Butting
● Butted tubing is the norm for steel or aluminium bikes. Unlike straight-gauge tubes, which have a uniform wall thickness along their length, butted tubes have thicker walls at the end, where they’ll bear more stress, such as at the bottom bracket. By reducing thickness in the middle of the tube, frame weight is lowered. Tubing can be single-butted, where the walls are thicker at just one end; double-butted, where it’s thicker at both ends; or triple-butted, where the tube has three different wall thicknesses, reducing weight further while retaining strength around the weld areas.
Thru-axles
● For years, the wheel-securing standard was the 5mm quick-release skewer, inserted through the dropouts and hub axle (9mm front, 100mm rear), then clamped in place. The increasing dominance of disc brakes has…
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Cycling Plus (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2025