Smaug1

Guys, can we stop with the CF arguments please?

Besides, if you can squeeze a CF top tube and it gives a little, so what? It's DESIGNED to give a little in certain directions; that's why it gives a nice ride.

CF is also used in wind turbine blades and airplane wings, where it ALSO has to give a little, while being lightweight.

If it doesn't give, either you can't squeeze hard enough or you just can't feel it. Either way, it doesn't matter. The frames are designed by people (with help from CAD) who know more about this than we do, and they're machine analyzed to confirm they do what they're supposed to do.

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Back to my aluminum bike for a minute. Someone mentioned to me lately that an aluminum bike of today is hydro-formed and is also CAD-designed to be compliant, (at least on a Domane) rather than just the old round tubing.

Tire pressure: My tires are marked "INFLATE TO 70 PSI" as if that is correct regardless of rider weight. Is the assumption that anyone riding this bike weighs less than 200 lbs. or something? If I use one of those online calculators and decide upon a lower pressure, will it slow me down? Not that I care about all-out speed, but I DO want to keep up with this group I ride with on Monday nights. I'm only available for Monday and Wednesday weeknight rides. The Wednesday ride is 14-16 mph average, which is perfect for me. I get a good workout, but I'm not killing myself. The Monday night ride usually spits into two groups: 16-18 and 19-21 mph. There's no way I can keep up with the faster group for more than a couple miles. But if I push myself, I can keep up with the slower (no-drop) group at 17 mph w/70 PSI. I'm totally open to trying lower pressures for a more comfortable ride, but if it costs me 1 mph? No good. (at least for Mondays!)

I can get out Saturdays, at least for a 13 mph ride for 25-30 miles, and sometimes for a 50-100 mile ride. The rest of the time is family and work stuff. This weekend, I had my daughter, and we rode a lot. (albeit 2/3 on eBikes, as she's not keen on using cycling for fitness)

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I'm liking my Trek Domane AL3 Disc very well so far. This is what I've done to it up to now:

- Selle Anatomica X-2 saddle; huge improvement in comfort on 20+ miles rides. It breathes and lets the sit bones slide around as needed without chamois butter or anything.
- An old Specialized seat bag with tools, 1st aid and a spare tube.
- Garmin Explore Edge 2 GPS; this is nice.
- 5 mm thick grip tape w/gel pads underneath. I can't seem to support myself the way I'm supposed to with my core to keep the hands from going numb. Putting that much weight on my legs to do that isn't possible most of the time. I guess I need to invest in a pro bike fitting. I thought the bike shop did a good job, but apparently not. I seem to be sensitive to hand numbness; I had it when I was a motorcyclist no matter which bike I had or how I tried to support myself. (sport-touring and adventure bikes)
- I have a Topeak 6L seat bag on the way, as I prefer not to have a bunch of junk in the jersey pockets. We'll see how that goes. I may just end up using it on family rides to help the girls carry some stuff.
- A couple bottle cages
- I tried a tube top bag; it gets in the way when straddling the bike, so it's on my hybrid bike now.

I probably have around 600 miles on the bike now; I had an active July, when my daughter was out of the country on vacation with her mom. Did my first century in July on this bike.

mstateglfr 

Steel bike frame and forks from the late 70s, all the 80s, and even the 90s have been shown to fail.
This isn't even debatable- it's easy to see both lugged and tig'd frames that crack in all sorts of places.
Crack at the lug joint.
Crack at the bb.
Crack along the bb and impact a couple tubes.
Crack at the head tube.
Crack at the downtube joint.
Crack at the seat tube collar.
Crack at the seatstay connection.
Crack at the dropout.
Crack at the fork crown.
Etc etc etc.

Lemond by trek. Lemond by BB. Miyata. Schwinn. Univega. Nishiki. Panasonic. Bridgestone. Cinelli. Colnago. Yada Yada Yada- there are examples of steel frame failures from all these brands and countless more.


