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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
It was interesting to note that some of the top end road bikes today
are posting 120 N/mm of bottom bracket stiffness and 90 Nm/degree of headtube torsional stiffness while fork stiffness is way at at almost 200 Nm/degree. Some of the priciest wheels money can buy, such as Lightweight Standard, are posting between 90-100 Nm/degree for stiffness. More here : http://bit.ly/7rOYYT Obviously, there's no point in getting worked up about stiffness ratings alone, as there are lots more that gives a bike character. What according to you mostly contributes to making a good bike? When does stiffness really matter? In 100 years of bicycle history, lots of Tour de France level racers have gone by for a long time with"flexy" steel frames, even broken records (Eddy Merckx...etc.). -Ron |
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#2
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
On 07-Jan-10 10:06, bicycle_disciple a bien réfléchi et puis a déclaré...:
It was interesting to note that some of the top end road bikes today are posting 120 N/mm of bottom bracket stiffness and 90 Nm/degree of headtube torsional stiffness while fork stiffness is way at at almost 200 Nm/degree. Some of the priciest wheels money can buy, such as Lightweight Standard, are posting between 90-100 Nm/degree for stiffness. More here : http://bit.ly/7rOYYT Obviously, there's no point in getting worked up about stiffness ratings alone, as there are lots more that gives a bike character. What according to you mostly contributes to making a good bike? When does stiffness really matter? In 100 years of bicycle history, lots of Tour de France level racers have gone by for a long time with"flexy" steel frames, even broken records (Eddy Merckx...etc.). -Ron 1 - the color red 2 - a spoking pattern to hold playing cards 3 - magnesium alloy kickstand 4 - came in a box with an aluminum hex key 5 - the price is a variant of $XXXXX.97 6 - reverse gear 7 - stiff but flexible 8 - non-oval wheels 9 - both air-horn and bell 10 - exotic, macho, unpronounceable brand and model names. No, I did not insist on a saddle. That's a dealer option. -- Sandy Verneuil-sur-Seine FR -- C'est le contraire du vélo, la bicyclette. Une silhouette profilée mauve fluo dévale à soixante-dix à l'heure : c'est du vélo. Deux lycéennes côte à côte traversent un pont à Bruges : c'est de la bicyclette. -Delerm, P. |
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
On Jan 7, 1:01*pm, Sandy wrote:
1 - the color red 2 - a spoking pattern to hold playing cards 3 - magnesium alloy kickstand 4 - came in a box with an aluminum hex key 5 - the price is a variant of $XXXXX.97 6 - reverse gear 7 - stiff but flexible 8 - non-oval wheels 9 - both air-horn and bell 10 - exotic, macho, unpronounceable brand and model names. No, I did not insist on a saddle. That's a dealer option. -- Sandy Ha. That's great!. Did you forget pie plates? -Ron |
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
On Jan 7, 9:06*am, bicycle_disciple wrote:
It was interesting to note that some of the top end road bikes today are posting 120 N/mm of bottom bracket stiffness and 90 Nm/degree of headtube torsional stiffness while fork stiffness is way at at almost 200 Nm/degree. Are this values signifying the stuff to be very stiff or not very stiff. |
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
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#6
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
On Jan 7, 4:44*pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op 7-1-2010 21:55, schreef: On Jan 7, 9:06 am, *wrote: It was interesting to note that some of the top end road bikes today are posting 120 N/mm of bottom bracket stiffness and 90 Nm/degree of headtube torsional stiffness while fork stiffness is way at at almost 200 Nm/degree. Are this values signifying the stuff to be very stiff or not very stiff. That's stiff considering that that frame (Canyon Ultimate CF SLX) weigh less then 900 gr and the fork less than 300 gr. Lou Yes, this is high amount of stiffness , I suppose. The interesting thing to note is that very expensive, German bikes are being rated most favorably. This coming from a German test magazine makes you wonder what the real intent is behind the initiatives. -Ron |
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
On 7 Jan., 23:48, Ron wrote:
