On Thursday, April 17, 2014 2:08:22 AM UTC-4, Michael wrote: > Anyone here own a low-trail/ lightest tubing bike? > Like the Herses and Singers and the new MAP S&P, Boulder bikes, etc.? > Do you find them really that much better performing (faster, flexier, > planier, efficient) than your "oversized" steel tubing bikes, as I have read > about in reviews of them?
No. I find many reports about wide tired, low trail, skinny tubed, flexible flyer bikes to be completely opposite of my cycling experiences for the past almost-50 years. My experience with wider/softer tires is that they are significantly slower and more work to ride. My average speeds are measurably slower at the same level of perceived work. I greatly prefer 700 x 25s to 28s, which for me seems to be the sweet spot, than 26" or 650B. My fastest brevet was on my old race bike with 700 x 25s, over 40 minutes faster on a 200K than a different bike with 700 x 28s- and I finished a lot less fatigued. I greatly prefer the handling feel of 55-60 mm trail bikes with those tires. My bike without fenders, lights, bar bag, etc., is easier to ride and faster than my bike with all that stuff. Lighter is faster, except downhill. Stiffer frames are faster for me and in terms of road feel not much different. Wheelbase and in particular chain stay length are bigger factors in comfort than supposed tubing flex (not much flex in a triangulated structure). Tire pressure and width are the biggest factors in isolating the rider from small amplitude road bumps, which is one area where my experience lines up with the magazine articles. Flexier frames are slower up hill, result in wonky handling when riding out of the saddle and result in auto-shifting and chain grind on the front derailleur which is annoying. My explanation for this is that I am 6'4" and 230 lbs (200-205 in my racing days). Many of the folks doing those road tests and writing the articles are not bears on a bike like. They are normal sized, strong riders who do benefit from those lighter frames- they don't flex them out as badly as someone my size does and so they don't run into the downsides as much. 650B x 42 at 40 psi is a different situation for them than for me; to avoid having spongy slow tires I have to pump them up enough where there's not much difference in comfort than with my 700 x 25s at 115 psi. And those tires are heavier with typically thicker rubber and heavier fabric (there is a very good mechanical reason for wider tires using lower TPI count casings). OTOH, I find that using small rings (46 x 34 on my fastest bike) up front is a good idea- I don't race any more and don't need a 120" top gear. I didn't even use the 53 x 11 when I *was* racing unless it was down hill and at that point we were going fast enough to coast at 50 mph. Pedaling wasn't helpful. A widish range set of chainrings and a tighter set of cogs in back is a good combination for me and I credit Grant and Jan with sticking that idea in my head. It's helped a lot in making riding more fun. All my bikes have relatively small big rings now. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
