Weight Weenies

Just had another thought on the cost issue.

Let's use your example of wanting to make a Be rotor. The only manufacture of Aluminum rotors I know of right now is Stan's (of Stan's no-tubes). His current retail cost of an Al rotor is $75. Let's use 10% of that retail cost to figure his actual material costs. That means the Al rotor material cost is only $7.50. So if you take the multiplier contained in one of the links I posted you assume Be is 200 times the cost of Al. That means the material cost of a Be rotor be $1500. Now keep in mind that is just the material cost. Then factor in labor and retail mark-up and you have a rotor that would run you way to much money.

The bike that was listed in the same link was produced by AMB for a sticker cost of $25,000. Not really commercially feasible.

If you can beat it.....go for it!!!!!

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Dionisio Coronado is one Spanish man that made the record Guinness bike with a weight of 4.492 gr.
This bike is made on Beryllium.

Hi

I don't think the material cost will be so high - Aluminium used for Stan's rotor is probably around 10$ pr kg - 150gr-180gr is used for each rotor - max 2$ pr rotor !
If you use Albemet from Brush Wellman the price will hopefully not be 200 times higher.. (but no idea !) maybe 25 times = 50$ + another 100$ for fabrication etc. - maybe retail of 300-400$... - But still just guessing ??
See this link for some good info - http://www.berylliumproducts.com/web/bpdweb.nsf
So just get started

hey, does that spanish guy who made the Be bike have a website detailing anything about the bike?

Not the lightest one, Senor Dionisio Coronado!!!


"The lightest bike in the world
The lightest bicycle in the world, built with titanium and carbon fibre and weighing only 5.450 grams was unveiled this week in Ordicia, Spain. Dionisio Coronado, who conceived the idea for the bike, former rider Jokin Múgica and the general director of the Professional School of Goierri, Carlos Ormazabal, were at the presentation. The frame is built with a special titanium which was made in the United States six months ago. It weighs 327 grams less than lightest bike previously declared.
The frame weighs 1.6 kilos, the saddle is 194 grams but the cost is certainly not lightweight. The cost of the materials alone costs $US6,500. The bike was built as a collaborative project between THT (from Vizcaya, Spain), the Professional School of Goierri and the entrepreneur Dionisio Coronado. Coronado added that it would be difficult to see the bike as a commercial reality because "the titanium that was used is for military use and we were able to get it because it was used to beat a Guiness World Record".

Even if the bike could be made in commercial quantities it would still not satisfy the new UCI rules coming into force from January 1, 2000 which will ban any bike weighing less than 6 kilograms. "

Bike you said was old bike!!!!
Made on titanium with THT (now this titanium house is closed, about one year or more), new bike is made by EDR (Madrid) as you can see on pictures of my other post, and Dionisio performed the frame (about 800 gr or less) using beryllium on some materials.

Where do you read that???? on cyclingnews????(you have copy all the article) this article was from year 1999!!!!!!

Dionisio´s bike weights now 4,492 gr (guinness record on year 2002) now made with the accompaniment of the University of Lejona, Vizcaya (Spain)

You can see a little more here:

www.noticiasdenavarra.com/ediciones/200 ... /index.php

http://usuarios.lycos.es/onlyo/

Sorry, only in Spanish.

One thing more tunecamp, I live in Vizcaya (Spain) and I have followed this man´s "experiments".

520 Dan, I´m looking for this bike web but I think there is nothing.

Hi...
I remember the protoype was a mountain-bike. I saw it on MBA in 1994 or 1995... It weighted 1200gr, when lightest titanium bike or nivacrom steel were around 1600 gr (but I remember a "don't remember the name steel proto" scaled at 1500gr). The frame was made of three beryllium main tubes bonded to alu lugs. The price for frame only was claimed at 26000$, if I remember correctly.

Beryllium was claimed to be used by Ilmor in Mercedes McLaren engine in late 90s until FIA forbade the use of beryllium. (in 1999)

Beryllium was also used by Brembo for Ferrari F1 monoblock calipers. They used Beryllium for it was twice as strong than aluminium alloy. Then they used Lithium alloy ones , until FIA again forbade the use of Lithium too.

If you're interested in that, you can see all Brembo's Ferrari F1 calipers in each car show where there's a Brembo stand... I saw them in Bologna's Motorshow two or three years ago. I also think that some motocross Brembo's brake calipers are still made with beryllium. (racing parts, obvious)

Tonight I will search in my basement, in order to find the MBA issue...

Bye, Benz.

Hi,

200 times more? Are you comparing pure metals, alloys, in sheets or other form? When I recently checked metal market, aluminium alloy junk price was about US$1.5 per kg. Cheapest aluminium frames cost at least 100 times more than that - guess welding tubes is quite expensive ;-) How about Be?

Bladteth...... read the article that I linked and you will see the reference to 200 times more expensive.

Now after you have read the article, you tell me what the price comparison was based on. I don't know.....bottom line is can anyone tell me how much Be costs??? Find a supplier out there that will sell the stuff. The only one I could find was Brush-Wellman which supplies both Be and Albemet. Now....again tell me how much it costs......there are no price quotes on BW's site.

Which part of this don't you get.....the stuff is wicked expensive and not a very viable option for an affordable frame. The frame AMB made had a sticker price of $25000.

Bladteth....since you seem to have a corner on the metals market, maybe you can supply us with the information we are looking for???

Dutch frame builder 'van Tuyl' made a frame out of
beryllium alloy in '97/'98 it weights in at approx. 1250 gr and has a torsion stiffnes
of 70 Nm/* that is not very high. It can be compared with
deda's sc 61.10A

Xterra,

Check this page from AMM website:

http://www.amm.com/ref/beryl.HTM

They say Be price is $160/lb, which is about $350/kg. Therefore Scot Nicol is right in the article you mentioned (sorry, I did not have a time to read it before).

Ouch that is expensive. So if that's the pricing for raw materials, I can't imagine what pricing would be on stuff like tubing or things like that!

They say Be price is $160/lb, which is about $350/kg

If Be is $US350 per kilogram, you wouldn't mind paying that much to make a bike so light.

Beryllium is about twice the strength of titanium for the same weight, or the same strength as titanium for half the weight

Litespeed Ghisallo claimed weight 900gms
A Be frame could probably be made to around 600 gms.

Think about the benefits...

I thought Bernhard's bike at 4,166 grams is the lightest..................it is aluminum!!!

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Dionisio has a friend at NASA who helps him with materials, the seatpost is berylium and surely it was provided by his friend.