Only ever rode Steel or Ti hard tails , started with a Marin Bobcat Trail ( Tange) in 95 , Kona Caldera ( Kona DB) in 97 , Cove Handjob ( Columbus) in 05 .
More recently, a few years back an Onza Jackpot made from double butted 4130 Chromo . Finally after all those years a Curtis , a mix of 853 and Columbus.
As much as I was happy with the Jackpot the Curtis is in a different league altogether ride and handling wise . Some of that may be down to the geometry as the Onza was a 10 year old design but am I kidding / justifying to myself about the Curtis because of how much it cost ?
Thinking more about it I reckon the Jackpot was like a more modern version of the Inbred I had DN6 ? tubing ?.
Any thoughts?
I reckon it's the same with Ti frames , years ago I tried a Litespeed , it was painfully ( literally)clear that was designed for out and out racing , yet the Cove Hummer I had , also made by Litespeed was completely different in ride feel so much so I've still got it 👍
I've also got a 2012 Kona Raijin made by Lynskey and I can still ride that for hours in complete comfort.So maybe they aren't allowed the same?
I don't believe they are, but it's hard to know how other factors might affects that.
My dad's very old, rigid Kona Kilauea (I think, one of their higher end hardtails of the early 90s) was light, flexy, springy and fun.
My first gen Charge Duster was a heavy tank, although I loved it once I had adapted my riding to suit 😆
My custom 853 gravel frame has been underwhelming, certainly not living up to any of the hype surrounding 853 although it is not unenjoyable to ride. I don't know if the builder just erred on the side of stiffness or robustness, or maybe even mixed in some cheaper or plain gauge tubes (I was given reason to believe from a knowledgeable third party that the seat tube at least might not actually be 853).
I certainly do think it boils down to more than just 'steel'. Tube selection and geometry must play a big part.
not, i don not think they are all the same.
back in the time of white onza porcipines i was the proud owner of a couple of very nice classy hardtails.
a pre trek bontrager privateer, then a 853 rock lobster. both were light, flexy and springy.... yet they rode fantastic.
just so comfy and nice to ride.
in total i have owned 20 or so steel framed bikes... possibly more. some good some rubbish.
a big number of those were Surly frames. crap gas pipe tubbing, like riding a iron gate to most, but i kind of love that feeling nowadays from a bike.
on a side note..... Ti felt no better than a good steel frame.
Isn't it usually put down to ISO tests, long suspension forks and disc brakes meaning they have to be beefy. Custom bikes that aren't tested can get around this.
What's the question? Are all steel frames the same? No, definitely not. I've owned 2 - Handjob and Genisis IO (still going) - felt very different. Also ridden one of those Charge frames a while ago and it was horrible - stiff, lifeless and punishing.
IMO there’s a big difference between a cheap frame made from plain gauge chro-mo tubing and something made from a branded, butted tubing. Mass-produced frames designed to meet the ISO fatigue test tend to be overbuilt, consequently heavy and ‘dead’ feeling whereas a frame made from a tube set suited to the weight of the rider will have a degree more ‘springiness’.
I've ridden a whole bunch of steel frames at various price points over the last 35 years, many of them loved by journos and fanboys of the time. I wouldn't choose any of them over the cheap aluminium frames I'm riding now (unless I was anticipating needing to get them welded up by an artisan blacksmith in the backstreets of Lagos).
The hardtail reviews over on bikepacking.com are incredibly detailed and really get into the feel of the frames.
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/hardtail/
I’m not someone who changes bikes much at all but I’m annoyingly sensitive to all sorts of details and I can tell you that my Moxie feels far smoother than you’d expect from a production hardtail built strong enough to pass all the tests with a 170mm fork. Pipedream claim this is thanks to a custom butted heat treated 4130 tubeset, which doesn’t even need a headtube gusset.
Although steel is comparatively stiff it’s also great for making springs out of, so you can absolutely build a frame that is very strong but also very springy - strength and stiffness are two different things. Push the strength up at the weak points through thicker materials, alloys that are less weakened by welding or clever gussets and you can then allow flex in other points where the loads aren’t like to cause failure.
OP - the onza jackpot had weird geometry, my brother had one for a short while. Reach was hilariously short even when it was released (400mm iirc on the large or XL), with short chainstays. He maintains it’s the easiest bike he’s ever had to wheelie, but it weighed and absolute tonne.
