How much faster are fast bikes?

davebradswmb

darkhairedlord wrote:

Really, no difference in speed, just aesthetic;

Although I agree that there is no difference in speed for us average weekend warriors, I disagree that it's just aesthetics, a bike designed for racing feels fast and sharp and I like that feeling, and that is why my "best" road bike is a racer. I have a more comfortable bike with fatter tyres and touring geometry that I use for commuting and bad weather, but it can't put a smile on my face like the racer. I'm looking to add a CX bike to my collection so that I can do a bit more off road. Having one bike that will do everything is the sensible choice, but we do this for fun don't we?

haydenm

cougie wrote:

It's really not about the bike.

Now, now, you can be taken off to the tower for saying things like that.

Anonymous

cougie wrote:

My Ali cx bike with Road tyres seems as fast as my carbon aero Road bike.

It's really not about the bike.

Sell the Carbon road then?
Actually, seek them both and get a BSO if you really feel like that.

Trust me, cycling is very much about the bike :roll:

My Ali CX bike is very different from my carbon road bikes.

Anonymous

I have a theory that we ride to a speed to a certain degree.

similar concept to why you run/ride better in an event.

cycleclinic

I can take my 29er on club runs and keep up just fine. I have pb some hill segments on my 29er. With a shorter fork and drop bars I will be even more aero on it and quicker. it is 10 kg bike it accelerates just fine.

I have so many bikes I am willing to experiment and this 29er is an experiment and an evolution. Having ridden road bikes off road they are somewhat comprimised. A CX bike is a good choice, the right 29er is just as good. the wrong 29er will be slower.

DeVlaeminck

Trouble with a CX bike if you stick road tyres and guards on it it is no longer really a cyclo cross bike. If you want a winter bike get one, if you want a bike to go off road get a cyclo cross bike and if you want to go MTBing get a 29er.

cougie

Carbonator wrote:

cougie wrote:

My Ali cx bike with Road tyres seems as fast as my carbon aero Road bike.

It's really not about the bike.

Sell the Carbon road then?
Actually, seek them both and get a BSO if you really feel like that.

Trust me, cycling is very much about the bike :roll:

My Ali CX bike is very different from my carbon road bikes.

Ok it's not about the bike if you have a decent bike...

The cross bike is also my winter bike with full guards and fat ass tyres on. My carbon can't do that.

There's really no difference in speed bike v bike on similar tyres for me. Nothing that's measurable anyway.

Anonymous

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Trouble with a CX bike if you stick road tyres and guards on it it is no longer really a cyclo cross bike. If you want a winter bike get one, if you want a bike to go off road get a cyclo cross bike and if you want to go MTBing get a 29er.

Exactly this.
It's not rocket science is it lol.
The clue is in the name!

So many people get a CX bike and then stick 28mm tyres on (it's 29'er wheels!) when they would have been better off getting a road bike that takes 28mm (on its 700c wheels).

A CX bike is the most versatile if you need the versatility (which most people probably don't), but you still have to either compromise on tyre choice for the road, change tyres, or have two sets of wheels.

A CX bike with big fat (38mm) semi slicks (Continental Sport Contact) is quite nice for commuting though.
Commuting is a discipline all it's own though.
It's not road riding.

meanredspider

Carbonator wrote:

A CX bike is the most versatile if you need the versatility (which most people probably don't),

Commuting is a discipline all it's own though.
It's not road riding.

At the risk of being a pedant, I don't think a CX is the most versatile: a CX groupset is too narrow. I think gravel or adventure bikes, with their road groups and broad-range cassettes are a better bet. But that's just an opinion.

My commuting is exactly like road riding.

napoleond

Indeed. If I race I take the mudguards off my ribble winter. Don't want my colnago getting damaged, nor would I be any faster.

Anonymous

I was using term CX loosely.
A lot of CX bikes do not have CX specific gearing and gearing is personal anyway.

Gravel and adventure road are just marketing jargon.
I know of at least one bike that went from CX in 2014/15 to 'Adventure Road' in 2015/16 with only tyres and colour being different lol.

My commute is nothing like a road ride, but I guess some peoples could be.

cycleclinic

Road riding and commuting on the roads are pretty much the same for me. My commutes are trakning rides and i treat them as such. i use a bike with big panniers to slow me down and make everything hard work.

So it depends on what you want your commute to be. Rode the 29er to an mtb race today. 37 miles of road each way. my average pace was not to disimilar if i had used a road bike.

So all bikes can be used for any purpose. You should be able to ride a mtb on the road and rnjoy it. Pleasure from riding is not always about going fast.

webboo

Making everything hard and slow is just training you to be slow.

