Steel Bicycle Frames

Between three and four thousand years ago, which would have been the Bronze Age, people in India and the middle east discovered that if they heated a certain type of dirt enough, in a low oxygen environment, and added some carbon, they ended up with iron. If they heated it up again and added some other stuff they had steel, which was easier to make things with and had enhanced durability.

  How did they do that? Why did they do that? Think of all the trial and error through the generations, an individual not knowing exactly why he was doing something or where it would lead. That never ceases to amaze me.
  Over time, other generations discovered how to refine the process and add other alloys to give the resultant steel properties such as weldability, and resistance to fatigue and corrosion.
  Then they figured out how to form it into tubes. These tubes could be welded or joined together with sleeves called lugs to make the now traditional, double triangle bicycle frame.
  Over more generations, other tinkerers figured out how to shape and taper and swage the different tubes, in order to give the resultant bicycle certain characteristics.

  The simplicity, beauty and pure functionality of this fundamental design, to which nothing can be added and nothing taken away is perhaps one of humanity's greatest achievements. I.M.H.O.