700/23 vs 700/25 tires ?

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:51:54 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

In article ,
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 07:39:16 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Mar 4, 5:52*am, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:44:48 -0700, wrote:
In your experience, what's the correlation between any "very
small change" that you've made and any 2 cm victories?

Yes, Carl was lying about being more convinced when presented a
poster saying a small change helped him win.

And yes, he's cowardly too -- rather than saying "No, that didn't
help" he posits his view as a question.

John, this is rec.bicycles.tech.

You really should post _something_ that has technical content once
in a while. Something that uses or discusses numbers, perhaps.

How about you shut up, in this thread at least? Chung schooled you
and you kept rambling on.

How about that? Try it.

What you really mean is that Chung posted stuff you agree with, which
therefore must be right, and thus everyone who disagrees with you should
concede defeat.

And you're different?

Your "reasonable" stance is so fake -- at least I'm honest with my
antipathy. But keep it up if it makes you feel good.

In article
,
Bret wrote:

On Mar 4, 5:54*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,

*Bret wrote:
On Mar 3, 5:27*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article

m,

*Bret wrote:
If you have the physical ability

Bingo. *The key to racing success. *That and tactics.

I believe that there are key moments where the bike can make a
difference. Frank dodged that part of my post.

"Believe" being the operative word. *As Ben has pointed out very
well, it can't be proven.

Another example, in a mountain road race I once summited Wolf
Creek pass, an eight mile climb, well down on the race leaders,
but only 20 seconds down on a strong chase group that eventually
rolled up everyone in front of them. It wouldn't have taken much
of a difference for me to have been at the front of that race.

It often seems like the guys who beat us do so by that 1% gap which
we *ought* to be able to overcome with a lighter bike, or a little
more training, etc. *It's often a self-delusion. *The guys who beat
us ride just hard enough to beat us- there being no reason to ride
harder than that- but might have 15% capacity left untapped while
we are at 100%.

This is not true in a photo finish situation. Both riders will be at
100% unless one has misjudge the finish.

Which are rare except in professional cycling, and even then the winning
rider may be at 101% of his competitor's capacity and have 10% of his
own left in reserve. Erik Zabel could outsprint me with one foot
unclipped and keeping 50% of his reserve in a photo finish.

In article
,
" wrote:

On Mar 4, 5:54*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,

*Bret wrote:
On Mar 3, 5:27*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article

m,

*Bret wrote:
If you have the physical ability

Bingo. *The key to racing success. *That and tactics.

I believe that there are key moments where the bike can make a
difference. Frank dodged that part of my post.

"Believe" being the operative word. *As Ben has pointed out very
well, it can't be proven.


Actually, what I showed is that you can't use percentage of wins (or
A finishing ahead of B) over one season to determine whether
something caused an improvement. Your responses to that make me
think that you didn't understand the implications.

Yes, Ben, the implications are clear: the effect size of the improvement
is smaller than the error of measurement. That's a great definition of
negligibility.

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:20:04 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

Of those 2000+ races, how many more did you win because of that 1%
improvement that you wouldn't have won otherwise? And how do you know
it was *that* 1% improvement?

it can't be known with certainty because races are too complex. But
if you accept that the 1% exists, the only reasonable reason not to
avail yourself of it is cost or reliabilty problems or such negatives.
It's simply stupid to say, "Well, fitness is more important, so don't
do it." Or "Bikes are the same pretty much the last 20 or 80 years"
or whatever it is.

That's the point.

On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:28:37 GMT, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:51:54 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

In article ,
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 07:39:16 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Mar 4, 5:52*am, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:44:48 -0700, wrote:
In your experience, what's the correlation between any "very
small change" that you've made and any 2 cm victories?

Yes, Carl was lying about being more convinced when presented a
poster saying a small change helped him win.

And yes, he's cowardly too -- rather than saying "No, that didn't
help" he posits his view as a question.

John, this is rec.bicycles.tech.

You really should post _something_ that has technical content once
in a while. Something that uses or discusses numbers, perhaps.

How about you shut up, in this thread at least? Chung schooled you
and you kept rambling on.

How about that? Try it.

What you really mean is that Chung posted stuff you agree with, which
therefore must be right, and thus everyone who disagrees with you should
concede defeat.

And you're different?

Your "reasonable" stance is so fake -- at least I'm honest with my
antipathy. But keep it up if it makes you feel good.

Dear John,

Good heavens, more self-effacing modesty!