Yes, this is high amount of stiffness , I suppose. The interesting thing to note is that very expensive, German bikes are being rated most favorably. This coming from a German test magazine makes you wonder what the real intent is behind the initiatives. I don't think it is a just matter of national preferences that German bicycles do well in German bike magazine tests ; Germans and Scandinavians are on average just built bigger than Italians, so many Germans found standard Italian frames too flexy for their liking. This created a demand for frames with stiffer bottom bracket areas, so German frame makers started to produce stiffer frames. This again made bicycle magazines test the stiffness of the frame, reinforcing the ideal, that a good bike had a high BB stiffness. Since the German bike market is heavily influenced by systematic tests from leading bicycle magazine, this again made the German frame makers make ever increasing stiffer frames (or have the highest stiffness to weight ratio) in order to well in these tests. So it really isn't so surprising that German bikes do well in frame stiffness tests. When Jens Voight joined team CSC he found the Cervelo frames way too soft and asked for, surprise, much higher BB-stiffness. They seem to have listened, because Cervelo bikes now have a very high BB-stiffness- to-weight ratio. The Cervelo R3 SL won the German Tour Magazine mega carbon bike test in 2008, http://www.cervelo.com/reviews/Tour_Cover.jpg not because it is German, not because it is Canadian, but because it it has properties that the German bike market (and therefore Tour Magazine) appreciate; high BB-stiffness while still being comfortable etc. -- Regards |
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
Op 8-1-2010 4:14, Peter S. schreef:
On 7 Jan., 23:48, wrote: Yes, this is high amount of stiffness , I suppose. The interesting thing to note is that very expensive, German bikes are being rated most favorably. This coming from a German test magazine makes you wonder what the real intent is behind the initiatives. I don't think it is a just matter of national preferences that German bicycles do well in German bike magazine tests ; Germans and Scandinavians are on average just built bigger than Italians, so many Germans found standard Italian frames too flexy for their liking. This created a demand for frames with stiffer bottom bracket areas, so German frame makers started to produce stiffer frames. This again made bicycle magazines test the stiffness of the frame, reinforcing the ideal, that a good bike had a high BB stiffness. Since the German bike market is heavily influenced by systematic tests from leading bicycle magazine, this again made the German frame makers make ever increasing stiffer frames (or have the highest stiffness to weight ratio) in order to well in these tests. So it really isn't so surprising that German bikes do well in frame stiffness tests. When Jens Voight joined team CSC he found the Cervelo frames way too soft and asked for, surprise, much higher BB-stiffness. They seem to have listened, because Cervelo bikes now have a very high BB-stiffness- to-weight ratio. The Cervelo R3 SL won the German Tour Magazine mega carbon bike test in 2008, http://www.cervelo.com/reviews/Tour_Cover.jpg not because it is German, not because it is Canadian, but because it it has properties that the German bike market (and therefore Tour Magazine) appreciate; high BB-stiffness while still being comfortable etc. -- Regards Agreed. German Bicycle magazine (TOUR eg) have an opinion what they think is important in a frame. They are very open in how they test and how they rate the different properties of a frame/bike. German bicycle manufacturers try to comply to that. If you don't agree with that no problem by all means buy a 'mysterious' Italian bike like Pinarello, DeRosa, Colnago or Wlllier but you have to pay 2000-3000 euro more for those. If you look at the 'winner' of the test the Canyon CF SLX ETE201 it costs 6000 euro. Although a lot of money but compared to A brand Italian bike with comparable specs a hell of a deal. The frameset of the Canyon costs 1800 euro (if you have a license 1500 euro) including fork, headset, stem and seatpost. Almost half the price of the Pinarello Prince, DeRosa King or Colnago CX1 framesets. The Germans understand that and Canyon, Red Bull, Stevens, Cube etc are very succesfull. Lou |
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
On Jan 8, 12:09*pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op 8-1-2010 4:14, Peter S. schreef: On 7 Jan., 23:48, *wrote: Yes, this is high amount of stiffness , I suppose. The interesting thing to note is that very expensive, German bikes are being rated most favorably. This coming from a German test magazine makes you wonder what the real intent is behind the initiatives. I don't think it is a just matter of national preferences that German bicycles do well in German bike magazine tests ; Germans and Scandinavians are on average just built bigger than Italians, so many Germans found standard Italian frames too flexy for their liking. This created a demand for frames with stiffer bottom bracket areas, so German frame makers started to produce stiffer frames. This again made bicycle magazines test the stiffness of the frame, reinforcing the ideal, that a good bike had a high BB stiffness. Since the German bike market is heavily influenced by