After posting the link to the 1934 Reyhand, I thought about all the very early aluminum machines. In the report on the Great Arizona Bike Race of 1894 (Bicycle Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 4), there was mention of aluminum bikes, but it seems they did not make it to the start due to problems. It seems that while aluminum has been around as a material for more than a century, its early applications (before good alloys were available) was plagued with problems.
So that brings up the question of when aluminum bikes and parts became reliable. By the mid-1930s, they certainly were almost totally reliable. Aluminum frames still had a higher failure rate than steel, but probably not much higher than many modern materials. Aluminum cranks seem to have had a good reputation by then (see the CR archives on why racers did not use them), and that 1934 Reyhand mentioned in the previous post survived totally intact for decades under a less-than-mechanical lady owner. Similar bikes were ridden in technical trials, Paris-Brest-Paris, etc.
Were the 1930s really the breakthrough decade? I haven't seen much aluminum used on 1920s bikes... Does anybody have some insights?
Jan Heine
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