Joe, perhaps you remember your engineering materials courses better than I, but I think yield strength is a term properly applied to the material, not the the tubes made from it. Doubt that two high quality non-heat treated alloy steels like 531 and Vitus 971 would vary much in yield strength. It may be though, that Vitus had thinner walls than 531 forks, resulting in the easier bending. Maybe that is why Rivendell uses Vitus frame tubes but as for as I know, uses only Reynolds forks. I'd think the curreent Vitus tubes are different fom 971, but maybe they still make forks too light.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Joseph Bender-Zanoni wrote:
> Vitus would even seem to be less favored by the French manufacturers.
> Reynolds was favored which says a lot given the French preference for
> things French. When I sold a lot of Motobecanes, about a third of the high
> end bikes would have misaligned forks (bent back) (they had the flimsiest
> boxes in the business). Straightening these Vitus forks would be all too
> easy. I liked the ride of these bikes but I tended to sell them to lighter
> built riders.
>
> To put it in my usual engineering terms, I do not think Vitus tubes
> achieved the yield strength of competitive tubes.
>
> Joe
>
> At 11:03 PM 11/10/00 -0500, Russ Fitzgerald wrote:
> >If memory serves me, Rivendell still uses some Vitus tubes in some frames.
> >They are apparently still around, still using steel.
> >
> >I know it was available at least as early as 1973, as it was used on the
> >repair of a frameset that was rebuilt that year with Vitus for top and seat
> >tubes.
> >
> >My perception is that the better Vitus stuff was as good as anything
> >Reynolds made - but like all things French, it was vastly under-rated.
> >
> >Russ Fitzgerald
> >Greenwood SC
> >rfitzger@emeraldis.com