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Mar 5, 9:39*pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:20:04 -0600, Tim McNamara

wrote:
Of those 2000+ races, how many more did you win because of that 1%
improvement that you wouldn't have won otherwise? *And how do you know
it was *that* 1% improvement?

it can't be known with certainty because races are too complex. *

You're beginning yo catch on, at least. A good sign - althoughyou
have a way to go.

But
if you accept that the 1% exists, the only reasonable reason not to
avail yourself of it is cost or reliabilty problems or such negatives.
It's simply stupid to say, "Well, fitness is more important, so don't
do it." *Or "Bikes are the same pretty much the last 20 or 80 years"
or whatever it is.

That's the point.

Then John, give aserious answer: Did you not use drilled chainrings?
Why not? Did you use Shimano AX brakes? Why not? Did you use an
aero water bottle hanging from the front of your stem? Why not -
could you not use coat hangers and pliers too make up a bottle mount?

Or do you decide which 1% improvements are important just by what's
fashionable?

- Frank Krygowski

On Mar 5, 7:18*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:

Chance *is* 50/50 when there are only two possible outcomes.

I won 50% of my races in 2005. The other guy was just lucky as I was
clearly stronger.
http://www.cyclesveloce.com/results_summary05.asp

Bret

On Mar 5, 7:20*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,



*Bret wrote:
On Mar 4, 8:36*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Mar 4, 12:44*am, Bret wrote:

On Mar 3, 5:27*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:

In article

m,

*Bret wrote:
If you have the physical ability

Bingo. *The key to racing success. *That and tactics.

I believe that there are key moments where the bike can make a
difference. Frank dodged that part of my post.

Bret, what you say is true, for certain values of "can."

IOW, sure, whether you installed your valve caps or not "can" make
a difference in certain key moments. *Because you wisely chose to
leave them off, you _might_ someday outsprint your evil rival by
0.001" at the finish. *Perhaps.

And the same thing might happen because of lucky socks.

Now seriously: *understand, this is a probability thing. *The
larger the equipment improvement you make, the bigger number of
times it "can" make a difference. *But it's never 100%. *Any
equipment improvement is always competing against the hundreds of
other factors, many (perhaps most) of them random.

You're shaking hundreds of dice, while shaving a handful of them,
and hoping to see a meaningful change in the total number you roll.

- Frank Krygowski

Your lucky socks strawman is getting tiresome. I've repeatedly talked
about improvements on the order of 1%. *It's true that there is a low
probability of that being a deciding factor in any given race, but if
you race a lot (2000+ races in my case) these things eventually
happen. I could give you multiple example in a variety of
circumstances.

Of those 2000+ races, how many more did you win because of that 1%
improvement that you wouldn't have won otherwise? *And how do you know
it was *that* 1% improvement?is that I

All I have said is that I have been is multiple races where 1% would
have made a difference one way or the other.

BTW, I need to retract the 2000 number. That number was in my head but
now that I actually work it out, it's closer to 1000.

Bret

Bret

On Mar 5, 7:31*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,



*Bret wrote:
On Mar 4, 5:54*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,

*Bret wrote:
On Mar 3, 5:27*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article

m,

*Bret wrote:
If you have the physical ability

Bingo. *The key to racing success. *That and tactics.

I believe that there are key moments where the bike can make a
difference. Frank dodged that part of my post.

"Believe" being the operative word. *As Ben has pointed out very
well, it can't be proven.

Another example, in a mountain road race I once summited Wolf
Creek pass, an eight mile climb, well down on the race leaders,
but only 20 seconds down on a strong chase group that eventually
rolled up everyone in front of them. It wouldn't have taken much
of a difference for me to have been at the front of that race.

It often seems like the guys who beat us do so by that 1% gap which
we *ought* to be able to overcome with a lighter bike, or a little
more training, etc. *It's often a self-delusion. *The guys who beat
us ride just hard enough to beat us- there being no reason to ride
harder than that- but might have 15% capacity left untapped while
we are at 100%.

This is not true in a photo finish situation. Both riders will be at
100% unless one has misjudge the finish.

Which are rare except in professional cycling, and even then the winning
rider may be at 101% of his competitor's capacity and have 10% of his
own left in reserve. *Erik Zabel could outsprint me with one foot
unclipped and keeping 50% of his reserve in a photo finish.

I don't see any logic to what you are saying here. Nobody
intentionally leaves a race finish that close. Ask Beppe.

Bret

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:22:40 -0700, wrote:

Dear John,

Good heavens, more self-effacing modesty!

Dear Cowardly Carl

I'm especially not modest and I'm not especially immodest.

But I'm fairly honest and open -- far more than you. I don't hide
information about myself. You should try being more open.