A Cycling & bikes forum. CycleBanter.com

Go Back   Home » CycleBanter.com forum » rec.bicycles » General
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #31  
Old May 3rd 08, 04:10 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
SMS
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,477
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

Stephen Harding wrote:

With the addition of stem extenders and high rise, long stems
and many long seat posts available on the market, all my bikes
are quite comfortable.


That reminds me of the old Midas commercial where the competitor only
has one model of muffler, and the mechanic says "fit? we'll MAKE it fit"
and brings out a bunch of adapters and pipes.

What you're doing will work, but it's the wrong way of getting the bike
to fit.
Ads
  #32  
Old May 3rd 08, 06:57 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Chalo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,093
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

Tom Sherman wrote:

Chalo Colina wrote:

Cathy Kearns wrote:

My
husband and I needed two different stashes of tubes at home. I have 650c
wheels, and I can tell you, you don't want 650c wheels.


My wife and I often ride together, her on her bike with 700x28 tires
on 20mm wide rims, and me on my bike with 700x60 tires and 38mm wide
rims. We have to have different sized tubes with us. I might be able
to swipe one of her tubes if I were riding one of my 700x40 equipped
single-speeds, but she would have some difficulty using one of mine.


That little detail is not enough to make me want to use the same size
tire as she does.


Does not your wife weigh about 1/3 Chalo?


It wouldn't be circumspect of me to discuss that. You can draw your
own conclusions:

http://datribean.com/presskit.html

She's about 5'8" tall.

Similarly, having two similar size riders on a tandem with the same tire
sizes and inflation pressures as they use on their singles would be silly.


I was only demonstrating that using the same rim diameter does not
necessarily mean you can interchange consumables.

I used to believe that at a given pressure, tire width should be
proportional to the load (or conversely, that at a given tire width,
pressure should be proportional to load). Observation has shown me
that tire internal volume serves as a better indicator of load
capacity and/or appropriate pressure. My bike with 700x35 tires (32mm
actual) is the closest equivalent I have to my wife's bike with 700x28
tires (26mm actual). Those bikes can probably use the same tubes and
tires if the need arises.

Chalo

  #33  
Old May 4th 08, 03:19 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc,rec.bicycles.tech
Mike Jacoubowsky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,972
Default Large CFRP Frames

The larger CFRP frames being too flexible is just poor engineering, and
has nothing to do with the inherent properties of CFRP.


To reduce the flex in the larger frames requires some engineering
enhancements because of the the inherent properties of carbon fiber.
Apparently Trek just made the frame larger, without understanding that
this wouldn't work.


Your information is... interesting. I've sold a number of these bikes, all
of them to people who rode other machines and were more than impressed with
how the Trek rode. Being too-flexy was never once mentioned. You could
(reasonably) argue that the sample size I refer to are those who have
actually purchased the bikes, which results in a strong bias. Except that I
don't have much of anything else to go on, because people-of-height who ride
them invariably buy them.

And the "engineering enhancements" are definitely there. The 5.5 version of
the frame doesn't use the same layup found on any of the other sizes, and
the fittings etc are unique, and specifically designed for, that size.
That's the case for every Trek size; there's nothing unusual about having to
do that. If a quality manufacturer were to build a 47cm frame the same way
they build a 58cm, the 47cm would be dramatically overbuilt (or the 58cm
underbuilt). With carbon fiber, there's no reason to do that, unless you're
trying to save money where it shouldn't be saved.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA


"SMS" wrote in message
...
Tom Sherman wrote:
SMS aka Steven M. Scharf wrote:
[...]
Carbon frames that large tend to have problems of too much flex, which
is what the reviews of the 64cm Madone found. Colnago seems to have
solved this problem in their carbon fiber frames and they go up to 65
cm.

The larger CFRP frames being too flexible is just poor engineering, and
has nothing to do with the inherent properties of CFRP.


To reduce the flex in the larger frames requires some engineering
enhancements because of the the inherent properties of carbon fiber.
Apparently Trek just made the frame larger, without understanding that
this wouldn't work.

Colnago describes what they did at
"http://www.colnago.com/en/catalogo2008/extremepower.php".



  #34  
Old May 4th 08, 03:20 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Mike Jacoubowsky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,972
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

But for the larger sizes, there is some hope. Completely out of the blue,
Trek decided to build a 64cm Madone this year. We sell quite a few of
them.[...]


Was it really "completely out of the blue" or did people like you (Trek
dealers) ask for the larger size?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia


Tom: We'd been asking for years, and pretty much given up. Especially with a
new, very-expensive (in terms of front-loaded costs per size of frame)
model. So it was "completely out of the blue" in terms of being unexpected,
but it certainly had been asked for. By us, and many others. Vociferously.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA


"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
[...]
But for the larger sizes, there is some hope. Completely out of the blue,
Trek decided to build a 64cm Madone this year. We sell quite a few of
them.[...]


Was it really "completely out of the blue" or did people like you (Trek
dealers) ask for the larger size?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful



  #35  
Old May 4th 08, 03:50 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc,rec.bicycles.tech
ZBicyclist
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 342
Default Large CFRP Frames

Tom Sherman wrote:
Colnago describes what they did at
"http://www.colnago.com/en/catalogo2008/extremepower.php".

"The Extreme-Power was born to meet the demands of sprinters
Alessandro Petacchi and Erik Zabel of Team Milram and three time
World Champion Oscar Freire of Team Rabobank who all have a power
output of 180 kg
for each pedal stroke."

WTF? When did the kilogram (kg) become a unit of power instead of
mass?
Quick, notify the General Conference on Weights and Measures of
this
change!
Do people actually get paid to write this stuff?


Watts your problem?


  #36  
Old May 4th 08, 06:04 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Mike Jacoubowsky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,972
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

But for the larger sizes, there is some hope. Completely out of the blue,
Trek decided to build a 64cm Madone this year. We sell quite a few of
them.
For years, 62cm was the largest, so those over 6'3 were either difficult
or
impossible to fit. We have now successfully fit someone 6'7 to a
high-quality road bike.


High-quality road bike? I thought the Madone was made out of plastic
and formed in a mold. I know it's expensive for what it is, but taken
all together that would make Madones the equivalent of '80s Oakley
sunglasses-- cooked up like polymer waffles and sold at an umpteen
squillion percent markup.


Plastic? That's like someone telling you that your Nishiki & Fuji &
Cannondale are made from refined dirt.

Oh. Darn. They are. You could make an argument that just about everything
is.

Unless... unless it's made of materials produced in a cyclotron!

I have a 68cm Nishiki road frame, a 68cm Fuji road frame, and a 68cm
Cannondale road frame, and in the past I had a 68cm Schwinn road
frame. I find it a bit puzzling that the "technology" of making
frames for all sizes of adults seems to have been lost. I'm
especially puzzled in light of the fact that plastic Treks have always
been lugged, and thus could have been made in just about any size,
like the lugged frames of yore.


I can't speak for the Fuji and Cannondale, whose designs (primarily tube
diameter and, to a lesser degree, wall thickness) may very well have been
scaled up for the greater stresses incurred with such a large frame size.
But your Nishiki, if it's from the old days, probably was not such a design.
Back in the days when steel was king, manufacturers nearly always used
exactly the same diameters, and quite often even the same wall thicknesses,
throughout their size range. Thankfully, in the largest sizes, butted tubing
often wasn't available so at least you had slightly more robust tubes than
would otherwise be the case.

Because the frames were lugged, tubing diameter was restricted to the same
size for all frames, because oversized production-style (cheap) lugs simply
did not exist. And, assuming your Nishiki was built this way, you're
experiencing a design that works much better for smaller sizes than for what
you ride.

The move to welded aluminum removed many of the cost constraints that
prevented using optimal designs for larger frame sizes, although it remained
rare to see a company actually take advantage of this. But for the most
part, even though it was technically easier to build a better, taller frame
out of aluminum, manufacturers abandoned the concept of building taller
frames in general, in an attempt to economize by optimizing their offerings
for the most-popular sizes and getting rid of those that sold in small
quantities.

Getting back to Trek, the "lugs" used are made differently for
different-sized frames. This adds very little cost, since each lugset is
different for each size frame to begin with, requiring its own mold and
layup schedule. It's not something that can be reshaped or cut & welded into
a different configuration like a steel lug might be. So then, you ask, why
hasn't Trek made the larger sizes available all along? Because the cost of
each set of molds for each size of frame is *very* expensive, and fringe
sizes quite likely won't amortize out the cost of the fittings (because the
volume won't be high enough) before the model runs its course.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA



"Chalo" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

Chalo wrote:

| One significant implication is that very large and very small frames
| have mostly vanished from the scene.

Very small sizes have been a consumer "problem" for years. Customers
shorter
than, say, 5'2 or so, may very well benefit from having 650c wheels
instead
of 700c. But such bikes sit & rot on the floor, because they don't look
"normal" or because some ill-advised friend says you don't want 650c
wheels
because you won't be able to get tires & tubes easily.

But for the larger sizes, there is some hope. Completely out of the blue,
Trek decided to build a 64cm Madone this year. We sell quite a few of
them.
For years, 62cm was the largest, so those over 6'3 were either difficult
or
impossible to fit. We have now successfully fit someone 6'7 to a
high-quality road bike.


