guy153

Yes good point. When I say "they" I guess I mean "somebody in China" who may also be making the Trek 520 etc. etc. As for whether a bike company is making their own tubing we did see in that thread the other day that Trek used to do their own butting at one point. So probably not a "bike company" in the sense of a single brand, but may be a factory somewhere that makes steel frames.

unterhausen

I guess you missed it when John Thompson said Trek didn't make their own tubing, he worked there at the time. They did have a laser mitering machine, which is seemingly where the confusion came from.

I don't doubt that a big enough company could have custom draws of tubing. I swear Reynolds would do that for you BITD, even at lower volumes. But OD was a constant, and it wouldn't be in this case. I think Kona or Norco is small enough that they would have to pay for tooling and it would be a constant headache if they weren't doing what everyone else is doing. If a big enough company decided to go with a more appropriate size tubing, then all that would be hidden. But it would be hard to ignore $100k/year or whatever the tooling costs if you have to pay it yourself. When I see that some company has proprietary tubing, I figure it means they spent some time looking at the list of available tubes instead of just letting their contractor choose.

guy153

In 1980-86 they were buying in tubes as John Thompson said. But in the late 90s they were drawing and butting, not just laser cutting:

"They brought in lengths of straight gauge cromoly tubing, cut them to about a 2’ length, used a mandrel drawing machine to butt them to about 2 1/2’ length. The butted tubes were sent to a laser cutting machine where an operator placed a tube..."

Did Trek Fabricate Steel Tubes in House?

unterhausen

Well, John disagreed with that.

79pmooney

I read Andy's post and was about to write that both my Ti Cycles bikes are sleeved and that Dave Levy had told me he did that to separate choosing the best tubing for the frame and being able to offer common IDs for seatposts. Mine are 27.2, dead easy to insert seatposts and they stay put. Bikes were built in '08 and '11 and have roughly 20k each. Happy customer here. Pretty sure Dave could get it out and replace it with a sleeve of different ID if I ever wanted but I'd probably choose to not watch.

Now seatposts were something of an adventure! Bike started with an Avocet post to get enough setback (barely; seat slammed) to compensate for the 74 degree ST (my insistence to get 1) short chainstays to keep the rear wheel anchored on poorly paved mountain descents with my natural tendency to pull forward when things get interesting and 2) have room for 28c tires and fenders. Well, that post broke 2 years in on day 2 of Cycle Oregon. (Three miles from camp. So out of the saddle, following a young woman who got she was my eyes; that all I could do is look straight ahead to keep my balance at MUP speeds in traffic. She would look back and tell me what I needed to know behind me.) Bike Gallery's superb mechanic lent me a Laprade which stayed on 10 months 'till Dave could make me a super setback post. (That 27.2 - what a blessing!) By this time, my next Ti Cycles was coming along so I just had Dave make two. Second bike a fix gear and a degree steeper. The posts - black anodized machined aluminum heads with Thompson hardware and ti post. Like the ST sleeve, simply a joy to own and ride. So easy to dial in seat position.

That lead by the young woman? Miles back I'd stormed up Rattlesnake climb, doing what this born climber does. At the top I still had gas in my tank so I kept going; kept passing folk, only a lot slower because this born climber doesn't go so fast into the wind on gentle downhills. Well, three young women on good bikes and outfits jump on my wheel. I had a mirror so I watched them. Knew what they were doing. Cool! Gave then a 10 mile tow 'till my needle was on empty. Pulled off, got thanked by two of them, cool, and slid onto their wheel. Let them slide in ahead of me knowing I would just slow them down if I came to the front. A strong but clueless young man joined us and set out to (quite unwittingly) cause chaos. Eventually the women started getting dropped after they took hard pulls to stay in front of Mr. Chaos. I'd drop back, put her on my wheel and use the little bit I had left to pull her back to the group. Finally he dropped off. Then the glorious descent into town that pulled us apart. A sharp "crack" on the steep, mismatched old concrete slabs the final block before Main Street that had me off the bike looking for cause but I found nothing. Saw the women stopped at a corner, joined them, received some warm thanks and we rode on. When my seat fell off, two were up ahead and the the third right behind me. Ready to do whatever she could to help out.

My take on that? Be a gentleman on the bike. There might be karma.