and reordered the list by frame size (click on the word Size and the top of the chart) and he has 7 frames (6 steel) that are sized 48 or smaller. TT length ranges from 49.5 to 52.5. Some of the 50s have shorter TTs than the 48s.

[Lisa Holman]

Thanks for all the great input! I love the look of the Jamis bikes, our local Jamis dealer seems to have something of a bad reputation (based on online reviews), but I'll probably go have a look anyway. As far as size, I'm 5'9" so the need for a tiny frame won't be an issue.

Is Bianchi currently making steel frames?

[sfa]

Is Bianchi currently making steel frames?

http://www.bianchiusa.com/09-bicycle...oad-steel.html

My steel bike was well under the $1,000 mark......20 years ago when I bought it.

[SandyLS]

I love my Bianchi steel road bike, but it was about twice your price range around 5 years ago. Maybe something like this would work for you. http://bikesdirect.com/products/merc..._serpensIX.htm

[Wahine]

My BF charged about $1476 for this bike completed, built with Shimano 105.

[Yelsel]

+1 for the Jamis bikes. They are a pretty good value. I ended up buying my first road bike used, but a Jamis was a close second. I have fantasies about finding a great steel frame at a yard sale and building it up myself... may never happen, but I do find old steel frames so beautiful.

zia,
Sifting though Schwinn frames would definitely be worth your while -- look / ask for the serial numbers, and compare with frame quality -- there are tons of resources for interpreting Schwinn serial numbers on the web. I'm sure at some point you will stumble across a great frame at next to nothing. You can run modern indexed bar-end shifters on frames that have downtube shifters, I believe.

Also, many people will not touch bike frames with a french bottom bracket, since these are no longer made. If the bottom bracket is in good condition (e.g. cranks turn smoothly!), and the teeth on the chainrings are in great condition, and you like the crankset (crank arm length, chainring setup), then it can be worth getting. You will likely get a great deal on the frame, but might need to spend more money several years down the line to get chainring / crankset replacements.

Or even just paying a bit more for a known quantity -- my Bianchi Eros was not a bargain price, but I had fun so far decking her out in bling, and I'm now planning to slowly upgrade components.