Alright, before I get my hopes up, I got to say (although I’m almost 100% sure it’s aluminum…) that these minute details are quite telling: the cable routers and the dropouts are different from that of a Litespeed…
Yet another of our favorite “name this elevated chainstay bike” threads…
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incorrigible
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No problem. Glad to help.Oh, and I forgot to say thank you for spending time with trying to find the bike! I appreciate it!
Besides, I love a good mystery; it brings out my inner sleuth.
I haven't tried the magnet technique on titanium, but I've read that titanium is only weakly magnetic, so a magnet might not be attracted to it.
I just did a google search, and there are a few other tests for titanium, but they are impractical:
-aluminum immersed in saltwater for a month will show corrosion, but titanium won't.
-a grinding wheel will yield yellow sparks when applied to titanium.
-titanium is supposedly dent- and scratch-resistant, but I guess that test would involve a hammer
I admit that I didn't look at all the pics at first (sleuth, indeed
); the first pic looks as if the bike might have been painted.The pic showing the rear dropout looks like the frame was once polished and then lost its sheen over time, which I believe indicates aluminum.
The welds look like aluminum welds.
Does the serial number hold any clues?
Thanks for the ideas, although using a grinding wheel on it or hammering it might not be the direction I’d like to proceed in… yetNo problem. Glad to help.
Besides, I love a good mystery; it brings out my inner sleuth.
I haven't tried the magnet technique on titanium, but I've read that titanium is only weakly magnetic, so a magnet might not be attracted to it.
I just did a google search, and there are a few other tests for titanium, but they are impractical:
-aluminum immersed in saltwater for a month will show corrosion, but titanium won't.
-a grinding wheel will yield yellow sparks when applied to titanium.
-titanium is supposedly dent- and scratch-resistant, but I guess that test would involve a hammer
I admit that I didn't look at all the pics at first (sleuth, indeed
The pic showing the rear dropout looks like the frame was once polished and then lost its sheen over time, which I believe indicates aluminum.
The welds look like aluminum welds.
Does the serial number hold any clues?
I tried magnet on it and it did not attract at all. I know titanium is weakly magnetic but it is still more magnetic than aluminum so I thought if only it attracted it slightly… but it didn’t. I’m more than certain that it IS aluminum. Like you said, the welds are also different and the tubes are much fatter than that of a titanium frame.
Your observation is spot on, here is what my impression is: either the frame has originally been polished or painted aluminum (most probably the former) that somebody took a polisher and stripped down to bare metal, leaving nothing behind (had it been painted originally, there must have been traces of it remaining around the welds but since it’s all clean I’d say it must have been factory polished.) Also, if you look at the Ringlé skewers, they look as if someone has done this polishing mentioned above with the wheels and the quick releases set and when polishing around the skewers with the machine s/he wasn’t very accurate because the polishing wheel must have ran over the Ringlés thus stripping half of the anodized black off… It is very unusual, the way they look, usually normal wear happens around the edges but here it is the flat surface, seems as if someone has polished them unintentionally…
Anyway, the stem is also completely stripped of its original color so the whole bike is a total mystery. Why someone went at such lenghts and stripped the whole bike in such an aggressive way, beats me. I simply can’t comprehend why would even someone want to think that way…
