I just bought a "new" used track bike frame, my first aluminium frame. It's the stiffest freaking frame I've ever ridden. When I stand up, there is ~no~ flex in the bottom bracket area at all. Not compared to what I've been used to in riding steel all my life.
This has nothing to do with cameras. I just wanted to brag about my new bike <vbg>. And, to second what Keith said about aluminium - even though he doesn't know how to spell it <vbg>. It's not the metal itself, it's what one does with it (in the case of bikes, make the walls thin, oversize the tubes for stiffness, so you still get a light frame). regards, frank Keith Whaley wrote: > I've dealt with designing and fabricating parts out of aluminum for most > of my professional life, and in the past 25+ years for aero- and outer > space programs and let me tell you, there are aluminum alloys available > that can match the strength and come close to the thermal expansion of > good steel. > What the average consumer has been exposed to are soft and weak, > comparatively speaking. > > No reason to expect that the camera industry wouldn't have just much > interest in making parts of the best aluminum alloys, with properties > chosen to do the job. > Which is not to say that there aren't some parts from manufacturers who > don't care about ultimate strengths and dent resistance and wear > properties, but I can assure you, the major manufacturers certainly do. > > keith whaley > -- "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer