When you look at popular road bikes, you'll notice a significant difference in prices.

It's not as simple as saying expensive ones are rip-offs and cheap ones are honest.

Expensive bikes are expensive for a reason; they're good quality.

I'd like to explain the price differences using three types of road bike frames as examples.

Three Types of Bicycle Frames

There are three main types of materials used for bicycle frames:

・Chromoly

・Aluminum

・Carbon

Incidentally, the prices increase as you go down the list, with Chromoly being the cheapest and Carbon the most expensive.

So, material is one factor that determines price.

Also, the materials become lighter as you go down the list.

You could say that the history of bicycles has progressed from top to bottom.

As better materials have been developed, bicycles have also evolved.

Chromoly

When you hear "Chromoly," you might mistakenly think of "Kuromori" and assume it's a person's name.

In reality, it's the name of a material, and its official name is "chromium-molybdenum steel," which is an iron alloy.

Since it's an alloy, it varies somewhat, but the specific gravity of iron is 7.85.

That means 1kg of iron weighs 7.85kg.

People diet for bicycle races, and being light is a significant advantage in terms of speed.

It's easier to lighten the bicycle than for the rider to lose weight, so you'll rarely see riders with chromoly frames in races.

However, chromoly has its own charm and strengths, and there are even chromoly races where chromoly enthusiasts gather.

Aluminum

Aluminum refers to aluminum.

It's actually an aluminum alloy with a specific gravity of 2.7.

You can see that it's overwhelmingly lighter than iron.

1kg of aluminum weighs only 2.7kg.

It's only about 35% the weight of iron.

It's bound to be light.

In the old days (around 2002), magnesium alloy frames appeared.

They progressively evolved in road bike races but disappeared around 2009.

Pure magnesium was prone to corrosion (rust) and difficult to handle.

Therefore, frames were made from aluminum alloys, but I haven't seen magnesium alloy frames for sale since around 2019.

ICAN doesn't offer aluminum frames either.

Carbon

While "carbon" refers to "charcoal," carbon fiber is actually a thread-like material that is woven into shape and then baked to form the final product.

You can think of it as being similar to ceramics.

Carbon has a specific gravity of 1.8.

It weighs a mere 1.8kg for 1kg of material.

Compared to iron (chromoly), it's only about 23% the weight.

When you think of ceramics, you might imagine something fragile that breaks easily like a container, but carbon also has plastic elements and has a slight flex to it.

While iron bends when a certain amount of force is applied, carbon can withstand a certain amount of stress, but then breaks cleanly once that limit is exceeded.

It's a "tough" material, meaning it's hard and resistant to bending.

It's the same material that gained attention for being used in the main wings of the Boeing 787.

Most of the road bikes handled by ICAN are made of carbon.

As you can see in this video, just by watching the assembly process, you can clearly see the difference in lightness compared to chromoly.

He's easily holding the frame with one hand, isn't he?

How to assemble an ICAN gravel road bike to completion

Seeing it assembled from scratch like this really makes you realize it's completely different from the finished products (so-called "off-the-shelf") displayed in stores.

It's exciting to see each bike assembled by hand like this, isn't it?

Summary

There are three main types of road bike materials: chromoly (steel), aluminum, and carbon.

Of course, if you look for more minor materials, there are also titanium and wood, but carbon is the lightest material.

The specific gravities are chromoly 7.85, titanium 4.51, aluminum 2.8, and carbon 1.8.

The history of materials is the history of bicycle evolution.

Knowing about these materials, doesn't it make you want to get your hands on a carbon frame?