Carbon! whats the point?

sub55

Just had a slight midlife crisis and thought that i might replace my old road race bike.
Although i haven't competed for the last six years or so. Any way, this bike i bought ten years ago was pretty much top end then , hand made aluminium frame, carbon forks , DA group and so on.
Weighs in at 7.1 kg for a 58 cm frame including the pedals. So ive been looking on the internet to see whats around , to get down to that sort of weight and spec , ive now got to be spending 5k plus.
To shave just 0.5kg off the overall weight , im really struggling . I'm talking absolute top end equipment, so whats the point in all this research and developement into these super duper carbon frames and components when we are no further on than we were ten years ago.

napoleond

It's not all about weight.

With frames it's stiffness and the way they ride.

With groupsets it's operating/ergonomic improvements.

Plus inflation...

sub55

NapoleonD wrote:

It's not all about weight.

With frames it's stiffness and the way they ride.

With groupsets it's operating/ergonomic improvements.

Plus inflation...

It's not the money I'll put my hand in my pocket if there's a reason. my frame was made to measure and rides sweet as a nut , stiffness ? but cant imagine it falls far short? group set a 10 year old DA cant be deficient to a current DA.

But that wasn't my point, if we start with my bike , move forward ten years and we now have carbon everywhere , but we dont seem to have achieved anything.

bottom_bracket

blimey, your custom built DA sounds very nice. I'd hang on to it, maybe stick a new Ultegra group on it and bob's your uncle. I reckon your top end alu frame will be much better than my (almost) new entry-level carbon.

desweller

Your existing bike sounds hard to beat.

Let's face it, once you're into the top end then you're talking about diminishing returns anyway.

raymondo60

The OP sounds like a decent level cyclist (ex-racer etc), but for the average/non-competitive cyclist, I wonder if the advantages of technological advances actually matter too much. My top-spec groupset is Ultegra, on a decent carbon frame. I appreciate that Electronic shifting will be more 'efficient' but at the level I ride my bike gets me as far and as fast as my own capabilities allow, and still feels it could go a lot more. At £5k plus you're very near the realms of top pro-team issue hard wear. The spec on your 10-year old bike sounds super and I agree with the Ultegra suggestion above.

daveyroids

No point from what your describing.

neeb

Have a test ride on a current model bike and see what you think. That's the only way to know whether there has been any progress in the last 10 years or not.

There's certainly been an above-inflation price hike in bikes of a given quality level in the past 3 or 4 years.

xixang

NapoleonD wrote:

It's not all about weight.

With frames it's stiffness and the way they ride.

With groupsets it's operating/ergonomic improvements.

Plus inflation...

+1

And as for £5k - i'd say there are plenty of bikes well below that price that will weigh around 7kg mark. This year I've built a 7.0kg bike for under £3.5k, and that's with a not so light colnago frameset. If I'd wanted I could have bought a lighter frame (~300g based on the weight of my giant tcr) and saved a further £500+. Remember that from a pure racing perspective the UCI 6.8kg weight limit means that manufacturers are probably deciding theres little point in making stuff significantly lighter and concentrating on performance, stiffness etc. And there comes a point where too light=too fragile

unixnerd

I recently bought a Specialized Roubaix SL3, it's about the same weight as the Cannondale CAAD5 Dura-Ace it replaced, not much in it. The difference it that the Roubaix soaks up all the road noise and bumps, it's super comfy and it suits me down to the ground. I run my tyres at 120psi and don't feel a thing. The bike glides over the road rather than bumps around on it. I finish a long ride fresh as a daisy (other than being knackered!).

I know some folk dislike the way Roubaix / Synapse style bikes detach you from the road but for me personally I love the bike to bits. My CAAD5 now lives in Aberdeen and I ride it there two nights a week. It's still a great bike but the Roubaix is nicer to ride.

smidsy

The cannondale super six evo frame is lighter _ the lightest in production. Also has strongest construction and damping technology so things have advanced ;-)

jgsi

I'd have a custom paint job and upgrade the grouppo to bring fresh life into a favourite trusted bike.

MichaelW

Outside of large scale, UCI-compliant production frames, Parlee make some pretty lightweight models. Some are full custom but even their Taiwanese stock frames are pretty ultralight.
Will that be any improvement over your own custom frame?
If you want to prove to the chicks that you still have your manly essence, why not take that 5 k and blow it on a luxury cycling experience: eg riding all the high peaks of the Alpes

Monty Dog

I reached that conclusion a few years ago and focus more on the 'experience' that riding a bike gives me rather than the cafe-stop "arms race" where folks turn up with all sorts of chi-chi kit but would have benefitted far more in investing in training effort to lose a couple of kilos!
What I do think has happened is that the gap has closed considerably between the mid and high range - the benefits of scale of production from Taiwan and China means that stuff that was top-end 5 years ago has trickled down.
That said, if I was offered a Colnago C59 with EPS for a decent price I'd have one.

