Hi all,
I am in the process of building a few steel polo frames and I want to pick your brains on tubing selection. I’m specifically looking for how large can you go on the diameter of the main tubes of a polo bike before you run into “beer canning” issues? Obviously the loads on a polo frame (crashing) are much different than those on a road frame which is making me skeptical of the existing internet articles on tubing selection. MTB is closer, but I figured I’d check here.
Is a 35mm OD .7/.5/.7 down tube a recipe for a crumpled frame for polo? What about if I went with a bigger diameter and kept the wall thicknesses the same? Am I placing too much emphasis on stiffness in general? Should I just stop worrying about all this and use .9/.6/.9 for everything? For what it’s worth, I’m planning on gusseting the headtube intersections.
Thanks in advance for the steel wisdom.