Different frames are different, just as aluminium and carbon bikes can feel more or less flexy depending on how built. All in the design. Big fan of my stooge.
had a Genesis steel road bike (equilibrium) which was good, noticeably less fatigued on longer rides
100% not the same.
I’ve had a number of steel bikes and still own one, but I think you really get what you pay for. My Genesis bikes were, like my On-ones, lumpen, dull things, but my Cotic and especially my Independent Fabrications were sensational things, despite being geometrically similar to the others.
Similarly with titanium. I’m fortunate to have owned over 20 titanium bikes, some stiff as a board, some as noodley as wet pasta, again with similar geometry. It’s the architecture of the frame which seems to make the difference, the right tube shapes and butting in the right locations coupled to the right geometry make ALL the difference.
On paper my Litespeed and my Tempest V4 are similar bikes - Ti Gravel bikes with a very similar spec, but the Litespeed rides sooo much better.
Echo that about reach @superstu also about the weight. I remember when I sold the frame , when the new owner let me know he'd received it he said " I didn't realise it would be that heavy" !
As I said it was a similar ride to the Inbred when I moved on to the Handjob that was night and day .
I should bear in mind the bike cost me £700 all in which is what I paid just for the Curtis frame ( right place right time 😉)
The basic physics is this.
All steel as a material is basically the same stiffness.
Posh steel is stronger. 853 is stronger than 520 (520, DN6 etc. are all 4130)
So if you make the same frame with the same external dimensions out of 520 and 853 the 853 can use thinner tube walls. The 853 frame is then less stiff because of the thinner tubes.
I’m going to echo what Daffy’s said. Two extremes: original Cotic Roadrat, not what you’d call a high end frame by any means, but twangy as ****, lovely to ride / Genesis Day One (Reynolds 725(?), dead as a doorknob.
Can even tell the difference between those who cheap out and have "main tubes" and "full tubeset" on some frames.
Had an MTB with straight gauge steel stays and then the following year with tapered/butted and the same main frame. A noticeable difference, i even rode them back to back in the early part of the season (with exactly the same build).
But as with anything, something designed with a bit of thought can make use of the material properties a lot better than something just thrown together.
Definitely not all the same.
Almost every hardtail I've owned has been steel. I touched on it in the bikes you should never have sold or bought discussion, I bought a steel '04 Kona Explosif frame expecting a nice, twangy ride similar to the 90s Konas. However, it just felt dead. Replaced with a mk1 Soul and the contrast was huge - shows the difference a nice tubeset can have.
Mk1 Roadrat was indeed lovely and twangy as **** as Watty says above (10+ years of commuting on mine before it was flattened under a car - gutted). Replacement later Roadrat was nice too.
Genesis Altitude 853 was lovely.
On One 456 Summer Season was built of scaffolding and dead feeling, but the geometry made up for it. Was great for short, stupid blasts but awful on long days out.
Singular Swift I didn't get on with, just felt lumpen and dead feeling. Looked great though!
Mk2 Soul in 'custard' was another nice feeling steel frame.
BFe Max (853 main tube only?) had less of the twangy feel but somehow still felt more compliant than I expected. Stupidly good fun.
Cascade 853 is simply lovely. Even better now I've upsized to 29x2.2s from 700x50s.
Geometry matters most, then tube diameter for stiffness. High end steels have greater tensile strengths so the walls can be thinner, but you may have larger diameter tubes. There was no difference between Reynolds 501 and 531 frames i had other than weight. Titanium rides like steel because the tubes are similar diameter. And weighs less of course. Any steel frame with a two inch diameter down tube will not have a flexy bottom bracket 😉
Tubing defo makes a difference but then so do many other factors. BITD the difference was huge between a gas pipe frame and something like Tange Prestige but as has been said regulations have closed the gap a bit.
Nicest riding modern steel bike I've had was my Pace RC627 which was 853.
What Ampthill and TiRed have said. Long, thin wall tubes are heading towards denting and buckling failures, so it is the high strength of stuff like 853 that allows their use.
