Originally Posted by
HTupolev
No, but I don't see how that's analogous or has anything to do with what we're talking about. It certainly doesn't result in the same degree of error: water is about 25% denser than ethanol, while your curling example was exaggerated by 1000%+ over the actual impact that the bicycle weight discrepancy being discussed will have on most cyclists' climbing.
It's a huge exaggeration regardless of disclosure of body weight. Even if the OP is only 80 pounds, it would be a roughly 10% difference: still very small compared with the 67% of your curling example.
When operating within a context where the other person obviously isn't familiar with the physics, I view such exaggeration as very dishonest.
The numbers in the exaggeration don't really matter to the point Iride01 was trying to make, and I find nothing dishonest in it at all. A lighter weight can be curled more times than a heavy weight before we reach our physical limits. Likewise, a lighter bike takes less energy to move down the road, and we can therefore do it longer/farther/faster than a heavier bike before we reach our physical limits. If we want to quantify exactly how much difference between Bike A and Bike B, then the math starts getting more complicated, but that still doesn't invalidate the intent of the exaggerated example.
bnot not understanding the intent of the example is a totally different issue.