On Wed, 6 Apr 2005 13:33:58 CST, wrote:

If that's true, now that the Tour de France (and all other races) are
composed purely of aluminum and carbon bikes, what is the rate of
failures there? After all, these are bikes that are ridden more in a
month than most bicycles get ridden in their entire lifetime.

And in many cases, are then discarded. These are *racing* bikes.
They aren't intended to be racing 2 years from now because they'll be
2 years out of date at that point. Your question makes as much sense
as asking "When was the last time a Chevy Monte Carlo won a race on
the nascar circuit?" the answer in that case, if you are speaking of
a vehicle substantially similar to one that might be driven daily on
the street, is "never". While it is possible to buy a bike
substantially similar to many of those used in the TdF, doing so when
the intent is to obtain a *durable* product is the wrong approach.
Racing hardware, whether it's intended for cars, motorcycles,
skateboards or bikes, is oriented towards short-term performance, not
longevity. It doesn't have to be the best stuff for *any* use, it
just has to be the best for the specific event, for long enough to get
to the end of the course.

Plus,
they get ridden outside in the rain, get bashed over cobblestone roads
at high speed, and get washed with corrosive chemicals and blasted with
a hose every single day of their lives.

And do you really think they don't also have multiple backup bikes,
techs to check them each day, and spares for everything that might
wear or fail?

When WAS the last time a steel bike won any significant race, of any
kind, any where? I'm not old enough to remember.

Probably in the '70s, maybe the '80s. What of it? Those were
tissue-thin steel frames, not intended to be any more durable than the
beer-can aluminum ones that replaced them. As with the new ones, a
bike for a high-end comepetitive TdF team hasn't been built for a
75000km life expectancy in a very long time. There's no reason to do
so; it's going to be retired at the end of the season, or maybe even
at the end of the race. It's been a long time since *that* wasn't
true.

More importantly, though, when was the last time that somebody who
doesn't train 6 hours a day won the TdF? *That*, not the frame
material, is where the real competitive edge lies. You can't make a
Lance Armstrong by putting his bike under a random rider. When the
competitor gets to within a few percentage points of the performance
of the leaders of the field for a given race, then the bike that's
under him may become an important factor. Until then, it's really
irrelevant.
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