I'm talking ride quality only, not function. Don't blow a gasket until you read this post in full.
Steel, carbon, Alu, Ti, Rando-lite frames, etc. I just saw a RAAM documentary. Actually I have watched three of them. Those guys are mostly carbon, skinny tires, with bars waaay low, yet they do hundreds of miles a day, culminating in a 3,000 mile race finish in less than 10 days. You gotta be comfy on your bike to a certain degree to survive a 3,000 mile ride in 10 days or less. You can't really argue with that. Yeah, they are athletes,and suffer, but read on... I'm starting to think that no frame material is better than another when at the higher quality levels and craftsmanship. And I think RAAM blows it all outta the water. RAAM has been ridden on just about everything I would think. I don't think these people are dummies, and I am sure they have done their homework to find what suits their needs. I think it's just preference at that point. I don't know that Jure Robic (5-time RAAM winner) would have done any better, or felt any better, on a Herse, Scott, Lightspeed, or Roadeo. Someone once asked him how his behind felt during RAAM, and he stuck his fingers in his mouth imitating a gun. I don't think that would have changed no matter what he was riding (and it looked like a studded leather saddle in the documentary I saw). Now function is another thing altogether. You want braze-ons and wide tires and clearance, approach a steel frame builder for sure. I needed to ride through mud and gravel to continue on my way today and I was glad I was on my fender-ed Rivbike with 42 mm tires and not on a 25mm tire-ed race bike. I'm not going to touch safety and lifetime issues of materials. The battle rages. Anyway, since I got my head out of carbon, and have been reading a lot about steel, I have been wondering. Because everyone seems to love their quality bikes, no matter what the material is. -- 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.
