Kontact 

And what has that got to do with the fact that he won against lighter bikes 4 times? My point has nothing to do with what material magnets stick to.

genejockey 

What even IS your point anymore? That more expensive things are more expensive and often the gains are incremental at best? No ****, sherlock.

Kontact 

That uber expensive bikes are luxury objects unnecessary for even pro racing and contain an enormous amount of profit for their manufacturers because the materials and techniques to build them are only marginally more expensive than more conventional bicycles.

That said, I'm not against anyone buying a bike they love. Or a Patek Phillipe wristwatch. I just think it is funny to pretend that these crazy expensive bikes have some sort of necessary function or represent a good value because of the technology cost.

elcruxio

so that's a wheelset that has 390 grams for two hubs and spokes. Unless something truly exotic is being used, there is no way that wheelset isn't extremely flimsy, flexy and fragile. If you weigh next to nothing you can get away with a lot of weight weenie hacks which would probaly be fatal for someone even indurain sized.

Also talking of costs, comparing a self built bike where you've used countless hours searching for components, comparing weights, building wheels, assembling said bike, test riding it etc. to a store bought one is a bit unfair isn't it? You should at least add in the cost of your time. With my hourly rate I couldn't do all that much work on the bike before I arrived at 14k. And that's without a single bought component.

Kontact 

Hourly rate for your hobby time, or hourly rate for a shop? All production bikes need shop assembly, and most of the current high end ones take over two hours because the internal routing and hydraulics aren't done at the factory. If you're comparing your personal hourly rate because you're a dentist, you might as well talk about how expensive it is to sit on the toilet.

My 16 lbs bike required me to buy a frame, a fork I already had, a Rival group, a Ritchey crank and some alloy bars and stuff that were in the sale bin at the LBS. The wheels were a previous project, and like many light bike things, derive their low weight from high stiffness. The rear is laced 2:1. I didn't spend hours pouring over weightweenies listings - I just built the bike out of stuff that I like the look of and hung it on a scale when I was done. 16 lbs includes Delta cleat pedals and stainless cages.

Trakhak

Highlighted for empathetic commiseration.

There were Columbus tubing brochures in the '80s that included weight limit recommendations. The recommended limit for SL tubing was roughly 180 lb. Their KL tubing was recommended only for record attempts. The fact that ultra-light steel-tubed frames are so rare suggests that even the strongest current steels are no match for carbon (or for hydroformed aluminum) at the low end of the weight scale.

Kontact 

SL is not a lightweight tube set at .9/.6./.9" walls compared to typical 531 of the time being .8/.5/.8". What Columbus was recommending is using their stiffer SP tubeset for larger, more powerful riders. Not because they were afraid anything was going to break. It was common for builders seeking stiffer drivetrain feel to substitute SP chainstays on SL frames.

Ultra light steel is rare because steel is not light. Carbon, aluminum, magnesium, pine, balsa, fiberglass and titanium all have much higher strength to weight ratios. Yet a steel bike can get down close to 3 pounds and carbon isn't that much lighter. There are many other considerations - like wall strength and attachment points that make materials useful or not for bikes. Columbus KL wasn't oversized (fit SL lugs), so it only saved weight by being thin - and therefore flexible. S3 is thin and oversized, which is why it is light and stiff.

wolfchild

I pulled those numbers out of my rear end just to make a contribution to a troll thread, although I bet I am not too far off the mark here...Personally I have no interest in what it costs to manufacture a bicycle....If I want a certain type of a bike I just go and get it and don't care what it costs the manufacturer to produce it.

genejockey 

gah.

Look, while it is true that a rider of such outsized talent as Indurain could dominate the peloton with equipment marginally heavier than other riders, I think my example above showed that those incremental gains add up. Sure, for you and me, 14 seconds more to reach the top of Alpe d'Huez is essentially meaningless, but that's 6 more seconds than Lemond won the 1989 TdF by. And if you're a pro on the wrong side of a 14 second gap, and you could have made that up with somewhat more expensive equipment, you'd feel pretty damn stupid, wouldn't you? Note also that it's quite probable that Lemond's 8 seconds were gained by his use of aero bars in the final TT. Were they necessary? I mean, nobody up till that point needed aero bars to win the TdF. But people sure adopted them after that, didn't they?

Incremental gains add up. So do incremental losses.

And as far as making "an enormous profit", have you included in your COGS analysis the expense of the design and engineering that went into it? Remember, the point of the Aethos is not JUST that it's light. It's that the lightness doesn't compromise handling, or braking, or limit the rider weight to 150 lbs. "Strong. Light. Cheap. Choose any two." And I'm pretty sure Specialized makes only a tiny fraction of its overall profit on the Aethos S-works bikes it sells. It's all the cheaper bikes, which BTW also only cost a fraction of their price to build.

But overall, what is this "need" ****? One could reasonably argue that nobody who doesn't use it to make a living NEEDS a bike AT ALL.

Kontact 

To review: You don't need an Aethos to get down to UCI minimum. Much more conventional bikes will get there without expensive compromises like junk skewers.

