[reply]It is worth mentioning that one of the reasons bicycle companies sponsor pro teams and supply them with equipment (among additional reasons)is to conduct real-world testing of their equipment in a demanding envrionment, often times more demanding than what a consumer may subject the same or similar equipment to.[/reply]
Of course I can only speak for Cervelo, but I have to somewhat disagree with you. While there are many things that the team can test for us (and do a better job than we could do ourselves), these would be things related to new geometries, comfort, stiffness, "ride", etc. But we wouldn't use athletes as human crash test dummies, we have test machines for that. We wouldn't want to put anybody in harms way, pro or regular joe. Now I don't think Tom was trying to say that bike sponsors out there are trying to kill their athletes, but I just wanted to clarify that to me (and I presume to him as well) having riders break product is not the kind of testing that is recommendable, there are better ways to figure that out.
It is true that the pro race environment is usually more demanding than what I would encounter on my Sunday ride, but I can hit a big pothole here as well (especially in Toronto). So it makes sense to only have one set of standards, the highest, and in our particular case we have no choice since there is no difference between the pro frame and the other frames we sell. But that also applies to other companies who do proper testing, even if they make different frames for the pro team than they do for the normal market, I don't think they use different test standards.
Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle
Of course I can only speak for Cervelo, but I have to somewhat disagree with you. While there are many things that the team can test for us (and do a better job than we could do ourselves), these would be things related to new geometries, comfort, stiffness, "ride", etc. But we wouldn't use athletes as human crash test dummies, we have test machines for that. We wouldn't want to put anybody in harms way, pro or regular joe. Now I don't think Tom was trying to say that bike sponsors out there are trying to kill their athletes, but I just wanted to clarify that to me (and I presume to him as well) having riders break product is not the kind of testing that is recommendable, there are better ways to figure that out.
It is true that the pro race environment is usually more demanding than what I would encounter on my Sunday ride, but I can hit a big pothole here as well (especially in Toronto). So it makes sense to only have one set of standards, the highest, and in our particular case we have no choice since there is no difference between the pro frame and the other frames we sell. But that also applies to other companies who do proper testing, even if they make different frames for the pro team than they do for the normal market, I don't think they use different test standards.
Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle