BB30 frames- ugly?

father_jack

I spotted a Specialized bike with the new BB30 BB and large down tube and area around the BB, to be honest it looks pig ugly, really big. But looks easy to clean as no longer has a hard to reach corners. Also the down tube was really thick tubing. Any reason for this? Anyone else think the same? Something like this looks far nicer

rjh299

Father Jack wrote:

I spotted a Specialized bike with the new BB30 BB and large down tube and area around the BB, to be honest it looks pig ugly, really big. But looks easy to clean as no longer has a hard to reach corners. Also the down tube was really thick tubing. Any reason for this? Anyone else think the same? Something like this looks far nicer

No, your wrong!

Airwave

Ten years ago i would have agreed with you.But down tubes,headtubes&BB areas have slowly been getting bigger&bigger over the years.So it's given you chance to get used to the different look&i think i prefer the new look.Just look at the differences between a lo pro TT bike of yesteryear& the up to date TT bikes,which i think look much more the buisness.But it's personel prefrence at the end of the day..classic look or modern.

father_jack

My Giant OCR downtube is chunky but doesn't look too silly, but that specialized did. Must have been 3" round tubing :shock:

daveydave43

im 18, and have grown up in a cycling world dominated by aluminium and carbon fibre.
there are gorgeous and ugly examples of each building material..
for example, the best of the aluminium has to be the caad frames.
i think Orbea have made fantastic shapes in carbon, closely rivalled by the Ceepo Viper.
i do love seeing those steel frames with the fancy chrome lugs... i.e old school colnagos (not a fanboy of their carbon stuff. *ducks* )
and bad ones... well, titanium may be a really exotic material but what the hell did Sabbath make out of it when they made the Silk Emperor?

dennisn

Ugly? Maybe, but I'm of the school that ugly does NOT mean bad. Perhaps the worlds ugliest bike will come along and yet be the fastest, stiffest, best climbing, smoothest riding, lightest, one ever. It don't have to be pretty, just do it's job very well.
For some reason I'm reminded of a quote for who knows who said, about a hockey game he attended, something like, "well, it wasn't pretty but they won", to which his friend replied "you want pretty, go to the Ice Capades".

daveydave43

this is true, but then beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that.
the OP reckons that the bottom bracket on the Specialized is ugly, bu then the reinforcement does apparently make the bike stiffer where it's needed

personally i don't mind the huge boxes at the bottom bracket... i reckon it looks tidy.
anyone else like the huge carbon fibre tube trend?

rjh299

I really like the look of the BB30 on my Super Six. That was one of the first things I noticed. Bloody huge.
A bike should look good and ride well. I wouldn't want the 'perfect bike', if it was absolutely fugly! (See Kestrel in 'Your Bikes' section)

father_jack

Actually thinking about it more, it wasen't the BB area but the down tube that made it ugly. it looked like a intercontinental gas pipe

Lagavulin

Yes and no.

I think my dad's (slowly decaying) 531 Flying Scot is a lovely looking machine.

The Colnago Master X Light is almost a piece of art in my opinion.

There are many modern frames I think are aestheically pleasing. Orbea's Orca, WIlier's Cento Uno, Le Roi and my Izoard isn't too shabby either, the Guerciotti Vega etc. Kuota frames seem to have quite chunky tubes but I rather like the majority of them. I was tempted to get a Kharma but ended up choosing the (BB30) CAAD 9 as my iffy weather bike.

However, there are criminal examples such as this;
Vomit inducing. :oops:

father_jack

I can see at one point the inner triangle will be filled with carbon sheet

neeb

I'm suspicious of the value of those massive box-like BBs. OK, the BB30 standard may increase crank rigidity due to the larger bearings, but surely lateral stiffness of the frame itself under pressure at the BB has more to do with the stiffness of both the front and rear triangles, with maybe the chainstays being quite important. I don't immediately see how having massive amounts of carbon around the BB is necessarily going to prevent lateral movement of said BB, unless the intersection points of the tubes are where most of the flexing is happening. I would have thought that most bending is due to flex distributed along the lengths of the tubes themselves (?)

Of course it looks solid - maybe that's the main motivation?

father_jack

Has there been any tests to show BB30's improved ridigity is noticeable or just a new BB to sell new bikes?

edindevon

Father Jack wrote:

Has there been any tests to show BB30's improved ridigity is noticeable or just a new BB to sell new bikes?

Have there been any tests done to show that using a BB30 makes a blind bit of difference to the aesthetic appearance of bike frames?

Edindevon

daveydave43

not sure if it was that BB30 was significantly more rigid per se, but more rigid for the same weight.
hence aluminum being able to be made lighter than steel

why is it that we are unable to accept change?

i could understand it if this was one companies marketing bull, but it's gone past 'dale's hollowgram stage now, and Sram in particular seem to be jumping onto it, which i doubt they'd do without good reason.

dennisn

daveydave43 wrote:

i could understand it if this was one companies marketing bull, but it's gone past 'dale's hollowgram stage now, and Sram in particular seem to be jumping onto it, which i doubt they'd do without good reason.

I'm not so sure. SELLING components seems like a good reason to me. Does it matter if
they are, so called, better or not? If it sells isn't that all that counts as far as Sram, Campy, Shimano, etc. are concerned?

rjh299

Horses for courses maybe.
That Litespeed is ugly though. Down tube at both ends and seat tube, not good.