systematic tests from leading bicycle magazine, this again made the German frame makers make ever increasing stiffer frames (or have the highest stiffness to weight ratio) in order to well in these tests. So it really isn't so surprising that German bikes do well in frame stiffness tests. When Jens Voight joined team CSC he found the Cervelo frames way too soft and asked for, surprise, much higher BB-stiffness. They seem to have listened, because Cervelo bikes now have a very high BB-stiffness- to-weight ratio. The Cervelo R3 SL won the German Tour Magazine mega carbon bike test in 2008,http://www.cervelo.com/reviews/Tour_Cover.jpg not because it is German, not because it is Canadian, but because it it has properties that the German bike market (and therefore Tour Magazine) appreciate; high BB-stiffness while still being comfortable etc. -- Regards Agreed. German Bicycle magazine (TOUR eg) have an opinion what they think is important in a frame. They are very open in how they test and how they rate the different properties of a frame/bike. German bicycle manufacturers try to comply to that. If you don't agree with that no problem by all means buy a 'mysterious' Italian bike like Pinarello, DeRosa, Colnago or Wlllier but you have to pay 2000-3000 euro more for those. If you look at the 'winner' of the test the Canyon CF SLX ETE201 it costs 6000 euro. Although a lot of money but compared to A brand Italian bike with comparable specs a hell of a deal. The frameset of the Canyon costs 1800 euro (if you have a license 1500 euro) including fork, headset, stem and seatpost. Almost half the price of the Pinarello Prince, DeRosa King or Colnago CX1 framesets. The Germans understand that and Canyon, Red Bull, Stevens, Cube etc are very succesfull. Lou The Germans and the Dutch have a talent for doing the job right. -- AJ |
#10
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Bicycle Frame Stiffness
On Jan 7, 8:14*pm, "Peter S." wrote:
On 7 Jan., 23:48, Ron wrote: Yes, this is high amount of stiffness , I suppose. The interesting thing to note is that very expensive, German bikes are being rated most favorably. This coming from a German test magazine makes you wonder what the real intent is behind the initiatives. I don't think it is a just matter of national preferences that German bicycles do well in German bike magazine tests ; Germans and Scandinavians are on average just built bigger than Italians, so many Germans found standard Italian frames too flexy for their liking. This created a demand for frames with stiffer bottom bracket areas, so German frame makers started to produce stiffer frames. This again made bicycle magazines test the stiffness of the frame, reinforcing the ideal, that a good bike had a high BB stiffness. Since the German bike market is heavily influenced by systematic tests from leading bicycle magazine, this again made the German frame makers make ever increasing stiffer frames (or have the highest stiffness to weight ratio) in order to well in these tests. So it really isn't so surprising that German bikes do well in frame stiffness tests. When Jens Voight joined team CSC he found the Cervelo frames way too soft and asked for, surprise, much higher BB-stiffness. They seem to have listened, because Cervelo bikes now have a very high BB-stiffness- to-weight ratio. The Cervelo R3 SL won the German Tour Magazine mega carbon bike test in 2008,http://www.cervelo.com/reviews/Tour_Cover.jpg not because it is German, not because it is Canadian, but because it it has properties that the German bike market (and therefore Tour Magazine) appreciate; high BB-stiffness while still being comfortable etc. -- Regards Interesting. I have a Taiwanese steel bike. A 91 Specialized lugged made with something like Tange Prestige. I am a 190ish fat cow with an ungracefully heavy pedal stroke. My bike seems to be stiff enough for me to go forward in the direction that I like. I don't know how stiff it is, but I doubt that it is any stiffer than a CF bike. Granted that when I get on a CF bike they seem to respond faster when I push down the pedal hard. However, I wouldn't know if this would translate into faster riding. I have never ridden a CF bike for more than a few turns around the parking lot. Yet, they seem to have a different feel from mine. I had an aluminum frame for a while. I didn't like it. One of my regular rides includes a road with that unfinished pavement. The aluminum bike was very harsh on that section. I never thought that a frame would make a difference until I rode that Al bike. I switched all the components to the Specialized frame and sold the Al bike on ebay. I am a happy rider now, even though my steed weighs 28 lbs when loaded with two H2O bottles a seat bag with tools and some gummy bears. One of these days I'll order one of the chinese CF frames on ebay for $350 that are getting very popular now. |
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