Bought a 29er Scandal ages ago on ebay, no idea what it’s made of. Is there any easy way of telling if it’s a magical scandium one?

Any other aesthetic changes?

Cheers!

Top tube sticker?

Iirc Scandium one says SCandAL and alloy one says scandAL or similar way of splitting the letters up.

It floats on water.

Oh cheers. Mine looks the same as the one being sold in classifieds at the moment:

http://s633.photobucket.com/albums/uu60/Wobbly-surfer/On-One%20Scandal/?action=view&current=IMG_3588.jpg

Struggling to find any that don’t look like that though.

😀

Wow I never knew they weren’t all scandium. Or am I being gullible?

Haven’t been scandium for a good 3 years now. Still made out of decent grade aluminium now though, just curious really. Not much is made out of scandium anymore it seems, Niner stopped using it, Kona still uses a bit, not much though.

Just passed my by I guess. I guess it’s all the new techniques and tubes available now after all hydro forming has come along way from the early gopping attempts.

True, not been any huge weight savings to be seen from it though. Loads of light 1500g hardtail frames made out of well butted tubes ten years back, now you get 1500g bendy hydro frames.

All the scandium frames I’ve seen were just plain tubing, as far as I know due to the scandium making the aluminium more brittle and awkward to work with.

I just stumbled across this thread because Toasty had put a link to one of my previous bikes, so thought I would comment on the latest ScandAl frame…

The link above that Toasty posted is a bike I sold so I can confirm that the older ones were Scandium (Top, Seat & Down tube I think) and as I now have one of the latest frames I can confirm that it is all Aluminium.

I weighed my old 19″ frame at 1.7kg exactly and the new one was roughly 1850g (from memory) so nothing in it really.

The newer frame I bought has a matt green finish which seems very thin.
Some of the cable guides/stops on the new frame are not positioned very well.

There is a guide for the rear brake cable/hose roughly 1″ back from the headtube underneath the top tube which means a very tight bend of cable that rubs on your frame.

The front derailleur cable routing is underneath the frame. I have had another MTB which routed from the top – far less dirt/binding issues.
The derailleur cable stops also position the cable tight against the frame because the right shifter has to go to the right hand side of the frame and the rear to the left. Once again – tight cable bends and frame rubbing.

I tried criss-crossing them under the down tube but they took the paint off the frame as the supplied BB cable router does not hold the cable far enough away from the frame.

But… For £150 I am not complaining.

I previously had a Kona Kula Deluxe 29er (R.I.P) and the On-One has more downhill-orientated geometry putting your seating position further over the back wheel.
Not quite as good for climbing but more control downhill 🙂

Latest On-One frame

I weighed my old 19″ frame at 1.7kg exactly and the new one was roughly 1850g (from memory) so nothing in it really.

New ones are nearly 10% heavier? Quite a difference I’d say.

Hmm. That doesn’t look like the ‘latest’ one to me – sorry. I bought one back in November when both the V1 and V2 were discounted to £149, and the most modern version has swapouts, routes the rear brake hose down the downtube and puts the mech cables along the top tube. The rear hose routing works if you have your rear brake on the right hand side, but isn’t terribly good for anyone running their brakes UK / moto.
I can confirm they weigh naff all. 16″ bare frame was (from memory) 1650gms when I bunged in on my kitchen scales out of curiosity.

V1 swapout frame

V2 swapout frame

wobbly-surfer’s frame isn’t the latest… no swap outs

I do like that green though, if that’s what the current racing green is like then it looks better in reality than the on one website pics show.

Usually by the way you walk.

Cheers for the info Wobbly 🙂 Just to clarify, the op wasn’t a dig of any sort. Literally just curious, mine was bought second hand way back and I had no idea what it was. I’ll have to have a look tonight.

Not that it matters hugely 🙂 Don’t seem to see much scandium about anymore, now than Niner have gone back to standard aluminium as well. Just seems to be Kona sticking with it.

Bent Udder – I see that you are correct. I was in a rush to find a new frame when my old one broke. I didn’t notice that there was a V2.

BTW – what are the ‘swapouts’?
you said “the most modern version has swapouts”
————
Regarding Kona Scandium frames, mine broke around the seatpost where it meets the top tube.

I did i bit of Googling of Scandium frame repairs and it seems that you need to use filler rod made of the same material otherwise you will not have a strong enough join due to Scandium frame tubes being thinner than standard alloy.

I figured that the cost of a repair would be at least half the price of a new On-One frame and I wanted to try newer geometry.

My seat tube max-height mark was about an inch into the frame.
———————

Regarding the On-One frame sizing & seatpost:
On-One recommended 19.5″ for riders 5ft 10″ to 6ft 2″. I am 5ft 11″ (31″ leg) and have had to get a BBB Longscraper 450mm seatpost to avoid another frame break.

There aren’t many choices in seatpost if you want 450mm or more. The BBB longscraper is the cheapest I found at around £23 but it is a bit heavy.

I wanted to make sure I had a couple of inches inserted past the top tube.
—————————-

The ScandAl has the ‘New’ tapered head-tube so to fit my old 1 1/8″ steerer forks I fitted an On-One Smoothie Mixer headset.
This works straight out of the box with 1 1/8 steerer forks.

I bought the reducer collar for tapered steerer just so that I have one for later (it was £9.99 then – not £19.99 as today)

smoothie mixer headset

I dread the thought of having to remove it in the future as it has more contact area on the frame.
I don’t think my basic 1 1/8 headset removal tool would be beefy enough
to knock that out?

I’m 6’2 and have both 18 and a 19.5 inch frame Scandals

The 18 is a touch small but has survived 2.5 years (bought already second hand) without breaking despite being less than an inch from the seat post insertion mark. I did snap a KCNC seat post though but the replacement crank brothers post has been good now for more than a year…

Edit: Actually, bit too off topic, starting a new one 😛