I debated internally a lot about replying since the thread is mainly about racing and not about Rivendells per se. And this seems to have some potential for some hard feelings over legitimate disagreements in cycling philosophy (I have been in a long drawn-out and rancorous debate in rec.bicycles.tech about this sort of thing which I fear has irrevocably damaged my on-line relationships with a few people; I'd hate to see this happen here).
On Mar 14, 2009, at 3:07 PM, Patrick in VT wrote: > to be clear, I'm not saying its just about the bike. as others have > pointed out, there are many variables to account for. > > my point is this: if you are in a race, riding a lighter bike is a > competitive advantage. and most people who race want the competitive > advantage, and rightly so. it's part of competing. It is part of competition, true enough, and a relatively small number of people spend enough money chasing that "advantage" to keep an entire industry afloat. Whether it's a *useful* part of competition is the key to the discussion- in part because everybody else can buy the same stuff. > it's fine to argue that a physically and mentally stronger rider can > win on a heavier bike - I agree. but that's not the point. it's also > fine to claim that your personal times aren't much different than when > you ride a light road bike compared to when you ride your heavier > bike. that's great. but, again, it's not the point. The latter bit is part of the point, IMHO. If riding a 3 pound lighter bike doesn't make me any faster, there's no competitive advantage conferred to me. > the thread started off with a sentiment that the riders would be > better served on country bikes in this *race.* I disagree, because I > think, on the whole, a country bike would put the racer at a > competitive disadvantage. Having raced bikes for 9 years, including races on gravel roads (the "Prairie Roubaix" for example) and cyclo-cross, my experience (at least) was different. Riding my cyclo-cross bike- IMHO a reasonable approximation of a "country bike"- in road races with bad surfaces and gravel was an advantage over "race" bikes. 20 mm tires and gravel are not a good combination. 28 mm tires and tight gravel are a pretty fast combination, faster than skinny tires. I did the Prairie Roubaix on 32s, IIRC. For that matter, I did crits, road races and training rides on Avocet 700 x 32 Duros. Can't say that I noticed any disadvantage; there might have been some, but it was below the threshold of perceptibility. Or maybe there was an advantage, but if so it too was below the threshold of perceptibility. > as somebody stated earlier, losing by a foot or just a minute means > that rider lost. period. > > look at the results from rouge-roubaix - the difference in time > between the top ten riders is about 30 seconds. now ask yourself, if > you are one of those top ten riders and you had a choice between > riding a 23 pound country bike and 17 pound race bike, what would you > ride? I might very well ride the 23 pound country bike, reckoning its greater robustness gives me a better chance to finish the race without mechanical problems or punctures, which'll get you dropped faster than anything and put you right out of contention. Of course, my "country bike" weighs 21-22 lbs and my race bike weighs about 19 1/2 lbs, so there is really not much difference between them. Less than a couple of water bottles, and nobody grouses about their water bottles slowing them down. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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-bunch@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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