There is no way for you to quantify how many frames used to fail before you claim things were fixed, compared to how many frames failed after. You have no idea what % of carbon frames fail vs what % of steel frames failed 30 years ago.
But not knowing sure didn't stop you from making some very confident claims.



And all my current bikes except 1 are steel. I have a 25 year old cannondale road frame too. My steel frames are from '73 thru '19. So I clearly like steel.

mschwett 

at least it’s better than natural stupidity, which is in excess ….

Eric F 

Ahhh, yes. The "foist wisdom upon the uneducated heathens" maneuver. We've seen this before.

big john

A nice thread devolved into a frame material thread with the expected CF bashing. Maybe we should throw in a disk vs rim brake component? How about flat pedals vs clipless?

mschwett 

god forbid the poor guy go tubeless !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! maybe the spewing sealant will hold the CF together long enough to get to a bike shop with his platinum card.

PeteHski

Tires usually have a min and max pressure marking or sometimes just a max. I would take 70 psi to be the maximum if that is the only marked pressure. Lower pressure is unlikely to slow you down significantly and to a point is quite likely to speed you up a little, in addition to being more comfortable. The SRAM or Silca online calculators will give you a good starting point for your weight, tire size and road conditions etc. I'm guessing these tyres are probably around 32 mm wide.

Maelochs

Dude this is bike Forum. Using logic and fact, and even more so the combination of the two is considered rude and unsociable. Besides ... everyone knows CF is brittle and weak, and furthermore, useless in outdoor applications.

If CF is so awesome, why don't they make those gigantic turbine blades out of CF?

QED.
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Experiment to see what you like. No other way I know. 17 psi seems a bit low .......
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This all sounds really sensible and similar to what I would do (which my be good or not ... )
- A couple bottle cages

Maybe a pro fitting, or just a lot of minute adjustments over time, while your body adjusts.

A lot of things make a difference.

I used to be very sensitive (probably still am) and like yourself, had issues even on flat-bar bikes (not on my motorcycle but I didn't do a lot of really long rides.) Everything from arm, hand, and wrist angle (lateral and vertical), height of hands relative to shoulders, extension ..... Also, I have to be very careful where the bars press on my hands. I still have to shake out my hands frequently, and I use thick tape.

Do whatever works for you ... and if a Pro Fitting seems warranted go ahead, but if you pay $300 and still can't hold one position for more than a few minutes ....

Glad to hear you are enjoying the new ride.

Smaug1

Thanks for the reference.

I just ran numbers in the SRAM calculator, and it suggests tire pressures of 59 in the front and 63 in the back. (if I check Reinforced for tire cases) 62 and 66 if I choose Standard. (tires are Bontrager R1 Hard-Case Lite, so I assume Reinforced.)

PeteHski

Sounds good. I wouldn't sweat the micro differences between 59 and 62 psi etc. Your tire pressure gauge is probably not that accurate anyway. Maybe start with 60 front, 65 rear and see how that feels on your roads. Chances are it will feel more comfortable than 70 psi and your speed will be totally unaffected. But don't try to gauge your speed from "feel". Sometimes tires can "feel" slower when they are more comfortable. Just go off the clock and how well you are keeping up with your usual group rides.

Next step up for those fast group rides you mentioned is a set of faster tires. Those Bontrager R1s are relatively slow rolling tires. If you swapped them for Conti GP5000 or similar in the same width you would definitely pick up a little speed. This would be a pretty major upgrade actually.

Smaug1

Would I give up puncture resistance then? Because that’s not worth it to me.

PeteHski

Probably not if you run them tubeless. I haven’t had a single flat in 18 months running 30 mm GP5000S TR tyres tubeless and our roads are rough AF.

But if you are sticking with tubes then I can recommend Pirelli Cinturato Velos as a bombproof alternative that is still quite fast rolling. You can run these tubeless too for even more protection.