Get a free comfort fitting ($30 value) with any bike purchase from Bike Worx.                                                        Whether it is Aluminum, Carbon, Steel or Titanium Bike Worx will let you try it before you buy it.  Come talk to our professional staff to see what is right for you.

Cannondale Road frames are built with in house custom lightweight oversized aluminum tubes that eliminate lateral frame flex for awesome transfer of power in climbs and sprints.  Cannondale measures the performance and durability characteristics of all frames and components in their Q-lab to ensure an end product quality of 100%.  Once you own a Cannondale you won't look back.  Be sure to check out the new six13 frame incorporating carbon main tubes for more vibration damping benefits.               

Lemond Road one of the few titanium and steel frame manufacturer in the world using laser mitering technology which makes for perfectly welded joints.  The end result is a stronger and lighter frame with the feel of steel.  Lemond frame geometry studies the efficient climbing position of the great Greg Lemond, putting the rider behind the pedals which makes for a more complete and powerful circular rotation of the cranks.

Fitting Systems we use to ensure a proper fit for your style of riding.

Bicycle Fit

Bike Fit Kit

Frame Fatigue Test

LIGHT AND STRONG

”Pfffffft, pfff, pfffffft .....” For two long weeks the computer-controlled pneumatic cylinders in the EFBe laboratory carry out the heaviest work and trachten for the frame fauchend after the life. The best of the best take the machine two days of hard work - and still they do not give up! Three light frames make it through the torture without visible marks. After 200.000 strokes output - divided in pairs - which visibly distort even the stiffest frames, the computer switches the test off for Cannondale, Trek and Principia according to plan.

A sensational result, in view of the tender tubes and enormous test loads. Also for Manfred Otto comes the surprising result: "Those are the lightest frames that ever came across the EFBe test stand, and in addition, they are also the most durable." The Time Carbon frame only barely fails because of the hurdle, and succumbs to a break at the chain stay after 182.000 footsteps in the heart of the frame. Likewise the second lightest frame in the comparison does very well and thereby exceeds all expectations: Schmolke's frame manufactured from inexpensive Russian titanium cracks after 160.000 cycles. Klein's Quantum Race fails in fewer cycles: after 132.000 cycles the down tube breaks. Below that comes Merlin's titanium splendor, the Team Road, and - based on the price -gives the largest disappointment: the frame breaks at only 106,000 cycles. Stevens' RPR4-Modell forms the tail end of the light frames, but it is the least expensive one with distance.

Steel in crisis: De Rosa's SLX quickly breaks after 57.000 cycles and does not come half as far as Bruegelmann's Barellia frame from the same tubing. Interestingly enough both break in the same characteristic way, scarcely above the lower head tube lug - a type of break, by the way, the TOUR tester has already seen in the field. The Fondriest frame, extremely light for steel, does not make it past the first load class and breaks like the much heavier Nishiki frame after scarcely 80,000 cycles.

Numbers and facts of the tested frames

(1) Price for frame set with fork in DM. (2) tested for 100.000 cycles at 1.200 N, then increased to 1.300 N. (3) Head tube stiffness / bottom bracket stiffness.

INTERPRETATION

The results are surprising and pleasing in their clarity. Pleasing, because they prove that by thoroughly thinking through the construction all desired positive characteristics are compatible together: durability, rigidity and minimum weight are not mutually exclusive properties. No question that some future purchase decisions will be shaped by this result.

Nevertheless the results require interpretation so that no misunderstandings develop. None of the tested frames is precarious or dangerous according to our estimate. Even to the "worst" frames in this test the following applies: the color of their bikes will no longer please most racers before the expected life span is reached. Strong and heavy riders, who proceed consistently with high force application, should however access the frames that can be proven more durable.

Because only one sample was tested in each case, no predictions about the quality and the scatter can be made about other frames in the series. During welding and brazing substantial deviations from the sample result are not unusual. It makes little sense to compare too closely the number of load cycles obtained. With this test it depends not on 10.000 or 20.000 cycles more or less, but on the order of magnitude: for example, the Time frame (182,000 cycles) and the Russian titanium (160.000) do battle in the same league. Beyond all imponderables of the sample investigation, however, the test altogether supports the thesis of durable lightweight construction: the results from the light frames with complex design cluster together at the top end of the results, frames of less expensive and heavier construction at the lower end.

The fact that aluminum and carbon frames in this test lasted longer than the steel frames is not in our estimate a question of the material, but the design effort. Not the material, but its skillful use gives the result. However, the manufacturers concentrate their design efforts in a logical way on frames with good potential for light weight construction - and those are made from aluminum or carbon, and only rarely (because of low rigidity) from titanium.