Originally Posted by
Road Fan
Why aren't the 531 and SL frames more comfortable than the ELOS frame with 28 mm TT and ST, and 31 mm DT? I haven't tried to evaluate them mathematically in terms of belly moment of inertia, but I don't think I could deal well with the full butting profile anyway.
The easy calculations of stiffness people always do don't really translate well to a space frame anyway. Although I suppose it mostly goes back to moment of inertia.
I am currently riding a 9/6/9 25.4/28/28 Reynolds 531 bike for audax which I like a lot. Prior to that, I was riding an OS 28/28/31 7/4/7 Columbus Spirit 4 Lugs bike that I liked a lot. I don't see how tubing contributes much to comfort because of the triangulation of the frame. However, those two tubing profiles have very similar bending properties. On most designs, there is very little vertical deflection except possibly in the fork. I have heard people complain about 2OS bikes feeling dead to pedaling force. One thing about current fork tubing is that it is generally thinner than the old stuff, so even a go fast bike can have more fork compliance over a similar fork from 35 years ago.