Bicycle tubing diameter?

Question

What is the average diameter (external and internal i.e I'd like to know the thickness of the tube) of aluminium tubing on a mountain bike or BMX ?

What about steel tubing?

Answer 1

There is no standard diameter or thickness.  Some bikes use butted tubing (meaning the thickness is variable to be thicker where it requires strength and thinner where it can safely save weight).

Along with variable sizes, manufacturers use different methods for bending and forming (hydroforming, roll forming, stretch bending)....and different attachment methods (welding, brazing, lugged attachments).

Some companies use gussets to beef up welded joints.  Others use a different method to ensure a strong weld.

sorry for the long winded response, but there is no standard size for Al, Ti, or steel frames.  On top of that some will use a different size tube for each part of the bike, like my Cannondale has a top and seat tube that are the same, but the downtube is different, the stays are different, the headtube is different, the fork is different.

Answer 2

I think that the thickness of aluminum tubing varies on the maker of the bike. You can go to the website like haro, schwinn, specialized etc and get that information. Same with steel. I think it may also depend on the type of aluminum and steel like chrome - moly etc. You may also want to look at carbon or titanium too. For websites try Litespeed.com or airbourne.com for titanium and Giantbicycles.com for carbon Trekbicycles as well.