I've played with tube shape on otherwise similar tube builds and it makes a small difference - eg this was squashing a round top tube into an oval to give a bit more lateral stiffness and a stronger seat tube junction. It made no difference to the comfort at the saddle - that came from tyres plus saddle plus bending of the skinny 27.2mm seatpost and slack seatpost angle (effective seat angle wasn't slack, but I put a curve in the seat tube, so the post itself was at 66 degrees so measurably bending).
I've got an early Croix de Fer and a Secan 3 which really shows what the same frame designer can do when they can build exactly what they want rather than what they need to build. Nothing wrong with the Croix de Fer but it's definitely a slightly dead feeling frame and it's ended up as my turbo trainer bike.
I've had a few steel bikes over the years, all a bit different from each other. By far the comfiest was a 1992 rocky mountain blizzard. I had it in the early 2000's as a knock about bike, and even though my main bike was a cannondale CAAD5 hardtail, which was pretty comfy, the blizzard just felt different. damped, not dulled like the cannondale, springy is a word that's used a lot and until you ride a springy bike, it's difficult to explain. it feels like the give in the frame propel you forward, not just preventing you from getting too beat up. it's quite exhilarating, zipping along a trail and being 'encouraged' by the bike.
I had a rigid 1996 Kona Kilauea too, probably around 2003-4, that was similar, but not quite as active, but the geometry was perfect at the time. took that to glentress a few times too and loved it. handled very well.
bought a Mk1 Cotic Soul as a main bike and loved it. I don't think it had the spring of the old bikes but wasn't far off I think. though I was running it with quite a light seatpost (27.2 XTR post) and the way it rode was great. Very quick and on the regret list..
Had a couple of inbreds, an 853 that I didn't mesh with, and a DN6 ran rigid which was nice enough, but not like the others.
last one was a mk1 solaris. honestly, not a bad bike, rode like a bike, but it didn't give the feedback that I was expecting. geometry was good though so rode predictably.
so from my experience, the newer the steel frame, the less 'steel feel' you get. the caveat being that the nicer frames I'd ridden was at a time when geometry was changing, materials were changing, and we weren't at the LLS revolution. most of my bikes were running 100-110mm stems (on a large bike) and the old bikes not much more than that. there has been a few years since then and a few years riding gradually longer and slacker bikes, so swapping to older style geo now, like going back to 26" wheels from years of 29's feels weird and takes some time to get used to.
a couple of things prevent me from getting another steel frame, one being the standards for off the peg have anecdotally meant that frames are less pingy, and more dead, as they need to pass the tests. on top of that, steel frames are aimed at do it all, including bike packing. which means they need to be robust, which makes me think they'll be a bit on the heavy and purposeful feeling.
There are custom 'race' frames out there from lots of fabricators, but they are expensive (out of my price bracket), and quite rightly so I think. you're paying for decent tube sets and a lot of experience in creating something that should be as lively as you need and strong enough to cope with it.
BITD the difference was huge between a gas pipe frame and something like Tange Prestige but as has been said regulations have closed the gap a bit.
But also... BITD... downtubes and toptubes were way too short... longer tubes give you more to play with, especially when you get into custom butting and ovalising. You can dial in the comfort and grip without having your BB or headtube wobbling all over the place.
Short version - no. Taking out all the geometry stuff, I've had a lot of steel frames and some have ridden really "nicely" and had all the qualities you expect of a steel frame for "proper" mountain biking and some have had all the qualities of riding something made of scaffolding (Dialled Bikes Love/Hate - I'm looking at you).
Even with newer frames and associated testing to pass there seems to be room to make a difference still, I think possibly in the chainstay/seatstay area is where you seem to see the biggest changes between frames so possibly the front triangle is a bit more constrained?
My Big Bro has pretty straight & round 4130 tubing straight to the slotted dropouts and is what I'd describe as 'sturdy' feeling in general with additional gussets in places too (but it is designed to be a bikepacking/adventure type frameset and get loaded up).
In contrast my Ritchey P29er is fancier tubing but also has noticeably skinnier stays that loop down to the dropout (and the dropout is a more traditional small round bucket/boss type so less material around it). The rear triangle is a lot more forgiving and comfortable even running smaller volume tyres and the whole bike in general feels lighter and more responsive to inputs. They're very different even running near-identical builds.
Very different IME.
My Ritchey P20 was incredible. Very light, beautiful to ride with the down side being the flex. Hard cornering you could almost feel the rear turn in after the front. Fabulous though.
