I’m shocked at all of the knowledge in this thread and all of the resources people are linking to. Just curious, anybody remember what alloy Trek was using for those frames? Coincidentally, my first road bike was a used Trek 1200, which I believe was of that construction.
On paper, 7075 aluminum should be able to produce some of the lightest frames ever made, if only one figures out a reasonable way to join it up, no? More tensile strength → thinner tubes → less weight?
Linked below is a company claiming they have a 7075-based 3D printing powder
Sharing a couple more resources because this idea has piqued my interest. The first is a history of the Vitus 979 development, and the second is some more Trek ad material, showing a small graphic detail of their tapered lug design (similar to Vitus?) and the fact that for some models they appear to have used 7178 series tubes. It raises a couple of questions for me:
1: What was the thinking behind making the lugs a tapered-wedge fit into the tubes? Bond adhesion?
2: If Trek and Vitus were casting their lugs, presumably with alloys similar to the AlSi10Mg we can 3D print with today, then it seems like a durable printed lug should be feasible?
Figuring a fatigue life of 3 years, at which point Scamalloy hits the mass market and we can order Filippo Ganna’s hour record bike from Shapeways
