The Pisgah Project: Tech Tuesday: Steel is Real(ly Adaptable)

"Steel is real", an idiom championed by bicycle afficionados and retro-grouches alike, seems less espoused across the cycling community today than a couple decades ago. It often means something different to each claimant, depending on which characteristic they feel makes their steel bike superior. It could be the ride characteristics, which are not muted in the way a carbon frame damps chatter and vibration, or which may be lively compared to the stiff aluminum Cannondale's of 30 years ago. It could be the old-world craftsmanship of a lugged or fillet-brazed frame, compared to the sterile uniformity of a carbon monocoque popping out of a mold. It could be eschewing the paceline with the Joneses, not cycling as a peak-consumer, but being satisfied with an affordable tool that does the job (and arguably as well, if we're not professionals chasing marginal gains). I can understand how different ethos' might make steel seem more "real" than other bicycle frame materials, but having also ridden aluminum and carbon frames since the 90's, they've all seemed real to me (titanium, which I cannot afford, simply doesn't exist). Each material had characteristics which made the ride experience pleasant or suited for its purpose, and attributes that left me wanting. There is no escape from compromise, no matter how well thought-out your decision-making process was...at some point, you'll be on the wrong bike for that road or ride, or you will evolve into a different cyclist than you were years before.

Perhaps my favorite characteristic of steel is its general friendliness to being modified. You can drill it, cut it, braze it and weld it without too many ill-effects (assuming you can do these things semi-competently). Damage steel and repair it? Easy-peasy. Want to add some extra bottle-bosses? Drill and braze. Swap a set of horizontal drop-outs? Why not?! If you find the limits of what your steel frame can do for you, a little imagination and metal-working skills will allow your frame to evolve with you, serving a new purpose than it was originally built for. Certainly, carbon can be repaired, but even adding new bottle bosses should raise concerns if you don't know how the material was laid up. Changing dropouts or adding a frame-break to a tube might border on difficult to impossible, even for a professional. Aluminum has its own challenges, as any 6xxx-series frame requires heat-treatment after welding, which is usually cost-prohibitive for frame repairs or modification (outside of adding rivnuts).

If you have a steel frame you otherwise enjoy but it's no longer doing the job for you, consider reworking it to serve that purpose. The average-joe can drill and braze with some basic, relatively inexpensive tools...some of those skills might find use elsewhere in life, whether it's sweating copper plumbing repair, or patching a radiator on an old car. Laying down a TIG weld requires a bit more expensive tooling (though, inverter machines are relatively cheap) and practice, but it's not outside of the wheelhouse of most YouTube-trained DIYers nowadays. Steel is really adaptable; make it work for you.

When I began ultra-distance and bikepack racing, I opted to modify my Ritchey P29er for additional bottle/cargo mounting points. These three bosses were added under the down-tube.

Reinforcement tabs were brazed underneath the bosses to help distribute load across the thin-walled steel tube. I also added bosses to the top of the top-tube for 'bolt-on' style frame storage. Not at all necessary, though, as many strap-on bags exist for this purpose.

I also added internal cable routing for a dropper post, with cable bosses that would accommodate the dropper cable routed from either the left side (drop bars) or right side (flat bars).

Rattle-can (Duplicolor?) paint job was reasonably durable for several years.

The Ritchey also became a victim to my single-speed obsession. Not content to run a tensioner, I decided to cut out the stock vertical drop-outs and weld in a set of simple, horizontal dropouts. I first had to machine the hoods of the dropouts down to the width of what was on the frame. Here you can see the difference.

Measure thrice, cut twice.

Welded. Poorly.

When you can't remember a bottle of chain lube for your 300+ mile ride, you might grow sick of the sound of dry, noisy chains...naturally, you would choose to modify your frame for a belt-drive. Here, I've cut the seat-stay and added a break so that a Gates belt can be slipped inside the rear triangle.

Chris King fun-bolts keeps the rear hub in place without adjusters on the dropouts. The rear brake adjustment is accomplished by swapping out 160mm and 180mm rotors, and adding/subtracting a caliper spacer as necessary.

Geared for the Cherokee Forest: 42x28.

Geared for Florida: 50x22.

Some time and a (poor) paint-job later, the cargo-cage holding my Nalgene bottle began to work the bottle-bosses loose in the frame (these were the stock bosses...not ones that I had previously added to the frame). Fortunately, a Voile strap held it all together for the remaining 400 miles of the Spanish-Indian trail (above).

After that ride, I replaced the damaged bottle-bosses, and added a mount on the seat-stay for a blinky tail-light.

Reinforcement tabs were added to the new bosses. I kinda like how the tail-light mount turned out. It's the subtle things that make it appear like I'm competent.