I think the impact of a heavier bike is grossly overestimated. The worst case for a heavy bike is a course where all of the climbing is long and steep. Let's take Anne's example. Let's assume 10K feet of climbing in a 200K (quite hilly), and a rider with a vertical ascent rate of 2K ft/hr, which is perhaps a little slower than average. This rider would spend no more than 5 hours climbing the worst case course -- the rest of the time is spent descending and on the flats. In this case, a 5% slowdown in climbs is 15 minutes. In reality, with rollers and shallower climbs, effect of a heavier bike is quite a bit less.
--Metin On Friday, March 20, 2015 at 9:49:06 AM UTC-7, Anne Paulson wrote: > > This is quibbling. At the start of a randonnee, the rider is as fit as > they are. They can't choose to be more fit today and use a bike that > is slower for them. It doesn't matter if another rider would be able > to keep up with the group using their heavy bike; if they are slower > on one bike than another, and using their slower bike means they can't > keep up, they can't keep up and that's the reality. > > In my area, the randonnees have a ton of climbing. If one bike is 10 > pounds heavier than another bike, that bike's rider is going to be > slower going up hills than she would be if she were on a lighter bike. > If my bike is 10 pounds heavier, I'll be about 5% slower climbing > hills. For a hilly 200K, that's going to mean I'd be twenty minutes > to half an hour slower than if I rode on a lighter bike. And that's > just the hill climbing difference: there is also the speed difference > between keeping up and being able to draft, versus not keeping up and > having to ride alone. It's not nothing, and for riders who are near > the time cutoff, it could easily be the difference between finishing > within the cutoff and not. > > On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Jim Bronson <jim.b...@gmail.com > <javascript:>> wrote: > > I've been rando-ing off and on since 2006. I view the getting dropped > > and riding alone issue to be one of fitness and not of equipment, just > > my $0.02. Seen plenty of fast riders riding heavy steel bikes and > > plenty of slow riders using crabon fibre. > > > > -- > -- Anne Paulson > > It isn't a contest. Enjoy the ride. > -- 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.
