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Steel frames and le Tour



 
 
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  #91  
Old July 10th 08, 10:31 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default Steel frames and le Tour

In article
,
Scott wrote:

Hell, I've owned a number of steel bikes over the years, currently
own two, and I've never ridden a lugged steel bike. Current state of
the art steel frame building rarely involves lugs.


Well, lugs are not common practice, but state-of-the-art steel frame
building frequently involve lugs. Indeed, I would think that at this
juncture in time the state of the art steel bicycle *is* a lugged bike:

http://www.richardsachs.com/
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  #92  
Old July 10th 08, 10:31 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
Scott
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Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Jul 10, 2:18*pm, Bret Wade wrote:
Scott wrote:
On Jul 10, 1:29 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:21:47 -0700 (PDT), Scott


wrote:
The odds for any given rider using a steel frame is not
1 in 10 or 1 in 100 or whatever. *It's 50/50.
Is this a joke?


No. *It's really quite binary. *Either a rider IS or IS NOT riding a
steel frame. *Any attempt at bringing in the odds based on what a
sampling of riders may or may not ride may be relevant to you deciding
whether or not it's likely that a rider may be using a particular
frame, but... for any given rider, it is as simple as IS or IS NOT.


Then do you also think that there are 50/50 odds that they are riding a
lead bike?

Bret


If the question is, is the rider using a lead bike vs all other
options, then no. While not infinite, there are lot's of non-lead
alternatives.

If the question is, is the rider using a lead bike or not, then yes,
it's a yes/no scenario.
  #93  
Old July 10th 08, 10:32 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
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Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Jul 10, 7:04 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:59:53 -0700 (PDT), Scott



wrote:
On Jul 10, 9:54 am, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:39:03 -0700 (PDT), Scott


wrote:


On a slightly related note, I can tell you that there are plenty of
riders using carbon fiber bikes that were NOT made by their sponsor.
e.g. Gerolsteiner's TT bikes aren't not Specialized bikes, but the
decals sure read "Specialized".


Yeah, it's possible someone's on a steel bike. I doubt it, but I
wouldn't be surprised.


Also, just to cement my arrogance, if you *should* be surprised if
that was true. Extremely surprised. There is zero reason any rider in
the Tour of France should be a on a steel frame and many reasons (both
economic, performance and logistical they should not).


You should be shocked.


Really, you don't think that even a single rider in the field may
actually prefer a steel frame to a carbon fiber frame? And that rider
(should one exist) may be able to get that steel frame for free from
the builder?


It's been done before many, many times by lots of riders.


What's been done?

No reason
to definitively conclude that it is not going on now.


Let's talk epistomology. I can't prove a negative here and I won't
ask you to prove a positive, since you merely said you "wouldnt' be
suprised." I'll assume wouldnt' be surprised means there's a 1 in 10
or many a 1 in 100 or even a 1 in 1000 chance of it happenning.

I'm saying the chance is far, far less than ever the most generous
odds above. Far less than 1 in 1000. Orders of magnitude less.

Now, if something that has a 1 in, say, 10,000 or 1 in a million
chance of happening happens, among 200 riders, you wouldn't be
surprised?

Wow.

And here's a surrogate. Find a single example of a pro tour or
continental level pro team using a steel frame in any UCI-level race
in Europe. Try it. Can you find even one?


I know that Laurent Brochard is signing his name to high end steel
frames in a joint effort with his brother, bikes weigh about 8kg. Last
I heard, he wasn't riding the Tour de France. http://www.cycles-laurentbrochard.fr/acier.html

-ilan
  #94  
Old July 10th 08, 10:35 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
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Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:02:34 -0700 (PDT), RicodJour
wrote:

On Jul 10, 4:36*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:35:19 GMT, John Forrest Tomlinson

Dear Carl. *Did I say you didn't or did I ask?


Please shut up now.


Dear John,

Were you ignorant or not?

Incidentally, have you caught up yet?

Or do you want to tell me to shut up again if I haven't put 7 more
pounds on my bike for your education?


Quit trying to hijack the thread. We're beating up on Scott at the
moment.

R


Dear RJ,

Okay, let's trade for a moment.

