Tour de France bikes - fragile?

RowCycle
RowCycle Posts: 367
edited July 2011 in Pro race
There has been lots of bike and wheel changes this year.

Is the equipment they use very fragile? ie for performance and weight the bikes become fragile?

Comments

  • OffTheBackAdam
    OffTheBackAdam Posts: 1,869
    Their bikes are capable of being built even lighter, UCI sets a minimum weight limit.
    Have 200 or so riders, doing a couple of thousand Km & you'll get a lot of punctures, some may decide to change a wheel for the last climb if it;'s a bad one.
    Remember that you are an Englishman and thus have won first prize in the lottery of life.
  • gilesjuk
    gilesjuk Posts: 340
    There's been a lot of accidents, so there will be things breaking.

    All performance kit will be a balance between performance and durability.

    Look at F1, they used to use an engine per race when your road car can do 200,000 if looked after. Guess which one is quicker though? :)
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    They're about as fragile as your bike.

    Over 3500km for 200 riders, you're going to get the odd problem.
    _
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    If you slip a gear or get a puncture on a club run you can pull over amd fix it.

    In the Tour where every second counts, you simply swap wheels or bikes amd keep going. That's all.
  • Ron Stuart
    Ron Stuart Posts: 1,242
    A lot of the bike changes on the flat to mountain or mountain to flat stages are for gear ratio reasons.
  • meanredspider
    meanredspider Posts: 12,337
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    They're about as fragile as your bike.

    .

    Friend has a top-of-the-range TdF-standard frame - the CF is paper-thin and it is certainly far more fragile than my Focus Cayo CF frame (as he's discovered - it's being repaired right now). The difference is that it only has strength where it needs it for cycling.
    ROAD < Scott Foil HMX Di2, Volagi Liscio Di2, Jamis Renegade Elite Di2, Cube Reaction Race > ROUGH
  • mz__jo
    mz__jo Posts: 398
    there have been some dubious equipment choices with wheels (and perhaps also tubs) inappropriate for the day's route. If you are making choices of wheel types (or even tyre pressures) it can be quicker to have the bike prepared beforehand and then simply swap bikes. Wheels do count, as we have been seeing with the clip of Cadel's teszting on the TT route.

    What has impressed me is the number of times I have seen riders having the transmission lubricated and adjusted during the course. This is the first year for a while that I have been able to follow every stage on TV but I am left with the impression that modern transmissions are far more finicky than the older stuff. That and the shoe-plates. Surely these are things that should be checked and put right before the start of the stage.

    Cadel says his problem in the Telegraph was the QR not done up, but seeing that it was still not right after his first stop I am convinced that it was a stripped thread.
    http://rctl.ffct.org/
  • niblue
    niblue Posts: 1,387
    What has impressed me is the number of times I have seen riders having the transmission lubricated and adjusted during the course.

    A lot of the times that's the magic spanner in use i.e. it's an excuse to get a push.
  • mz__jo
    mz__jo Posts: 398
    niblue wrote:
    What has impressed me is the number of times I have seen riders having the transmission lubricated and adjusted during the course.

    A lot of the times that's the magic spanner in use i.e. it's an excuse to get a push.

    I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. There seem to be enough ways of getting a push without bothering to get the mecano to tamper with your bike on the move.
    http://rctl.ffct.org/

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