Safety standards

xtaffa

Gary Fisher Fan
Reading a recent Tom Ritchey interview, he talks about light steel forks dying out for not being able to meet changing safety standards in the 90s, which changed because of the emergence of composite forks and their fragility in impacts... I have a vague memory of a similar safety standards observation/discussion on another forum re. Modern steel MTB frames v early 90s frames, which meant really light, noodly steel frames we impossible to bring to market now.

Is this right and/or have steel frame builders managed to innovate around these to give a similar ride and weight to a top end early 90s frame?
 
It's right.
They have (quite recently) updated the fatigue testing standards for bicycle frames.
You'll never get a steel frame as good as you could ~5 years ago. Unless you get custom (who don't technically need to meet the standard)
 
Re:

Cheers Matt - shame, but I guess also makes the retro steel rides even more valuable/special I suppose... did a forum search just now (who knew?!) and turfed up this thread which has lots of great contributions in it on this exact subject:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=373561
 
Back
Top