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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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(In no way antagonistic)

Josh Poertner quotes around 500+ calories saved from the development of the 303FC + 28 Vittorias for Paris-Roubaix here: http://silca.cc/blogs/news

Obviously that's an edge case, and probably exaggerates the difference compared to a normal road race, but it's *something*. But, yes, the advantage of the full aero kit is going to be somewhere in between marginal while hiding in the pack to 25+ watts if you're off the front.

His general points agree with you as far as the advantages are there, but that margin is clouded when looking at actual race results (The Kaplan-Meier of biking, so to speak).

Tires/tubes help all the time, though. So if there is ever a good place to buy speed, it's there.

The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Kenney] [ In reply to ]
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Kenney wrote:
Have you ever rode next to someone, switch hand positions and start pulling away at over a foot per second

Yes, or nearly so.



Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Derf] [ In reply to ]
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Derf wrote:

Tires/tubes help all the time, though. So if there is ever a good place to buy speed, it's there.

Agree, there. I think we can all bang our heads against the wall at people who glue Gatorskins on 404FC wheels, and then race on them.
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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As long as they're not my teammates, I just smile. If they are, it's best to discuss this after the race, out of earshot. :)

The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Kenney] [ In reply to ]
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Kenney wrote:
In other threads per scientific means you gain 1/2mph by just going from hoods to drops. Have you ever rode next to someone, switch hand positions and start pulling away at over a foot per second.

Since we're being pedantic today, I'd like to point out that 1/2 mph is less than a fps, not more. More like 9 inches per second. :-)
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Liaman] [ In reply to ]
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Liaman wrote:
This is another great example in relation to my original post.

Pro riders are winning in the mountains on aero bikes, against other pros on models supposedly designed to thrive there..

Fuzzes up the Bike Brand message of different bikes for different situations.

Yup....and guys on fat, round tuned bikes are winning flat races against other pros on aero frames...you know, races where they are supposedly designed to thrive.

How come no one is concerned about that brand message getting "fuzzed up"?

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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [eb] [ In reply to ]
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Whoops, just checked the math......You are correct, I made a mistake..... .733333 ft
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Power13] [ In reply to ]
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Are they this year?
I think cannondale might be the only team left on such a thing. I guess they have a couple wins now.

Power13 wrote:

Yup....and guys on fat, round tuned bikes are winning flat races against other pros on aero frames...you know, races where they are supposedly designed to thrive.

How come no one is concerned about that brand message getting "fuzzed up"?



Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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joshatsilca wrote:
Honestly, much of the push toward aero frames is coming from the engineers and data guys that the top teams are employing. I've talked a lot about the problems with perception vs. reality and a lot of these problems come about from people believing in stuff that may or may not be real or meaningful to them. From the engineers point of view, there are a lot of things mechanics and riders believe that are costing them watts. Kristoff's choice to ride an aero bike with aero wheels, aero cockpit, aero helmet (over his other options) probably saved him some 400-600 calories in energy expenditure over the first 6 hours of the race and were probably also worth 1-2 meters of advantage in the final 200m sprint (over his other options). Clearly we can't say this won the race for him, the guy is crafty, strong and rode a really impressive race, but it certainly didn't hurt him, and the harsher ride of that bike over something 'more comfortable' is something that could largely be negated by some careful tire and pressure management (which the team is very actively doing!)

Move forward a few years and the guys wouldn't ride the carbon wheels in the classics because the 32spoke aluminum wheels were 'more comfortable'... when tested the 32spoke box section rims were actually LESS COMPLIANT than the 18/24 spoke carbon ones we developed for them...still it took one team believing that another was going to use them (and knowing the power data..) to make it happen. Once Roubaix was won on carbon, everybody was doing it. Look at 2010, we have quotes from teams on very old school V section carbon rims touting the 'comfort' despite those wheels being identical in shape and layup to the wheels of 5 years prior.. but it was now 'known' that carbon wheels were more comfortable...so it was true.

Now within this time, lots of cool tech was developed to make these bikes more comfortable, laterally stiffer, etc.. but we all have to remember that these improvements are generally in a pretty narrow window of total performance and the rest of it is belief. Since tire pressure is the softest spring in the system, the majority of comfort and compliance you perceive can be tuned by that.. the reality for me of developing the hyper-toroidal 303 and all of the work we did over 4 years at Zipp was essentially that we needed a killer product that checked all the boxes and was technically superior so we could convince people to ride it, but more importantly, we had to absolutely nail the tire volume and pressure because that's what dominated the comfort of the system. Ultimately the hyper-toroidal 303 which has become the benchmark for pretty much every CX and Pave type carbon wheel on the market was about 3psi more comfortable than the previous version, the real tech was that the aero was very good with the wider tires, and in all honesty the tires were the secret sauce!

