I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind about tubing comparisons. The first is that the weight and riding style of the rider has a lot to do with whether they like the tubing or not. 7/4/7 tubing with a 1" top tube is perfect for me but not for somebody that weighs 235 lbs instead of my 135.
Columbus SP and SL tubing was heat treated to some degree. You can see it on the surface of the tubes when you take them out of the box. They varied in color from golden to dark burnished blue or red tone. Aelle was not heat treated and just a normal gray color. I remember seeing a video of Columbus making tubing at the New York show probably sometime in the 70's. After the tubes had been butted, the words "SECRET PROCESS" (like "pow", "bam" in a Super Hero comedy book) blanked out whatever they didn't want to show. This, I understand, was the treating process.
I never had any affection for it. I couldn't see spending many hours custom making a frame and then trying to save $20 on a set of tubes. I've had several sets of it in my shop but I think it came from when I collected stuff from Melton when they went under in Delaware, Ohio.
Doug Fattic Niles, Michigan USA
On 1/16/09 9:18 PM, "classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org"
<classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org> wrote:
> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:11:27 -0800
> From: Peter Brueggeman <4peebee@peterbrueggeman.com>
> Subject: Re: [CR] Columbus Aelle tubing
> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Message-ID: <000901c97840$88405f90$6401a8c0@AD.UCSD.EDU>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> Kevin Ruberg asks "Anyone have any experience ... with Aelle straight gauge
> tubing? ... I am wondering if it just a less expensive tubeset to produce
> an economy frame ... or are there distinct differences in say durability
> handling etc. ..."
>
> Bicycle Guide ran a story by Alan Cote entitled "The Magnificent 7, the
> ultimate blind test?" using seven Mondonicos built the same (frame, paint,
> and parts) with seven different Columbus tubesets. The bikes were ridden,
> and the author concluded:
>
> "... The bike I liked best, which I also thought was the stiffest, was ...
> the Neuron frame. The one I thought was the softest was ... the SLX frame.
> The one that seemed to absorb vibrations best was .... the Thron frame. I
> could perceive no real difference between ... Cromor ... Brain ... Aelle...
> and... EL-OS. ... To be honest, I couldn't feel a difference between an
> Aelle frame - with straight-gauge tubing and weighing in at 4 pounds 12
> ounces - and an EL-OS frame - with double-butted, oversize thin-wall
> Nivacrom tubing and only 4 pouncs of heft. A conclusion which, if marketing
> literature is to be believed, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If the
> numbers on the bikes were switched around and I were to test each bike
> again, my guess is that I'd come up with different tubing preferences. I
> think my ride impressions were essentially random. Does this mean you should
> pass on the expensive steel frame and buy a cheap one? I don't know. The
> Aelle frame does weight 3/4 pound more than the EL-OS frame, but the El-OS
> frame costs $815 more - close to three times as much as the Aelle frame. I'm
> reminded of something Richard Sachs - one of the finest custom framebuilders
> in the country - told me. Sachs said, "When someone is buying a bike from
> me, they're buying my design choices and my construction skills. I actually
> think material is the least consequential choice." What do these seven
> Mondonicos say about bike performance and testing? Perhaps more than
> anything, they illustrate that the personality of a bike is determined much
> more by fit, frame geometry and components than by what kind of tubing lies
> under the paint."
>
> ................
> Peter Brueggeman
> La Jolla California USA
> 4peebee(at)peterbrueggeman.com