On Mar 7, 2010, at 1:44 PM, cm wrote:
I think it is pretty common sense for the builder of a certain thing to explain why they built it the way they did and not the way someone else did. So if you make steel bikes because you think they are the best, it has to be true that you think something else is not the best. And on that spectrum, there has to be a yang to your ying-- ie carbon fiber to grant's steel. Disagree all you want, have your own ying-- but isnt the bike industries turn away from steel to other materials saying the same thing about steel that G is saying about CF? Read the mags and they routinely say things like "every cyclist should aspire to CF."
No, I think that change is to an extent cynical and profit driven. The higher tech something seems, the more can be charged for it and the better the profit margin. Actual performance is not really important for sales- and, when the item is shown to fail or not work as well as was hoped, it's already obsolete and a new higher-tech widget is already at your LBS for sale. You can trust us this time.
If you look at the bikes of people who commute to wrk year round, or ride 10,000 miles a year, or are touring... many if not most are riding steel frames. That's not necessarily specific to the material, since there are few CF bikes with fenders, fat tire clearance or pannier rack mounts. CF is aimed at people with disposable income or a perceived need for the newest-fastest-latest- greatest, whose purpose is to look cool or to go fast.
I get a kick out of seeing old-guys-in-my-age-group-or-older-which- is-50+ on an $8,000 CF bike and hauling 30 extra lbs of bellyfat. I'm no longer very fast, certainly not lean at 6'4" and 215-220 lbs, and at least once a week during the riding season I get amused and/or annoyed off at one of these old farts for jumping onto my wheel when I pass them and drafting me for miles with no offer to help. On their own they can't roll along faster than 20 mph, so they draft the guy on the steel bike with fenders, 32 mm wide tires, generator lights, a front rack and handlebar bag...
BTW, not being a particularly hardy guy, I just got out for my first bike ride of 2010 now that the snow pack is down to a foot or so. I hate riding on thawing streets and getting my bikes all schmutzed up, but it was 47F today and that's riding weather even with big snow drifts and potholes. I envy people who live somewhere warm and where it's not normal to have feet of snow on the ground and the roads for 5 months a year.
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