If a frame is steel, the odds are that less than 1% of it is carbon.

Poor Scott shouldn't quit his day job and head for Las Vegas.

("Hey, there are only two possibilities, either I win or I lose, so it
looks like a 50-50 proposition!")

Now you explain the odds to John about whether I added 7 pounds to my
top tube as he kept begging me to do and then posted the details with
photos on RBT.

***

Scott can take a little comfort in how tricky probability is.

Anyone beating up on him should look into the Monty Hall problem.

In "The Drunkard's Walk," Mlodinow quotes a Harvard professor whose
glum opinion was that "our brains are not wired to do probability
problems very well." (p. 45)

Later, Mlodinow quotes Martin Gardner, who said in a Scientific
American piece on a problem like the Monty Hall problem that 'in no
other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in
probability theory." (p. 56)

In his chapter on the Monty Hall problem, Mlodinow gives us this juicy
detail:

"When told of this [Vos Savant's solution _is_ correct], Paul Erdos,
one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century, said
'That's impossible.' Then, when presented with a formal mathematical
proof of the correct answer, he still didn't believe it and grew
angry. Only after a colleauge arranged for a computer simulation in
which Erdos watched hundreds of trials that came out 2 to 1 in favor
of switching [if the game show host opens one of two doors that you
didn't guess and asks whether you want to switch your original guess]
did Erdos concede that he was wrong." (p. 49)

The Monty Hall problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

Technically, I _know_ that Vos Savant was right and that there really
is a huge 2-to-1 advantage if I switch my guess when the game show
host opens one of the doors that I didn't choose and asks me if I want
to change my mind.

But like Erdos, I don't _believe_ it and it makes me angry.

(Not being a famous mathematician, I don't have to concede that this
is wrong.)

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
  #95  
Old July 10th 08, 10:38 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default Steel frames and le Tour

In article ,
A Muzi wrote:

-snip frames- John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
You think team sponsors who are going nuts spending money to get
their name into the most televised and photographed bike race in
the world wouldnt' care if some "lower-level" rider is riding
something different? Wow.


Long history of that, actually. Especially in climbs and TT.


Indeed, this has been the case for decades and probably less now. There
were frame builders who made a good living building bikes for riders,
who then sent them to be painted in the team colors. Pegoretti is one
such example, allegedly having built frames for Lemond, Indurain,
Chiappucci, etc. which were then painted in team colors. Andy Hampsten
won at Alpe-d'Huez on a Landshark painted in Merckx Motolora colors, and
Lance won the 1993 world champs on a Lightspeed painted to look like a
Merckx. Lemond had his frames built by Roland Della Santa for years and
painted in the team colors. Sean Kelly stated that he almost always
ride Vitus 979 frames which were painted in the team colors; many pros
did the same in the 1980s.
  #96  
Old July 10th 08, 10:38 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
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Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Jul 10, 10:36 pm, "
wrote:
On Jul 10, 12:59 pm, Scott wrote:



On Jul 10, 1:29 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:21:47 -0700 (PDT), Scott


wrote:
The odds for any given rider using a steel frame is not
1 in 10 or 1 in 100 or whatever. It's 50/50.


Is this a joke?


No. It's really quite binary. Either a rider IS or IS NOT riding a
steel frame. Any attempt at bringing in the odds based on what a
sampling of riders may or may not ride may be relevant to you deciding
whether or not it's likely that a rider may be using a particular
frame, but... for any given rider, it is as simple as IS or IS NOT.


So, when you mis-attribute the likelyhood of a given rider riding a
steel frame as far less likely than that (like your 1 in 1000 odds)
and then try to apply that to the 180 riders at the start of the Tour
and come up with something absurd like 1 in 1,000,000 or less, you
aren't really applying the proper probability. It makes your argument
look stronger to someone who doesn't understand odds, but it's not
valid.


Consider the question of whether RBR Chief Statistician
Robert Chung just threw up in his mouth a little. There
are only two possible outcomes, but the odds I would
place on the two outcomes are not 50/50.

Ben
Odds aren't even. That's why they call them odds.


That's odd.

