rruff wrote:
Ai_1 wrote:
The weight limit dramatically reduces the role of weight in those trade offs and swings the balance towards both stiffness and reliability. These you will actually notice on the bike. Especially should reliability let you down. Low weight is nice, but it's relevance is massively overplayed in the cycling world.
I stand by my comment that I'd expect any competent engineer to see the merit in this.
Competent engineers want to push the envelope. The weight limit has actually made structural engineering less important.
If you think weight isn't relevant then why do you believe manufacturers would pursue it to the detriment to every other factor? Why do you think stiffness and reliability will fly out the window? Any performance factor that is important to you will also be important to a pro riding and racing 20k miles/year.
It isn't a safety issue period. The pros don't need to be "saved" by the weight rule. Crashes and injuries due to equipment failures have always been a small fraction of the total, and that won't change.
If you as a consumer believe the pro bikes are too fragile because they are pushing the envelope too hard, then buy a couple tiers down. That's were the value is anyway.
Your editing of my comment has misrepresented the thrust of my argument and your comments are (perhaps unintentionally) putting words in my mouth. Words you haven't, and won't, hear from me incidentally. Please re-read the full post you took this from and see if perhaps you've misinterpreted my argument. Good engineers will want to improve on what came before (call it pushing the envelope if you wish) no argument there. Risk is one of the factors that we have to manage. And as I said in my full post, it's common for pressure to be brought to bear on the technical SMEs to push certain commercially useful boundaries past where they should sensibly be pushed without due consideration. That's why standards exist in most fields. It's not to ruin the fun for everyone. It's because history and many of our personal experiences have demonstrated that they are necessary to maintain good practice. I'm not suggesting that sporting body regs like those of the UCI are comparable with ISO, FDA CFRs, etc, but I do have experience with being an engineer who's grateful from time to time to be able to point to a regulation in order to get management to back off when they push too hard for something they don't properly understand.
Besides, very low pro bike weights don't appear to be essential as a driver in minimising bike weight generally. Cyclists want light bikes. I've already said I think the importance of light bikes is overplayed but it is a major selling point and so will continue to get lots of attention. The UCI rule has not had much adverse effect on this IMO.