One of the things we've been working on is looking at system stiffness and then normalizing individual component changes to tire pressure equivalents, so looking at the difference in vertical compliance at the hood of a handlebar for a carbon bar vs aluminum and then what would you have to do to tire pressure to make an equivalent system. Essentially, sort of boiling down to: you can buy this part, or drop your tire pressure this much. (and of course the reality is that you can benefit from doing BOTH! but the point I'm trying to make is that we pay a LOT of money for equipment and then completely space out on something like optimizing your pressure which can have an even larger benefit)

1 1/8 Steerer vs Tapered 1 1/8-1 1 ¼ steerer (same brand carbon fork): 1.2psi
24 vs 28 spokes Zipp 303: 1.8psi
3x vs radial spoke lacing, Zipp 303: 2psi
Curved vs Straight seat stays, Carbon Frames (Model Year Change): 4psi
Carbon Vs Steel Similar Geometry Custom Frames: 4psi
Comfort/Cobble Frame design vs Full Aero frame design: 19psi


In here you see the true benefit of the Pinarello rear suspension, you can put riders on a frame that they will agree/want to ride, that is ALSO aero, and best of all, you can run the pressure at a safer level for the wheels. But of course, this is all in the context of optimizing for courses that contain cobbles, which realistically for you and me, most none of them do.

Josh, thanks for your posts. they are great. i have two questions about your equivalencies.

  1. are you saying that a 28 spoke 303 would be roughly as comfortable as a 24 spoke 303 if the 28 spoke had a lower psi?
  2. for a sportiv rider who wants to ride faux classics like Rouge Roubaix or Hell of Hunterdon, but plans to ride it on a "training wheel", are they being undone by the more rugged spoke count?

Dave
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [dsmallwood] [ In reply to ]
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1.) Your understanding is the same as mine (lower spoke-count is less stiff == equiv to less pressure)
2.) Put some fatty tires (legit 28+) at pretty low pressure (65ish) on that sucker and enjoy. :) You won't be as worried about the wheel failing, given its durability.

The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Derf] [ In reply to ]
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Yes, my real point is to put some magnitudes to the things that we all fret over so seriously, and at the same time give some direction on optimization.

Yes, Derf is right, the higher spoke count wheel is stiffer radially, but lower the psi by 2 and you have the same system stiffness..

Much of my obsession with this today comes from my time at Zipp where we would read magazine reviews about our products, get pro rider feedback, or consumer feedback on them that matched the conventional wisdom but went against data. The bit about the Ambrosio Crono in the Roubaix piece really highlights this, in that after riding this product ourselves for years, even WE believed the box section wheel was more compliant because that's what everybody believed..however the data showed otherwise.

I've got a very large data set that we've been working on for the last year and a lot of it matches conventional wisdom, but lots of it is like this showing that the benefits we attach to certain features are often either negligible or below the limits of perception. I have some cool stuff from a bike manufacturer that changed from a tapered head tube to a straight one after two pretty negative reviews on the bike for the front end being 'too harsh'. They made the change and were praised for the 'improved ride quality' yet from a system perspective the difference between the 2 steerer tube geometries was under 2psi. Now consider that the editors are likely pumping tires with a +/-5psi gauge and we have to wonder if we are really feeling the difference in stiffness of the steerer tubes or if we just think it's there.

If you build heavier, higher spoke count wheels I definitely recommend putting on a larger tire and dropping pressure. I'm currently running 28mm Roubaix tires on my commuter bike (I'd ride larger if I could fit them) at 65/70 and it's fantastic here on our terrible Indiana roads!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Josh,
Curious....what frame and rims you running those 28's on?
Cheers

David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [tilburs] [ In reply to ]
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tilburs
You mean my personal bike with the 28's or something relative to the data above?
josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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Your personal bike, always curious what frames and rims cope with 28's ....

Cheers

David

David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [tilburs] [ In reply to ]
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Funny story actually..
It's a Pinarello Opera from 2000, I put the Campagnolo flat bar shifters on there a few years ago and made it my commuter bike (worst shifters EVER btw). It easily handles 28's which is pretty typical of metal bikes pre-2000, sort of ironic considering that nobody would ride those tires back then!

It is a good example of the perception/reality thing. That bike was the first bike ever (in 1997) to use a carbon rear seatstay (frame is otherwise steel) and the whole world went nuts for carbon seatstays because they saved weight and were so obviously much more comfortable. However, in the testing I've done, I couldn't find a single carbon rear stay bike that was better in rear compliance than the all metal model it replaced, and in many instances, they are worse due to the additional material/reinforcement, etc required for the bond area overlaps etc.. Nevertheless, we all believed it and we all went crazy for carbon rear ends about 12 years ago!

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [joshatsilca] [ In reply to ]
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joshatsilca wrote:
Funny story actually..
It's a Pinarello Opera from 2000, I put the Campagnolo flat bar shifters on there a few years ago and made it my commuter bike (worst shifters EVER btw). It easily handles 28's which is pretty typical of metal bikes pre-2000, sort of ironic considering that nobody would ride those tires back then!

It is a good example of the perception/reality thing. That bike was the first bike ever (in 1997) to use a carbon rear seatstay (frame is otherwise steel) and the whole world went nuts for carbon seatstays because they saved weight and were so obviously much more comfortable. However, in the testing I've done, I couldn't find a single carbon rear stay bike that was better in rear compliance than the all metal model it replaced, and in many instances, they are worse due to the additional material/reinforcement, etc required for the bond area overlaps etc.. Nevertheless, we all believed it and we all went crazy for carbon rear ends about 12 years ago!

A few years back I had a team frame that was a Dedacciai hydroformed aluminum front triangle mated with their carbon seatstay/chainstay rear (Kona Zing Supreme). My impression at the time (with equivalent wheels/tires/pressures) was that it transmitted significantly more "shock" through the rear (I was still being silly and running pressures ~115 psi in 23C tires) as compared to my all aluminum Soloist.

People thought I was crazy when I told them that...since after all, EVERYBODY KNOWS that aluminum frames are "bone shaker" stiff, right? ;-)

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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My story is almost identical, I had an aluminum DeRosa Merak that I really liked when I got the Pinarello (long story, but we were making parts for Pinarello and Fausto said, let us make you a custom bike.. so they do all the measuring, give it this amazing paintjob and ship me this really remarkable bike..that completely does NOT fit me, but of course, I have to build it an love it, right? I would have honestly sold it, except that they painted my name right onto the top tube under the clear coat!). Back to back, I could swear that the Merak was a better riding bike in pretty much every regard, but at the same time, it was pretty hard to 'believe' that since all of the features that we associate with 'better' were in the Pinarello!

These days I know better and only buy bicycles based on their paint jobs and put good sized tires on there at a reasonable pressure and done! (note, if you are racing seriously, this is NOT the way to go, for that I'd say aero first, then paint!)
Josh

http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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Tom A. wrote:

A few years back I had a team frame that was a Dedacciai hydroformed aluminum front triangle mated with their carbon seatstay/chainstay rear (Kona Zing Supreme). My impression at the time (with equivalent wheels/tires/pressures) was that it transmitted significantly more "shock" through the rear (I was still being silly and running pressures ~115 psi in 23C tires) as compared to my all aluminum Soloist.

People thought I was crazy when I told them that...since after all, EVERYBODY KNOWS that aluminum frames are "bone shaker" stiff, right? ;-)


So your subjective perception of shock is more accurate than other people's subjective perception?

Though I had a similar perception when I tried out a friend's $10K custom, carbon Parlee, and thought it was harsher than my $900 Performance bike aluminum frame.
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Re: Does the use of aero frames by many riders at Flanders etc undermine the marketing of "endurance" bikes? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
Tom A. wrote:


A few years back I had a team frame that was a Dedacciai hydroformed aluminum front triangle mated with their carbon seatstay/chainstay rear (Kona Zing Supreme). My impression at the time (with equivalent wheels/tires/pressures) was that it transmitted significantly more "shock" through the rear (I was still being silly and running pressures ~115 psi in 23C tires) as compared to my all aluminum Soloist.

People thought I was crazy when I told them that...since after all, EVERYBODY KNOWS that aluminum frames are "bone shaker" stiff, right? ;-)



So your subjective perception of shock is more accurate than other people's subjective perception?

Though I had a similar perception when I tried out a friend's $10K custom, carbon Parlee, and thought it was harsher than my $900 Performance bike aluminum frame.

Well...when you pump your tires up to be rocks (as I did at the time), you start being able to detect differences in other parts of the "spring train" ;-)

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/
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