Professional racers' goal is to get from point A to Z faster than their opponents, get paid a lot of money, get endorsements and get the glory of besting other quality riders.
For the most part, the rest of us ride expecting the ride to be pleasant and enjoyable. Professional put up with a lot of discomfort. Discomfort is not pleasant. It is not enjoyable. Carbon fiber can be a good choice. As Patrick points out, Jan Heine has reviewed several CF bikes and liked them. The CF bikes Jan reviewed are high end rides made one at a time by skilled builders. CF fabrication is unique in that a skilled builder can make infinite custom adjustment to tube thickness, strength and compliance. But as Jan points out, what seems like a good idea in the build shop may turn out not so good on the roads. Good steel bikes are typically made with high end tubing manufactured by one of four (maybe six) companies that have many, many years of combined experience. The frame builder can look to thousands of other similar bikes and their frame tubing ratio before selecting tubing for any one build. Yes CF with the right builder can make a nice frame. But you cannot discount the decades of group wisdom that has been built up around steel. Also, for all the talk of CF forks being safe and all, it seems even builders who regularly use CF forks go to steel if the owner intends to use a porteur style front rack or low riders for heavy touring loads. On Saturday, April 19, 2014 12:31:22 AM UTC-5, Michael wrote: > > > I'm talking ride quality only, not function. > Don't blow a gasket until you read this post in full. > > Steel, carbon, Alu, Ti, Rando-lite frames, etc. > > I just saw a RAAM documentary. Actually I have watched three of them. > Those guys are mostly carbon, skinny tires, with bars waaay low, yet they > do hundreds of miles a day, culminating in a 3,000 mile race finish in less > than 10 days. You gotta be comfy on your bike to a certain degree to > survive a 3,000 mile ride in 10 days or less. You can't really argue with > that. Yeah, they are athletes,and suffer, but read on... > > I'm starting to think that no frame material is better than another when > at the higher quality levels and craftsmanship. And I think RAAM blows it > all outta the water. RAAM has been ridden on just about everything I would > think. I don't think these people are dummies, and I am sure they have done > their homework to find what suits their needs. I think it's just preference > at that point. I don't know that Jure Robic (5-time RAAM winner) would have > done any better, or felt any better, on a Herse, Scott, Lightspeed, or > Roadeo. Someone once asked him how his behind felt during RAAM, and he > stuck his fingers in his mouth imitating a gun. I don't think that would > have changed no matter what he was riding (and it looked like a studded > leather saddle in the documentary I saw). > > Now function is another thing altogether. You want braze-ons and wide > tires and clearance, approach a steel frame builder for sure. > > I needed to ride through mud and gravel to continue on my way today and I > was glad I was on my fender-ed Rivbike with 42 mm tires and not on a 25mm > tire-ed race bike. > > I'm not going to touch safety and lifetime issues of materials. The battle > rages. > > Anyway, since I got my head out of carbon, and have been reading a lot > about steel, I have been wondering. Because everyone seems to love their > quality bikes, no matter what the material is. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
