Steel faster than carbon?
 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CHk54Mm5P_7vbzbhoHoZ_SjcGgICNWXL8ZewfITtpdo/mobilebasic

Any insight into what caused this?

What caused what? Your link is non-functional as far as I can tell.

You are brave even to click on it. (I would not.)

Copy and paste into the browser and it works just fine.

For many years I have proposed the "aero" frame is no more than marketing bull for gullible buyers. Without the whole package being complete, the aero frame is simply shaped tubing and ineffective by itself. Yeah, yeah, follow the science. Science is wrong more than it is right.

I decided not to follow my own advice.

If you amputate "mobilebasic" from the URL, it will work.

It is anecdotal, with results based on 2 bikes, one rider.

To me, the answer is clear and obvious. The steel bike has a Chris King headset.

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Another Carbon vs. Steel thread? Hold on while I get a few beers and some popcorn, will ya?

:popcorn :beer:

For very fast TT, it is probably helpful. But for people like me, it just increases the comedy/self-parody aspect.

Let's not forget that steel would just be iron if it weren't for the included carbon atoms.

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...riders who can't make steel frames go fast are a bunch of girly men. It's all about the motor. Or to quote my personal hero, Lance Armstrong, "It's not about the bike." :)

Yesterday I weighed my steel ‘86 Bianchi Campione de Mundo and it came in at a ‘very svelte’ 25 lbs. Combine that with racing gears and the slowest of slow tires, Gatorskins and this girly man has one heck of a time pushing that bike as fast or far as my carbon Bianchi with GP 5000 tubulars, weighing 8 lbs less. By your criteria, I must be worthless and weak, but I can certainly live with that just fine. If you would like to take my 86 for a spin, you are more than welcome to enjoy the beauty of Columbus steel. :D Lance would approve.

I've always wanted to see the results of, say an 18lbs steel racing bike with modern components and rim brakes matched against a 17lbs carbon aero bike with discs. Same for a 10 year old top-of-the-line 16lbs rim brake carbon bike vs the latest disc brake carbon wonder bike. The fact that bike manufacturers are reluctant to conduct these tests caused me to suspect the results wouldn't be to the likings of their profit margins.

The modern bike industry is a scam so far as I'm concerned.

For sure!

Gosh Golly ... Gee Whiz ... couldn't have seen this 'conclusion' coming.

Well done!:thumb:

This is a fascinating thread. I mean, we've never discussed this sort of thing on bf before!

If you have other carbon vs metal bike tests I'd love to see them!

Not steel but this test returns the results I would expect: metal bikes lack the power transfer efficiency of carbon.

Well, that proves it! I mean, the guy rode some bikes down a hill and everything!

What's the deal with the unwarranted sarcasm? I'm merely curious as to the performance of bike frame materials. If the subject doesn't interest you, no problem, just move on...

If you know the first thing about the scientific method, you know that the "test" in that video definitely warrants sarcasm. And your topic has been absolutely beaten to death here on bf and elsewhere.

The fact that the OP liked your comment kind of says it all!

Can you provide any more scientifically credible tests? Shouldn't be difficult if the topic has indeed been beaten to death.

Not interested. Not in the slightest.

Right, exactly the response I expected.

If that were true, you wouldn't have asked the question. But nice try. 'nighty-'night.

One thing that would help is multiple controlled repeats of the experiment, to establish some statistical significance to the claimed differences.

But before that, one would really need to have a properly controlled experiment. The biggest single flaw in the google doc is that the tires on the steel bike have vastly better rolling resistance than those on the carbon bike, so how do you know that you are measuring something other than the differences due to the tires?

Essentially, you want to change one thing only: frame material. Ideally, you would want to use the same wheels, tires and drive train. Several different routes, several different riders, etc. would also make things more compelling.

You are trying to test a very specific hypothesis: frame material is the only thing that matters. The rest of the bike should weigh the same, have the same air resistance, road resistance, pedaling resistance, etc. In practice, this is a very difficult thing to achieve.

If you see repeatable differences, it is most compelling to design a series of experiments to try to disprove the idea that the observed differences can be explained away by any other effect.

It is a lot harder, in other words, than what is presented in the google doc or that video.