964cup

I used a CX bike as my winter bike for a couple of years. Felt F3X, so carbon and fairly light. Different wheels for road and CX, with different cassettes. I never found the 46T big ring a massive problem 46x11 gives 52kph at 100rpm, which is easily fast enough for a club ride. I think I ran 11-28 most of the time, with 36x28 being easy enough for Herts hills.

Can't honestly see much difference between that and some of the disc-braked road bikes my friends have - yes they have less fork clearance so might be fractionally more aero; lower BBs so they get wet in puddles more easily - sorry, handle better; and steeper fork angles so they can pretend to be Nibali better than I can.

A clubmate of mine came to the alps this year on a Planet X XLS cross-bike. Carbon, but heavy as a very heavy thing. I think he'd also fitted it with man-gears. Other than that and some road tyres, it was standard. Others came with a range of shiny road bikes, some rather expensive and light. Who got to the top (of every. single. col.) first, do you think?

For a standard-issue 250W club rider, so much bike marketing is nonsense. If everyone twigged that you could use just one bike for everything from fast road to light xc, bike companies would have rather less money.

I will of course now admit that I have 9 bikes, and a finely-honed justification for each one. Ironically, it's now the Felt that gets ridden the least. I'm not at all convinced this is a step forward.

cookeeemonster

My middleweight sunday best bike with 25mm tyres appears to be 1-2mph faster on my commute than my CX commuter with 28mm tyre, mudguards and hydro discs.

The main point being I do an awful lot of start/stopping on my commute and tend to put a bit of effort in blasting away from the lights each time. The best bike gets up to speed a lot easier and stays there while the heavier commuter feels like a drag in comparison. I also fatigue a lot quicker on the commuter because of this.

On the sunday rides the best bike still feels faster and leaves me fresher, though I've not compared it enough to say how much faster it is....

The Rookie

Webboo wrote:

Making everything hard and slow is just training you to be slow.

Codswallop.....the engine you are training has a powercurve, where the output of the power goes doesn't affect the training to that power.

slowbike

Webboo wrote:

Making everything hard and slow is just training you to be slow.

I'm really slow on my turbo .... as is everyone who uses stationery trainers ...

I'm quite slow when I put my toddler in the seat on the back - but then I'm dragging another 12kg around - really hits you on the climbs - makes it feel nice and easy when he's not there though.

Putting weights and non-aero items on your bike whilst riding isn't training you to be slow - you've just got more resistance to overcome...

thomasmorris

CookeeeMonster wrote:

My middleweight sunday best bike with 25mm tyres appears to be 1-2mph faster on my commute than my CX commuter with 28mm tyre, mudguards and hydro discs.

The problem with these assessments, whilst maybe true, they're often are riddled with built in bias.

People often use their nice bike when it's dry, warm, still day. And they use the winter bike on windy cold wet days. If the forecast is nice and I feel good, I take my nice bike and hammer a longer route home.

Then add on that commutes go one way (wind evens out somewhat on a loop) then traffic (drafting) junctions (stopping and starting).

I'd be very surprised if the commuter was 1-2 mph slower in the same conditions, unless it was dramatically heavier (5 kg) and you have a very hilly route.

964cup

It's worth remembering that weight adds 3W per kilo on a 7% climb - so effectively SFA (not a fact that goes down well on WeightWeenies). Bike aero also makes very little difference at normal riding speeds (the 25-35kph range); rider aero matters a bit more, but you should be able to get the same position on a cross bike that you do on a regular bike, just a centimeter or two higher up at both contact points because of the raised BB.

So, a cross bike is likely to be pretty well identical in performance to a disc-braked road bike assuming both are using the same tyres.

cookeeemonster

thomasmorris wrote:

CookeeeMonster wrote:

My middleweight sunday best bike with 25mm tyres appears to be 1-2mph faster on my commute than my CX commuter with 28mm tyre, mudguards and hydro discs.

The problem with these assessments, whilst maybe true, they're often are riddled with built in bias.

People often use their nice bike when it's dry, warm, still day. And they use the winter bike on windy cold wet days. If the forecast is nice and I feel good, I take my nice bike and hammer a longer route home.

Then add on that commutes go one way (wind evens out somewhat on a loop) then traffic (drafting) junctions (stopping and starting).

I'd be very surprised if the commuter was 1-2 mph slower in the same conditions, unless it was dramatically heavier (5 kg) and you have a very hilly route.

I was already taking into account weather conditions when I wrote that tbh ie dry and similar wind speeds. The commuter will be faster in the rain because I have more confidence in the grip and brakes