does the bike make that much difference
Comments
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Read Alex's detailed post of 25 Apr 2009
Alex said in his post
" (provided the aero wheels reduced CdA by 5% - again not an unreasonable figure): "
I'm questioning this assumption, my guess is a more realistic figure is more like 2%.
I claim my later post ( above ) is at least based on data not guessing!
But I'm certainly prepared to be shown to be wrong.
The comparison should be with the "best/most aero" non-deep rim wheels,
i.e. with a low spoke count and flattened spokes etc.0 -
You put the comfort down to carbon? why?...because the marketing men say carbon it is comfortable. You can buy frames of any material that range from super stiff bone shakers to being pretty plush. It sounds like in your experience you've ridden one £300 bike one £1500 bike, which one is better is not just down to whether its made of carbon or not.
It is just as much about the frame design, as the material. Try riding a BMC carbon and see if you think that is 'plush'...in comparison to a say a recent Cannondale CAAD alu frame.
Yeah marketing men played apart, but Bike forums probably a bigger part.
The fact remains that it is more comfortable spending an hour each way, but as you say I didn't try out an alu frame, I compared two equal priced bikes on a ten minute test rides.with the benefit of hindsight that was daft and I was fixiated on a Carbon frame.0 -
Fat-Boy-Roubaix wrote:You put the comfort down to carbon? why?...because the marketing men say carbon it is comfortable. You can buy frames of any material that range from super stiff bone shakers to being pretty plush. It sounds like in your experience you've ridden one £300 bike one £1500 bike, which one is better is not just down to whether its made of carbon or not.
It is just as much about the frame design, as the material. Try riding a BMC carbon and see if you think that is 'plush'...in comparison to a say a recent Cannondale CAAD alu frame.
Yeah marketing men played apart, but Bike forums probably a bigger part.
The fact remains that it is more comfortable spending an hour each way, but as you say I didn't try out an alu frame, I compared two equal priced bikes on a ten minute test rides.with the benefit of hindsight that was daft and I was fixiated on a Carbon frame.
Just to add to that - you can get quite a range of comforts from any material. I road tested the Spesh Roubaix, Cannondale Six, Cannondale Super Six and Spesh Tarmac.
They are listed above in order of most comfortable to the least. The roubaix soaked up a surprising amount of the road, way more than my alu framed Allez, which is in the middle of that list. The Tarmac on the other hand, was raw; I felt every bump in the road as if I was walking barefoot on it!
My friends who love Ti say the same about that material - and as that's a more mature area of bike technology, they can in fact engineer frames in Ti with even more subtleties and variation than CF.0 -
As my user name suggest it was a Roubaix Comp on a 2010 deal that I went for. I am glad you said a surprising amount because I was staggered at the difference on certain parts of my ride, I Even took the Hybrid back along a certain section just to double check I wasn't under the influence of justifcation placebo.0
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It was almost too comfortable for me!! But if you're doing long rides on uk roads it would pay massive dividends.
I guess those xertz (sp?) inserts really do make a difference.
It did lose out a bit on acceleration to the tarmac.
And for twitching the bike sideways, i.e. for sharp moves to dodge a pothole, the roubaix was very responsive - more so than the Tarmac interestingly. And as such it cornered very nicely on decents.0 -
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UpTheWall wrote:Simon E wrote:
Even when climbing the heavier aero wheel is supposed to be better. Read Alex's detailed post of 25 Apr 2009 on this page:geebee2 wrote:what I'm considering here is the conditions under which the additional weight of a deep rim wheel will outweigh the aero advantage.
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... c&start=20
Interesting thread, ta.
This raises the obvious question: why do the tour guys not use them on the mountain stages??
Decending fast/technical decents with deep rims is often not ideal.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:UpTheWall wrote:Simon E wrote:
Even when climbing the heavier aero wheel is supposed to be better. Read Alex's detailed post of 25 Apr 2009 on this page:geebee2 wrote:what I'm considering here is the conditions under which the additional weight of a deep rim wheel will outweigh the aero advantage.
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... c&start=20
Interesting thread, ta.
This raises the obvious question: why do the tour guys not use them on the mountain stages??
Decending fast/technical decents with deep rims is often not ideal.
Why? Does it adversly affect handling? Or are we just worrying about sidewinds?0 -
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just a point - when racing in a large peloton, you're riding in a slipstream anyway, and the air around the wheel is likely to be quite disturbed, being streamed across rims and cut up by spokes and frames.
therefore i dont think deep rims would have a huge benefit or effect. on the other hand, neither would a lightweight low profile wheel, as you aren't doing large accelerations and the weight doesnt matter on the flat.
so, in a bunch, which type would be better?Go for the break
Create a chaingang
Make sure you don't break your chain0 -
daveydave43 wrote:just a point - when racing in a large peloton, you're riding in a slipstream anyway, and the air around the wheel is likely to be quite disturbed, being streamed across rims and cut up by spokes and frames.
therefore i dont think deep rims would have a huge benefit or effect. on the other hand, neither would a lightweight low profile wheel, as you aren't doing large accelerations and the weight doesnt matter on the flat.
so, in a bunch, which type would be better?
One that won't make you crash.
I know that for the Ardenne week for example, they'll ride shallow rims for Amstel and deeper rings for Liege, since Amstel Gold has so many twists, turns, bumps, etc, that a lower profile wheel was better, whearas liege was a lot less technical in that respect.0 -
not this then :P
Go for the break
Create a chaingang
Make sure you don't break your chain0 -
rodgers73 wrote:I'm a reasonably fit person - I can do decent times in a 10k run and a 40 mile walk is easily within my capabilities. I've been commuting on a late 80s/early 90s 10 speed steel framed racer which only had 5 of those gears available due to a faulty front deraileur.
I've just bought a Specialised Secteur Sport 2010 and I'll let you know how I get on when I use it on the commute next week. Just riding it round the block felt fantastic compared to the old bike so who knows...
Did my first commute on Wednesday using the new bike. My time was the same and I was equally tired upon arrival at home/office as with the old bike.
There were some moments when climbing that I was glad of the extra gears and the index shifters made life easier balance-wise comared to downtube friction shifters, but it seems to have made little difference to the difficulty of the journey overall.0 -
i changed my bike from a merida road race which was perfectly fine to a paganini uc2. The new bike looks amazing & because of that I think it rides much better. Although, I had a problem going fast on decents on the merida where as the paganini is a dream. I feel much more confident on it, although whether thats me getting more experienced is another question.
Interesting posts by the way0