Mikey23

a cynical person might think that its to encourage gullible people to part with their money...

not me though!

racingcondor

Sounds like you already have a very nice ride.

Doesn't mean you can't go and test ride a few more modern bikes just to see if there is something that you like out there more though. I suspect you'll find bikes that ride 'differently' rather than necessarily 'better' though.

P_Tucker

sub55 wrote:

Just had a slight midlife crisis and thought that i might replace my old road race bike.
Although i haven't competed for the last six years or so. Any way, this bike i bought ten years ago was pretty much top end then , hand made aluminium frame, carbon forks , DA group and so on.
Weighs in at 7.1 kg for a 58 cm frame including the pedals. So ive been looking on the internet to see whats around , to get down to that sort of weight and spec , ive now got to be spending 5k plus.
To shave just 0.5kg off the overall weight , im really struggling . I'm talking absolute top end equipment, so whats the point in all this research and developement into these super duper carbon frames and components when we are no further on than we were ten years ago.

To part idiots from their money. Luckily you appear to have seen right through it though - well done.

sub55

Thanks for contributing to the thread gentlemen, a couple of things, yes i am an ex racer . First cat actually. But in no way deluding myself that i'm going there again. But it does account for the gear i was using back then.
Appealing to the chicks , i stopped worrying about that 25 years ago.
Do actually have a carbon frame bike , but its a TT frame, which sort of makes sense as they can mold it to be more aero friendly. Coincidental , its as hard as you like to ride but there again it was never built for comfort.

giant_man

sub55 wrote:

Just had a slight midlife crisis and thought that i might replace my old road race bike.
Although i haven't competed for the last six years or so. Any way, this bike i bought ten years ago was pretty much top end then , hand made aluminium frame, carbon forks , DA group and so on.
Weighs in at 7.1 kg for a 58 cm frame including the pedals. So ive been looking on the internet to see whats around , to get down to that sort of weight and spec , ive now got to be spending 5k plus.
To shave just 0.5kg off the overall weight , im really struggling . I'm talking absolute top end equipment, so whats the point in all this research and developement into these super duper carbon frames and components when we are no further on than we were ten years ago.

oh dear .....

sub55

what sweet heart

Padgie

P_Tucker wrote:

sub55 wrote:

Just had a slight midlife crisis and thought that i might replace my old road race bike.
Although i haven't competed for the last six years or so. Any way, this bike i bought ten years ago was pretty much top end then , hand made aluminium frame, carbon forks , DA group and so on.
Weighs in at 7.1 kg for a 58 cm frame including the pedals. So ive been looking on the internet to see whats around , to get down to that sort of weight and spec , ive now got to be spending 5k plus.
To shave just 0.5kg off the overall weight , im really struggling . I'm talking absolute top end equipment, so whats the point in all this research and developement into these super duper carbon frames and components when we are no further on than we were ten years ago.

To part idiots from their money. Luckily you appear to have seen right through it though - well done.

Bit harsh there P_Tucker dont you think...?

P_Tucker

Not at all. Wiggins would win the Tour on a 10 year old bike - the only reason for the continual release of new frames with "asymmetric stays" or a "reinforced bottom bracket shell" or whatever is to convince idiots that they need the latest frame to keep up on their 17mph club runs.

As the OP says, there haven't been any worthwhile improvements in bike technology in the last 10 years, except for perhaps electronic shifting and that seat-tube motor that Cancellara allegedly had a few years ago.

BillyMansell

P_Tucker wrote:

Not at all. Wiggins would win the Tour on a 10 year old bike - the only reason for the continual release of new frames with "asymmetric stays" or a "reinforced bottom bracket shell" or whatever is to convince idiots that they need the latest frame to keep up on their 17mph club runs.

Hmmm, an irrational hatred towards a social subset that causes you no harm or holds you no grievance? Best to speak to your psychiatrist about that one.

As the OP says, there haven't been any worthwhile improvements in bike technology in the last 10 years, except for perhaps electronic shifting and that seat-tube motor that Cancellara allegedly had a few years ago.

Similarly, there are others with closed minds who would argue there's been no worthwhile improvement in bike technology since the pneumatic tyre or the diamond pattern frame. More fool them.