Bontrager OR was noticeably stiffer, but comfortable measured ride. It’s the one I’d have back.
On one 456 was the cheapest and harshest frame of any material I’ve ever owned. It proved how good a tubeless tyre improved the ride quality. The handling was great though and a hoot to ride.
Mk3 Cotic Soul was a great blend of handling and ride quality, only changed to go 29 with the Solaris.
Solaris was a QR version and I didn’t like the flex, the ride was good, comfortable.
More recently we’ve had 853 based gravel bikes. I had a Fairlight Secan and my wife has a Niner RLT. The Secan felt like it came from a road bike background, truly sublime ride. The skinny tubing wasn’t great when fully loaded touring, so it’s been replaced. The ride was so nice it nearly stayed, but it need to be able to do everything including touring. The Niner feels more mtb and is noticeably stiffer when loaded but maintains a nice ride.
Ive always loved steel bikes, part of it I think comes from the fact my first bikes were steel. I’m actually at the first point in around 25yrs that I don’t own a steel bikes, but that’s mainly as I’ve gone titanium instead.
There's no stiffness standard to work to for mass production so it varies. People vary too, some of us at 6'3" weigh 75kg, some of us at 5'5" are heavier and stronger. Then there's gravel/touring bikes that pass MTB tests (old CdF) and similar more recent bikes of the same type that pass road tests.
There's bikes listed here I've ridden and thought they were almost scarily flexible, there's bikes that suggest loaded riding yet lack stiffness and are prone to shimmy, there's bikes that flex a bit when pushed hard and bikes that are too stiff and never budge. I liked stiffer bikes when I was younger and a fair bit stronger from climbing regularly.
'It depends'.
These days my fave steel road bike for short rides is relatively stiff, my fave long days road bike is classic OS size lugged 631 and would fail ISO if tested but it feels lovely, just right for how I ride and I'm more confident in that frame and fork than a random carbon bike.
I also think the ISO tests are BS for steel bikes, they ramp up the loads to shorten the time needed for the test and that penalises steel, but them's the rules.
I've got an early Croix de Fer and a Secan 3 which really shows what the same frame designer can do when they can build exactly what they want rather than what they need to build. Nothing wrong with the Croix de Fer but it's definitely a slightly dead feeling frame and it's ended up as my turbo trainer bike.
Can't blame Dom for the stiffness of the CdF, it was before his stint there. It passed MTB testing at the time and was specced to handle touring loads. Zingy no, but durable. The tube spec it had wasn't that large/thick wall, basically a Super OS main frame spec vs a the sizes in a lugged OS tubeset. You'd be suprised what some steel frames use now.
I've had a couple of Ti frames, and several steel frames over the years ...
Inbred - not sure which year/model, but I thought it had a nice, lively, springy feel, so suspect it was pre-stricter crash-testing.
One One 45650b - I can't really recall what it 'felt' like TBH, all I know is that I really enjoyed it (so much so that, after I sold my first one, I bought another frame and built up another a few years later). It was my first 'properly-capable' MTB (after a series of Carreras / Boardman's) so suspect it was more the 650b wheels, better tyres and a decent fork!
Ragley BigWig - a fun and capable bike, but rather 'dead' feeling ...
Pipedream Moxie - definitely has some magic in the frame feel. It's not springy, but feels nicely damped, composed, unruffled ... The best HT I've ridden/owned by far.
Swarf Contour - harder to tell, what with it being a FS. I think, like the Moxie, it had a good 'damped' feel to the frame, which muted trail chatter quite well, but I can't really tell beyond that.
Genesis Fortitude - I set this up as a SS monster-cross, but moved it on within a couple of months. Partly, too long for me. But, I thought the ride feel was pretty dead and lumpen ...
Cotic Escapade - much more the nimble SS (with a tensioner) gravel bike I was looking for, although I was not 'blown away' by the 'steel feel' as such. It was too small for me (toe overlap) and I needed to raise funds for another project.
On One Pompino - It was OK. Again, too big for me, shit wheels, shit rim brakes, so I didn't really gel with the bike. Felt both a bit noodly but also quite dead.
Genesis Day One - great bike overall, ride feel is nothing remarkable, but it's OK.
On One Vandal (Ti) - lovely light, springy feel - not as composed as my Moxie, but lighter and faster.