High-quality road bike? I thought the Madone was made out of plastic
and formed in a mold. I know it's expensive for what it is, but taken
all together that would make Madones the equivalent of '80s Oakley
sunglasses-- cooked up like polymer waffles and sold at an umpteen
squillion percent markup.

I have a 68cm Nishiki road frame, a 68cm Fuji road frame, and a 68cm
Cannondale road frame, and in the past I had a 68cm Schwinn road
frame. I find it a bit puzzling that the "technology" of making
frames for all sizes of adults seems to have been lost. I'm
especially puzzled in light of the fact that plastic Treks have always
been lugged, and thus could have been made in just about any size,
like the lugged frames of yore.

Chalo



  #37  
Old May 4th 08, 06:11 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Mike Jacoubowsky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,972
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

With the addition of stem extenders and high rise, long stems
and many long seat posts available on the market, all my bikes
are quite comfortable.


That reminds me of the old Midas commercial where the competitor only has
one model of muffler, and the mechanic says "fit? we'll MAKE it fit" and
brings out a bunch of adapters and pipes.


We explain (when we don't have the right size in stock, and somebody expects
us to make something else fit) that we used to have an alternative that
worked for all but those too-tall for our largest frame. A "rack" in our
warehouse where we could stretch the customer to fit the frame. The problem
was that we couldn't get adequate sound proofing to muffle the screams, and
the noises would attract a very odd clientele to the shop.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA


"SMS" wrote in message
...
Stephen Harding wrote:

With the addition of stem extenders and high rise, long stems
and many long seat posts available on the market, all my bikes
are quite comfortable.


That reminds me of the old Midas commercial where the competitor only has
one model of muffler, and the mechanic says "fit? we'll MAKE it fit" and
brings out a bunch of adapters and pipes.

What you're doing will work, but it's the wrong way of getting the bike to
fit.



  #38  
Old May 4th 08, 06:40 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Chalo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,093
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

Chalo wrote:

I thought the Madone was made out of plastic
and formed in a mold. I know it's expensive for what it is, but taken
all together that would make Madones the equivalent of '80s Oakley
sunglasses-- cooked up like polymer waffles and sold at an umpteen
squillion percent markup.


Plastic? That's like someone telling you that your Nishiki & Fuji &
Cannondale are made from refined dirt.


No, it's like saying they are made from "metal" rather than "quad-
butted Valite!"

Madone frames, like all CFRP frames, are made from charred
polyacrylonitrile resin-- that's plastic, by the way-- in a matrix of
epoxy resin. Which is, y'know, plastic. Plastic is the least
marketing-termish thing you could call them.

Chalo
  #39  
Old May 4th 08, 10:06 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Tom Sherman[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,890
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

Chalo Colina wrote:
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
Chalo wrote:
I thought the Madone was made out of plastic
and formed in a mold. I know it's expensive for what it is, but taken
all together that would make Madones the equivalent of '80s Oakley
sunglasses-- cooked up like polymer waffles and sold at an umpteen
squillion percent markup.

Plastic? That's like someone telling you that your Nishiki & Fuji &
Cannondale are made from refined dirt.


No, it's like saying they are made from "metal" rather than "quad-
butted Valite!"

Madone frames, like all CFRP frames, are made from charred
polyacrylonitrile resin-- that's plastic, by the way-- in a matrix of
epoxy resin. Which is, y'know, plastic. Plastic is the least
marketing-termish thing you could call them.

I thought plastic referred to non-recoverable deformation, not a
material type. The correct term is polymer.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful
  #40  
Old May 4th 08, 02:37 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Aeek
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 457
Default Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

On Sat, 3 May 2008 22:40:29 -0700 (PDT), Chalo
wrote:

Madone frames, like all CFRP frames, are made from charred
polyacrylonitrile resin-- that's plastic, by the way-- in a matrix of
epoxy resin. Which is, y'know, plastic. Plastic is the least
marketing-termish thing you could call them.


I love my 08 Madone 6.9, its an awesome race bike.
That said, my daily ride is an alloy track bike with front brake.
Neither of them are exactly practical, but my steel-is-real tourer has
barely been ridden in 9 months. Its time will come again.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Help Identify old Bike Italian Road Frame [email protected] Techniques 64 December 26th 06 06:41 PM
Italian road bike mirror official site Zilla Marketplace 2 October 1st 05 04:14 AM
FA: Italian TORPADO Road Racing bike - 18 images... [email protected] Marketplace 4 July 6th 05 01:36 PM
FA: Italian TORPADO Road Racing bike - 18 images... [email protected] Marketplace 0 July 5th 05 11:58 AM
FA: 58cm Italian Benotto Road Racing Bike... [email protected] Marketplace 0 April 17th 05 10:00 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:16 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 CycleBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.