Originally Posted by
Hiro11
Heine's been saying this stuff for decades. He also believes that bottom bracket stiffness is self-defeating etc. Interesting fellow, I'm not sure what to think about his ideas. I do like his tires, though.
My take away is that he thinks that little energy is actually dissipated by frame and BB flex (energy is just stored briefly) and so you need to consider the dynamics of a rider’s pedal stroke and a bike’s frame flex throughout the pedaling cycle and find an optimal match.
Thus, stiffness should match the rider’s power output, with stronger riders needing stiffer frames while lower output riders will prefer to ride more flexible frames.
It’s an interesting idea. The first part doesn’t surprise me and could be verified with appropriate testing. The second part is probably much more subjective, though I suspect stronger riders will generally tend to like stiffer frames.
Otto