On One Pickenflick (Ti) - lovely ride - even for a cheap frame! Had a quick go on a Tempest once, and thought that felt heavier/deader.
So, I do think different bikes/frames feel different. But a lot does also come down to wheels, tyres and other components in my view.
Geometry matters most, then tube diameter for stiffness. High end steels have greater tensile strengths so the walls can be thinner, but you may have larger diameter tubes.
I had a lovely mk1 solaris. unfortunately even with an angleset the head angle was about 69 degrees. and rear tyre clearance was limited.
I could noticably flex the thing when standing up and pedalling. But, and I cant really qualify this, it was in a good way.
If I could find a steel frame that felt the same at the rear, but a decent trail head angle and room for a 2.5/2.6 in the back, I might change my current opinion on hardtails.
Oh and it had routing for bare cables under the top tube. And no provision for an internal dropper. Product of its time I guess.
I had a lovely mk1 solaris. unfortunately even with an angleset the head angle was about 69 degrees. and rear tyre clearance was limited.
Read that and thought "no way it was that steep" but yeah, they had a 70 degree head angle on the medium/large
Read that and thought "no way it was that steep" but yeah, they had a 70 degree head angle on the medium/large
and the size S got a 69 HTA - "an unfortunate necessity to avoid toe overlap" so you didn't get to enjoy the handling benefits of the 70.
“and the size S got a 69 HTA - "an unfortunate necessity to avoid toe overlap" so you didn't get to enjoy the handling benefits of the 70”
Geometry has really changed a lot in 15 years! Cy’s comments on bar height and stack height say a lot about how we’re positioned so differently on modern bikes:
”Even though the Solaris has short head tubes as 29ers go, the 29er layout does make it hard to get bars low if you like that, so we'll be recommending flat bars mostly and sizing you guys up carefully to make sure it's spot on for you. It's also hardened my resolve not to do a small size. If I'm 6ft 3in and I found the bike felt too high with anything other than flat bars on it, then there's no way small size people are going to get anything out of a 29er in my opinion, or certainly nothing apart from something that rolls quick but has your bars higher than your ears so you can't it throw around, and where's the fun in that? A bike you can't chuck around certainly is not a very Cotic bike, that's for sure.”
Nowadays loads of us are running big riser bars on 29” front ends with more travel and lower BB heights so the grips are way higher!
Back to the flex thing, he also said”
”The Ovalform top tube is larger than the Soul to tie down the higher head tube properly and account for the longer frame.”
And that’s a VERY short frame compared to a modern steel hardtail (like a current Cotic). And on something with a big stiff fork (I have a 160mm Lyrik on my bike) there’s going to be a lot more leverage around the headtube than back in the days of 100mm travel 32mm stanchion forks, especially if you’re running big grippy tyres.
I think that’s where the flex of different hardtail frames really shows up, when you’re riding hard downhill, especially off camber rough and flat loose corners.
And on something with a big stiff fork (I have a 160mm Lyrik on my bike) there’s going to be a lot more leverage around the headtube than back in the days of 100mm travel 32mm stanchion forks, especially if you’re running big grippy tyres.
I think that’s where the flex of different hardtail frames really shows up, when you’re riding hard downhill, especially off camber rough and flat loose corners.
100%. The difference the fork length makes in testing and the tube spec needed to pass is dramatic. Frames are now built to pass the tests rather than for ride quality, or it's ride quality within the permissible range. Cotic do a very good job of maximising the ride feel there, as do Fairlight on the road side of things.
'Bontrager OR was noticeably stiffer, but comfortable measured ride. It’s the one I’d have back. ' I've had one , and it was definitely a bike of its time as the geometry was a bit 'roadie' even then. SO to the original question, no, they're not all the same as that one stood out as being great on gentle trails, not good on tech and was very flexy round the BB.
In contrast a Yo Eddy was like riding a big BMS and zero flex, and super twitchy. I'd like to get my example of that back.
It's difficult to generalise I think as you need to separate geometry from the characteristics of the particular tubeset. That would be truer for old bikes as geometry has matured quite a lot , and for the better. But just assuming a steel bike will feel 'zingy' and bring the trails alive is a triumph of marketing.
Ditto for Ti. Cheap ti is far from guaranteed to feel especially good or have a long life span.
