Steel frames and le Tour

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:40:06 -0600, wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:24:43 GMT, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:20:31 -0600, wrote:


It may really matter to racers, who care about _any_ difference.

It may?

You've been rambling on in a thread which refers to the most
competitive cycling race in the world and that is just beginning to
sink into your brain.

Write write write some more dear Cheers

JT

Dear John,

What does Thor Hushvod's bicycle weigh, compared to the others?

I don't know. Probalbly the same as other riders his size.

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:47:12 +0200, Donald Munro
wrote:

SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:
Hi. Maybe I get your point. For example, your head is 100% up your ass.
But you seem not to sense it.

Or 98% or perhaps 102%.

Dear Donald,

Do you think you would notice that? Try riding uphill with your head
stuck up 98%, and then have a friend adjust it so perhaps it is 100%
or perhaps just 96%.

Princess and the pea.

Cher Er cheers ercheersss

On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:34:01 -0700, "Paul M. Hobson"
wrote:

On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:52:58 -0700 (PDT), Scott
wrote in regards
to steel frames in Le Tour de France:
I said I wouldn't be surprised if someone
were doing it this year. That's all. I wouldn't be surprised.

For some silly-ass reason, YOU decide to chime in to tell me, in
essence, I'm stupid for making my comment. Who's the asshole?

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
I said you'd be wrong. If you take that as meaning I was calling you
stupid, then that's your interpretation.

Wait, he's wrong that he wouldn't be surprised?

Fair point.

On Jul 7, 2:22*pm, wrote:
Anyone know the last year a steel frame was used by a racing cyclist
in the TdF?


I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that Miguel Indurain on his
Pinarello in 1995 was the last steel-frame winner.

On Jul 18, 1:51*am, Donald Munro wrote:
wrote:
Keep up the good work! *By the end of the Tour, you'll be ready for a full
12 month tour of duty in RBR.

You mean we're entitled to veteran benefits (unless McCain wins).

If you believe that McCain will somehow do away with or severely
restrict VA benefits, you're nuts.

On Jul 17, 7:23*pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
In article ,
*John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:47:50 -0600, wrote:

Again, the original question was whether a rider could detect a
"noticeably robust forward thrust" with a bike 7 pounds lighter.

Dear Cheery Er cheer fogel er

Er, it's funny how you can define what the "original question" was in
any thread, even a different one.

You're a nut. *A nut who has to go on an on about how weight doesn't
matter at all on a bike. Who can even drag that into a thread about
the most competitive bike race on the planet and ramble on and on
about it.

So people overstate the impact of weight? So what? You're the mirror
image of that.

Dears,

Since JT is involved in this thread, I have to be the judge instead (JT
recused).

Carl has the lead in this argument, with the proviso that he has defined
the argument narrowly (but fairly).

Hardly. Carl's pseudo-scientific arguments are junk. Great -- he
knows F=ma and so may have taken PHY101. So what?

He has presented no emipirical evidence of just how sensitive people
are, and the manner or conditions under which they can sense it. He
has not defined how well correlated a test/poll about weight must be
to say "over N people and M tests we have found they can sense delta x
lb with y confidence under z conditions." There is no definition of
sensitivity nor of the tests to determine it, or of knowing if the
test itself is the actual/best way for person A to detect
differences. There has been no empirical data and descriptions of
those tests and confidence. IOW, Carl is full of crap by assuming
these critical aspects in, and that is what he did.

If he could leave it at "I am unconvinced that people can reliably
sense 'this' sort of thing under 'these' conditions," then almost no
one could argue with that, because it is not unreasonable. But even
the cartoon analysis he did has problems.

Sure, there are a lot of ridiculous claims about bike performance --
no one is arguing that -- but I should say 7 lb, is getting to the
magnitude where I could not rule out some sensitivity, which itself is
not yet well-defined.

I approve of JT's idea that a 7-pound weight makes a difference to
racers, but the size of the difference matters only to racers.

How much it matters to anyone (and why) is personal value, which is
inherently subjective.

On Jul 17, 10:05*am, Tuschinski wrote:
*And indeed when you look at the actual numbers of
failures you find that a correctly built steel frame, even superlight ones,
very seldom fail and when they do it is pretty plainly a workmanship or
material error.

