What's in a bike?
Dec 21, 2020 11:16:05 GMT
Post by WDB on Dec 21, 2020 11:16:05 GMT
This comes out of a conversation I had at teatime yesterday with Boy1, after a longish ride on wet, potholed, gravelly and occasionally muddy tarmac, but with no farm tracks or woods this time.
He's much faster than me on road. This is mostly because he's 30 years younger than me, 30kg lighter and presents a much more aerodynamic profile to the oncoming air. But we also ride superficially similar but quite different bikes. This is one like mine...
...and this is one like his.
Mine is nominally for 'gravel'; his for cyclocross. We both have some off-roady items like hydraulic discs and 30mm-plus tyres, but his 2x transmission is geared so high that he seldom uses his top ratio, and his tyres are both slimmer (33mm against a nominal 42mm that is actually closer to 45) and less knobbly than mine. He also has narrower bars and a much shorter (by 100mm) wheelbase, but his all-up weight (without rider, of course) is only a kilo or so less.
What was surprising yesterday was his suggestion - remember that he's a mechanical engineer as well as a cyclist - that I could add 2-3 km/h to my typical average of 22 km/h for a road run with 1% elevation (i.e. 100m of climbing per 10km) on a more road-focused bike. That would presumably be mostly from less-resistive tyres, because it would take more than a new handlebar to improve my aerodynamics that much. And the shopping bike, with its even beefier tyres, will actually go about as fast as the one I was on yesterday; it's just more upright and less comfortable for a long ride.
Perhaps his thinking is influenced by being a club rider now, where the ability to maintain station in a group is important. It isn't to me; I do most of my rides solo and for personal fitness, so arguably having a little unnecessary resistance to work against is a good thing. And the bike I have allows me to dive into the woods whenever the fancy takes me, making me less dependent on major roads to link up sections of quiet lane. On that sort of terrain, he and I are much more closely matched - although there are still tracks around here that would require something more like one of Humph's bikes.
Boy2 has been out recently with a friend whose rowing coach prescribed training rides during the November lockdown. He borrowed my bike for one and her dad's ten-year-old road bike for another. He commented yesterday that while he preferred mine, he found he could go faster on the road bike - which surprised me a little because I've seldom been conscious of my bike slowing me down.
You can tell, this musing isn't really going anywhere. I love classic steel-framed road bikes as objects, much as I appreciate the engineering of the 1970s cameras I still use. It's unlikely I'd find one to fit - although this one at a dealer in Berlin might -
and I have also come to appreciate modern disc brakes on the hills and loose surfaces round here. I don't want a carbon-tastic mid-life-crisis bike. I do rather fancy having a new steel-framed beauty made to my exact specification - assuming I could find out what my exact specification ought to be - but that would cost me a minimum of £3000, and would it actually get me out in the lanes more than I already manage?
So there are my thoughts. Cyclists spend thousands in the pursuit of marginal improvements, and there's very little I could improve about the bike I have that would outdo making myself fitter and stronger. But, as in so many areas, y'know, shiny...
He's much faster than me on road. This is mostly because he's 30 years younger than me, 30kg lighter and presents a much more aerodynamic profile to the oncoming air. But we also ride superficially similar but quite different bikes. This is one like mine...
...and this is one like his.
Mine is nominally for 'gravel'; his for cyclocross. We both have some off-roady items like hydraulic discs and 30mm-plus tyres, but his 2x transmission is geared so high that he seldom uses his top ratio, and his tyres are both slimmer (33mm against a nominal 42mm that is actually closer to 45) and less knobbly than mine. He also has narrower bars and a much shorter (by 100mm) wheelbase, but his all-up weight (without rider, of course) is only a kilo or so less.
What was surprising yesterday was his suggestion - remember that he's a mechanical engineer as well as a cyclist - that I could add 2-3 km/h to my typical average of 22 km/h for a road run with 1% elevation (i.e. 100m of climbing per 10km) on a more road-focused bike. That would presumably be mostly from less-resistive tyres, because it would take more than a new handlebar to improve my aerodynamics that much. And the shopping bike, with its even beefier tyres, will actually go about as fast as the one I was on yesterday; it's just more upright and less comfortable for a long ride.
Perhaps his thinking is influenced by being a club rider now, where the ability to maintain station in a group is important. It isn't to me; I do most of my rides solo and for personal fitness, so arguably having a little unnecessary resistance to work against is a good thing. And the bike I have allows me to dive into the woods whenever the fancy takes me, making me less dependent on major roads to link up sections of quiet lane. On that sort of terrain, he and I are much more closely matched - although there are still tracks around here that would require something more like one of Humph's bikes.
Boy2 has been out recently with a friend whose rowing coach prescribed training rides during the November lockdown. He borrowed my bike for one and her dad's ten-year-old road bike for another. He commented yesterday that while he preferred mine, he found he could go faster on the road bike - which surprised me a little because I've seldom been conscious of my bike slowing me down.
You can tell, this musing isn't really going anywhere. I love classic steel-framed road bikes as objects, much as I appreciate the engineering of the 1970s cameras I still use. It's unlikely I'd find one to fit - although this one at a dealer in Berlin might -
and I have also come to appreciate modern disc brakes on the hills and loose surfaces round here. I don't want a carbon-tastic mid-life-crisis bike. I do rather fancy having a new steel-framed beauty made to my exact specification - assuming I could find out what my exact specification ought to be - but that would cost me a minimum of £3000, and would it actually get me out in the lanes more than I already manage?
So there are my thoughts. Cyclists spend thousands in the pursuit of marginal improvements, and there's very little I could improve about the bike I have that would outdo making myself fitter and stronger. But, as in so many areas, y'know, shiny...