-ilan
  #97  
Old July 10th 08, 10:40 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
Scott
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Posts: 1,859
Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Jul 10, 3:31*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,

*Scott wrote:
Hell, I've owned a number of steel bikes over the years, currently
own two, and I've never ridden a lugged steel bike. *Current state of
the art steel frame building rarely involves lugs.


Well, lugs are not common practice, but state-of-the-art steel frame
building frequently involve lugs. *Indeed, I would think that at this
juncture in time the state of the art steel bicycle *is* a lugged bike:

http://www.richardsachs.com/


Oh, sh.. now we have to argue over what constitutes 'state of the
art'???

  #98  
Old July 10th 08, 10:42 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
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Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Jul 10, 7:41 pm, "
wrote:
On Jul 10, 9:05 am, Bret Wade wrote:

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
There is zero reason any rider in
the Tour of France should be a on a steel frame and many reasons (both
economic, performance and logistical they should not).


Agreed. They're all way too young to be retro-grouches.


Remember when Mercury/Viatel hired all those
Europros and made a big push (just before imploding)?
Their bike sponsor was Lemond and they had
steel bikes, I think this was before Lemond Bikes
got into the aluminum and Dr. Moreau-half-and-half
frames. Anyway, as Mercury began to implode,
I remember an interview in which one of the Eurodogs
was bitching about the backwardness of having to
ride steel frames, as if it was a short step from that
to having to sling your own tubulars over your
shoulder.

Ben
I like steel fine, but I'm not a Europro


I remember trying to convince people 12 years ago on my team who were
sponsored by Lemond and Trek to get the steel (if I remember
correctly) Zurich as it was much better for the riders who were suited
for criteriums and not road racing. In those days the Trek OCLV's
seemed pretty slow handling.

-ilan
  #99  
Old July 10th 08, 10:47 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
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Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:54:40 -0500, Ben C wrote:

On 2008-07-10, John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:37:51 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Thanks for the info. Not an alloy frame to be found. I assume those
are are the "official" bikes of the team. It is still theoretically
possible that individual riders have different bikes than these, no?
(I will not argue that any of them are steel, however).


I wouldnt' be surprised to see a rider or two in their on an aluminum
frame, especially if the sponsor makes both aluminum and carbon fiber
frames.


I thought I remembered Liggett saying Contador had a "special titanium
climbing bike" for the 2007 Paris-Nice (which he won).

I found some pictures:
http://www.albertocontadornotebook.i...llery2007.html

The bike in most of those pictures is kind of silver coloured, but looks
more like carbon fibre from the shape of the tubes (especially in the
stage 7 picture).

Anyway part of his skull is made of titanium.


Dear Ben,

Titanium frames were used in the 2006 TDF:

http://www.bike-zone.com/photos/2006...pticsArc_All_l

:-)

The titanium combines strength with light weight--only 17 grams, which
help sthe rider develop that noticeabley robust forward thrust that
proves that every ounce counts!

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
  #100  
Old July 10th 08, 10:48 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.racing
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Default Steel frames and le Tour

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:00:54 -0700 (PDT), Jay Beattie
wrote:

On Jul 10, 11:21*am, wrote:
On Jul 10, 1:04*pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:

And here's a surrogate. *Find a single example of a pro tour or
continental level pro team using a steel frame in any UCI-level race
in Europe. *Try it. *Can you find even one? *


I know that I can't find one. *It would be interesting to hear from
anyone who has. *Yesterday bfd replied with Dede Barry's 2002 world
cup frame as an example of a steel frame that was used successfully in
pro-level competetion. *That's nearly 6 years ago though.

I would be quite surpised if a steel frame were used by anyone in a
Grand Tour. *I like and appreciate the ride qualities of a good steel
frame but at that level of competetion I would guess that any benefits
they provide in terms of "comfort" would be more than negated by those
provided by a lighter, stiffer carbon frame. *I might be less
surprised to find out that someone used a modern steel frame in a race
like Paris-Roubaix.


Steel was used in Paris-Roubaix in 2006. See http://tinyurl.com/z4w5y
Note the cyclocross-like bike further down the page with conventional
32 spoke wheels, tied and soldered. Jobst would give them an ear
full! -- Jay Beattie.


Dear Jay,

Nice find!

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
 




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