Originally Posted by
steine13
I've been meaning to have a discussion about the differences between various types of bicycles for a while -- this is as good a place as any, I reckon.
Like most of us, I rode a lot as a kid. When I turned 15, it was mopeds, and later a small motorcycle. At 22, I turned back to cycling, and since I was a student with no money, I got a low-end Peugeout of the (I believe) carbolite variety and rode that for everything; mostly commuting and some loaded touring.
I've never had a proper high-end road bike; the closest is probably the 87 Moser with Aelle frame, sew-ups, and Triomphe groupset.
Presumably the ride and handling wouldn't be much different with the higher-end models.
Exactly once in my life, namely the first time I rode a proper 'racing bike' -- a late-70s Peugeot -- did I get spooked by twitchy handling. That lasted about until the end of the street, then I started getting used to it. I've ridden lots of different bikes, and while I can tell slow handling from fast, a few hundred yards down the road I tend to forget about it. Once a bike fits, it's mostly just a bike, and nobody builds anything really crazy anyway, so we tend to get absorbed in the minutiae.
To read, as an example, Grant Petersen's writing on geometry, you'd be afraid to get on bike with crit geometry at highter speeds. Ad copy for randonneur bikes make similar points. But in my younger years, I'd take the Moser downhill at 45 mph and surely was contemplating things like tubulars coming unglued, but the handling wasn't a concern. Last year I got a CAD3 Cannondale and rode it a few times, even just across town as an errand bike. Yeah it feels a bit different than my touring bikes, and the aluminum bikes feel different than steel, but none of this seems a big deal to me.
The one requirement I have is that my bike go straight down the road when I ride no-hands, and they all do, with various levels of stability.
Here are some shots of my stable.. the long-winded message is that I'd ride any one of these anywhere, and the decision which one to take on a century would depend on the weather and the need for fenders, or super-low gears, and maybe most of all, whether I can get the handlebar high enough so my neck can take it. That property known as "handling" would be somewhere lower than "weight" and higher than "paint color."
Can you-all relate, or does that just mean I'm numb to the finer points of cycling?
No need to be gentle.
cheers -mathias
The geometry matters greatly after getting fitted to the bike. As Grant might posit, the "crit" bike is really poor for commuting and such because it handles poorly if the rider is fitted into an upright position with a taller and/or shorter stem extension. I've done this with a few short-coupled, steep angled racing frames and they pretty much sucked in terms of the rider's mental relaxation.
Steep geometry makes the bike more responsive to quick changes in direction and to acceleration efforts, as the rider isn't fighting the bike as much under harder efforts. There is a lot to explain here, but long chainstays act as levers that allow hard pedaling efforts to push the front end around more. Longer and slacker-angled bikes also tend to drift wide in corners within a surrounding group of riders, which is dangerous when the group is riding close together.
Faster roads that have any side-wind or that aren't perfectly smooth will may leave the rider of the "crit" bike unable to reach for their water bottle, change gears or even change hand position until the speed and/or conditions change. I have certainly experienced all three of these things riding some of the great variety of bikes that I've owned.
So I think that Grant is right to caution against his readers using a steep-angled "crit" bike for more-utilitarian use and especially when fitted into a more "upright" rider's position.
A worst-case situation can arise either from the "intended use" variable, or from the "fitted configuation" variable (as when an upright Guerciotti racer is perhaps fitted with "townie" handlebars).
And a best-case scenario perhaps shapes up when a Schwinn Varsity with barely 70-degree frame angles is fitted with a townie upright handlebar and short stem extension (A popular and great combination, the 27"-wheel 10-speed Suburban that Schwinn sold with such an upright handlebar).
Even my original 1970 Supersport with it's 73-degree frame angles is a twitchy bike with it's factory-spec upright bars. It's great for walking the dog on leash on serpentine trails at low speed, but feels too nervous out on the road at speed.
All that said, riders do naturally adapt to a pretty wide range of geometries, and it's only those who ride different bikes regularly who might find geometry differences so pronounced.
Recumbents I've ridden seem to be the worst, but then I don't ride these every day.
And sometimes it's just the headset bearings being rough or over-tight (or perhaps some ancient radial tires) that makes a bike feel nervous-steering and awful-riding.