P_Tucker

I can't, my psychiatrist has just had to declare bankruptcy after buying a Dogma in "rainforest green" before realising that it was just a one-off paint scheme and therefore having to buy another one in blue.

As for your second point, Wiggins wouldn't win the Tour on the 1930's bike. He would on a 2002 bike. Its almost like the technology has advanced to the point where any gains are miniscule yet the marketing departments of bicycle manufacturers realise that if people get wind of this they're in serious trouble.

ShutUpLegs

BillyMansell wrote:

P_Tucker wrote:

Not at all. Wiggins would win the Tour on a 10 year old bike - the only reason for the continual release of new frames with "asymmetric stays" or a "reinforced bottom bracket shell" or whatever is to convince idiots that they need the latest frame to keep up on their 17mph club runs.

Hmmm, an irrational hatred towards a social subset that causes you no harm or holds you no grievance? Best to speak to your psychiatrist about that one.

Contempt, not hatred. Do keep up fella

BillyMansell

P_Tucker wrote:

Its almost like the technology has advanced to the point where any gains are miniscule yet the marketing departments of bicycle manufacturers realise that if people get wind of this they're in serious trouble.

Your ire seems to be towards marketing and I doubt few would disagree with you there but none of us are completely immune to their powers. I also think few would dispute that any gains have become miniscule but that is far more to do with constraints imposed by the UCI than it is the potential of carbon fibre. As for the consumer, as long as they have the capacity and free will to choose then so be it.

Back to the matter of the UCI rules, it is these that have played a significant part in stifling the potential of carbon fibre in cycling. There may be an impasse in giving designers total freedom but cycling isn't like F1 where despite strict rules there's a far greater window of opportunity for development within those rules. I do think that companies should be encouraged to develop carbon fibre towards its full potential with an eye to the future of the sport and then, like Garage 56 at Le Mans, they should be allowed to enter their machines into events but score no points. The new technologies could be evaluated and due consideration given to their introduction within the rules.

rolf_f

BillyMansell wrote:

There may be an impasse in giving designers total freedom but cycling isn't like F1 where despite strict rules there's a far greater window of opportunity for development within those rules.

And we should be eternally grateful for this - for the fact that it allows us mortals to be able to buy TdF standard bikes at a surprisingly reasonable price. It's not about the bike - mucking around with the UCI rules will serve only to massively increase the cost of bikes without offering any useful gains. F1 is as good an argument as I can see anywhere to restrict costs.

neeb

No doubt that 90% of the advertised "improvements" in frame technology over the last 10 years are marketing fluff, but my current frame is certainly stiffer for the same weight than the ones that preceded it. My impression is that there has been significant progress in this area over the last decade, although whether this actually translates into any real performance advantage is another matter. The current crop of chunky-framed carbon frames certainly feel different to ride.

BillyMansell

Rolf F wrote:

BillyMansell wrote:

There may be an impasse in giving designers total freedom but cycling isn't like F1 where despite strict rules there's a far greater window of opportunity for development within those rules.

And we should be eternally grateful for this - for the fact that it allows us mortals to be able to buy TdF standard bikes at a surprisingly reasonable price. It's not about the bike - mucking around with the UCI rules will serve only to massively increase the cost of bikes without offering any useful gains. F1 is as good an argument as I can see anywhere to restrict costs.

Yes, that's what the UCI had people believe when they set the rules and yet here we are more than ten years later questioning the worth of carbon fibre in the sport over the last decade. Ergo, the UCI rules have stifled the development, the cost of frames in general would have come down regardless as material cost decreased and Far East production increased.

F1 is a false analogy as F1 cars are prototypes that never reach production anyway which is why I mentioned Garage 56. If there is a genuine interest in developing the technology in the sport beyond what we had more then ten years ago then they need to encourge development alongside competition.

DavidJB

P_tucker is always moaning about people that buy new bikes...I presume he's so fat and jaded that a good bike makes no difference to him or he has about 30pence free income a month.

rolf_f

neeb wrote:

No doubt that 90% of the advertised "improvements" in frame technology over the last 10 years are marketing fluff, but my current frame is certainly stiffer for the same weight than the ones that preceded it. My impression is that there has been significant progress in this area over the last decade, although whether this actually translates into any real performance advantage is another matter.

Indeed - and if you are light and riding on rough UK roads, the stiffness obsession has been a negative development.

It's a law of diminishing returns and there is only so much you can do with two triangles. Somewhere there is an optimum frame weight and it isn't zero. MTB development on the other hand has plenty of possibilities.