Oh come on Tom, that's blatantly false. Back in the days, when we all
raced Reynolds/Columbus we broke frames. Some of it by crashing, some
by bad handling, some by bad manufacturers.

And yes, we also broke Alu frames. And now we break CF frames
*shrug*.

Such is life ^^

TK and others have described CF frames that were damaged in prior
accidents (or that had latent flaws or cracks) and that failed
catestrophically without warning. IMO, that is different from the
usual failure mode with steel or aluminum frames which generally show
damage or give audible warnings before they fall apart -- if they ever
fall apart. In fact, I once broke a steel seat tube clear through and
still managed to ride home. I cracked four or five classic boat
anchor steel frames (SP/531 and 4130) and always managed to ride home
(or simply discovered the crack at some later date while cleaning the
bike). Unless you break a steering tube or fork blade, you can usually
ride home on a broken steel frame -- slowly, and assuming home is
fairly close.

I think CF is a great material, and I will probably buy a CF frame one
day after winning the lottery, but I will also pay better attention to
it after a crash to make sure it is not damaged. None of the modern
materials can be beaten up and ignored like old school steel -- but
that is the price you pay for light weight. -- Jay Beattie.

P.S. I think weight does make a difference.

"SLAVE of THE STATE" wrote in message
...

Hardly. Carl's pseudo-scientific arguments are junk. Great -- he
knows F=ma and so may have taken PHY101. So what?

I had an Eddy Merckx Corsa 0.1 that weighed 24 lbs and my Basso Loto that
weighs 20 lbs. You could absolutely tell the difference in acceleration by
the feelings in your legs. Now, I'm not arguing with Carl that the actual
acceleration is barely effected. But you aren't glued to the bike and the
back and forth movement of the bike under you has a substantial connection
to the total weight of your bike.

"Jay Beattie" wrote in message
...
On Jul 17, 10:05 am, Tuschinski wrote:
And indeed when you look at the actual numbers of
failures you find that a correctly built steel frame, even superlight
ones,
very seldom fail and when they do it is pretty plainly a workmanship
or
material error.

Oh come on Tom, that's blatantly false. Back in the days, when we all
raced Reynolds/Columbus we broke frames. Some of it by crashing, some
by bad handling, some by bad manufacturers.

And yes, we also broke Alu frames. And now we break CF frames
*shrug*.

Such is life ^^

TK and others have described CF frames that were damaged in prior
accidents (or that had latent flaws or cracks) and that failed
catestrophically without warning.

I saw several steel frames have significant failures - such as cracking
entirely through the downtube - which were ridden home in that condition.

The aluminum frame failure I had was a Vitus coming unglued (an improperly
repaired frame as it turned out). There was no riding that one anywhere
since it was in three pieces. On the other hand the world's most beautiful
woman stopped and gave me a ride for 5 miles so it wasn't a total loss.

I am still healing from the carbon fork snapping off when I somehow got my
foot in the front wheel (low spoke count wheels definitely have that
weakness - you CAN get your foot in there while it's turning) A steel fork
would NOT have done that. On the other hand - a 32 or 36 spoke wheel
probably wouldn't have allowed that to happen either.

A medium sized dog ran across the street in front of a guy on one of our
tours while he was going downhill at about 25 mph. The bike snapped the
headtube off and it looked to me like it was held on with only one or two
layers of cloth! He had it repaired and it doesn't look any stronger to me.
And I thought he was dying when he was shooting spit 2 feet into the air
laying on his back with a broken neck. Thank heaven that he wasn't seriously
injured and is now completely back to what he calls normal.

I've seen some substantial failures on carbon bikes making them completely
unrideable. I've only seen one such total failure on steel bikes since I
came back to riding in about '85.

"Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com writes:

A medium sized dog ran across the street in front of a guy on one of
our tours while he was going downhill at about 25 mph. The bike
snapped the headtube off and it looked to me like it was held on with
only one or two layers of cloth! He had it repaired and it doesn't
look any stronger to me. And I thought he was dying when he was
shooting spit 2 feet into the air laying on his back with a broken
neck. Thank heaven that he wasn't seriously injured...

Beg pardon? :-O

OK, I couldn't resist. I assume you meant "disabled" rather than
"seriously injured," since a broken neck is pretty definitively a
serious injury. And thankfully he wasn't disabled, which could so
easily have happened in a situation like that. Going over the bars is
a bad thing.