What I think you're failing to get from my posts is that the Aethos is made of the same stuff in the same way all modern CF bikes are. They just found a way to use less of it. But this isn't some sort of exotic blend of graphene and boron, but a fair amount design analysis to put stiffness in the overall structure rather than just the BB, elimination of pointlessly non-round tubes and minimalist assembly joints that are probably pretty delicate until they are fitted to each other. If you look at carbon fiber composites' specific strength, the Aethos is much closer to what is predicted than the 2/3 of a steel bike that is the norm.

So while I do appreciate the good design and probably careful construction procedures necessary, the Aethos isn't using new materials or tooling. It's just a better use of materials than "squoval" downtubes and bikes with thick bottoms and thin tops, or clunky slip fit overlaps between sections. None of that necessarily costs a lot more because you execute such a design with the same tried and true methods and materials as everything else - even the Aethos wall thicknesses are the same as the Tarmac.

Now consider that the lightest Ti frame was just over 800 grams, and Ti alloy is nowhere near as high a specific strength as CFM. It shouldn't be that long before a 400 gram carbon frame comes along.

elcruxio

And yet if I were to do a project like that I'd need to start from pretty much nothing. And I naturally count the hourly professional rate. The 14k bike needs to be designed by someone. Someone needs to source the parts for it. Etc etc. If I wanted a bike that's like a 14k bike I could either sit at home planning it work some more hours and just buy a bike from a shop. You need to keep your comparisons fair.

Aluminum or pine doesn't have a higher strength to weight ratio compared to steel. Magnesium may have but it depends massively on the alloy. Titanium is expensive and extremely hard to work with.
With fibres comparison is more difficult as they do have higher strength in one direction and not at all in the other. So when you put them together in a multidirectional weave the end result may end up surprisingly close to steel.

Kontact 

What are you talking about?

4130 steel - 85
6061 aluminum - 115
Pine - 223
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_strength

Ever heard of the Spruce Goose? Think about why it isn't the Steel Goose.

And titanium is so hard to work with that it will cost you $1300 to buy a new frame made of it.

genejockey 

Well, given that the Aethos S-Works is actually well below the UCI limit, no, you don't need an Aethos for that. Also, it's probably not as aerodynamic as Specialized's race bikes, what the exposed plumbing, round tubes, and all. And since it's not useful as a race bike, it largely debunks the idea that the people who buy it are wannabe TdF riders.

So, let me ask you - do you think a manufacturer, or a bike shop, are only 'due' a particular dollar profit/bike? Or, if will you "allow" them to make the same percent markup without calling the bike "overpriced"? At what point does it become "enormous profit"?

Kontact 

"Enormous profit" isn't pejorative. I'm not a communist. All that the market will bear! If people want to spend their disposable income on luxury items - have at it. I think it is a good way to make money, and it certainly pleases consumers more than run of the mill pricing.

I just don't care for consumers fooling themselves into believing their money spent represents a large buy in of manufacturing/design cost. $4000 goes just to the dealer for the monetary risk of stocking it rather than spending the money on 7 easy to sell bikes. Similar numbers apply to the frame company, component company, etc. Specialized keeps those profits in house by owning the wheels, bars, stems, etc. It must hurt having to write that check to Shimano.

elcruxio

that pine figure is about double what I can find from other sources. If we're talking the most basic stuff then 6061 beats 4130. But I thought the discussions was high end. You won't beat reynolds 953 with aluminum alloys you can make bikes out of.

You can probably buy a burned oxidized titanium frame from basic alloy that doesn't beat 953 in terms of strength to weight. I'd imagine the better vacuum welded stuff is a bit more expensive.

Camilo

Well, some of us need Big Shorts and are not proud of it.

genejockey 

That's why I'll never buy Castelli again. Call me an XXL, will you? I'll give my money to LeCol, who think I'm only an XL!

tomato coupe

The Spruce Goose was built from wood because of wartime restrictions on metal use, not because wood was a superior material. It flew once for approximately one mile, reaching an altitude of 70 feet. On the other hand, several (stainless) steel aircraft have been flown successfully for extended periods, some of which were put into active service by the U.S. and other military.

Kontact 

The metal they couldn't use was aluminum. Do you guys really not understand strength to weight for materials?

Kontact 

Ti bikes are TIG welded. Are you confusing them with vacuum brazed ti in the 70s?

You sound like you're making this stuff up.

tomato coupe

Strength-to-weight isn't everything when it comes to material science. If it was, wooden bikes would have dominated steel and aluminium bikes in the pre-carbon fiber era.

Camilo

I am willing to humiliate myself with Castelli sizing because the KISS chamois suits me for some reason and the products are often on sale and priced within my criteria. But the tights?!! Wow, even a size or two oversized, they are hard to get over my chicken legs. i really cannot believe Italian cyclists have skinnier legs than me. Belly? sure, but legs?

Trakhak

You mean they couldn't use it because of wartime restrictions, correct? Not clear from the context whether you mean that or that they couldn't use it for reasons that made aluminum a bad choice for building airplanes.

tomato coupe

The use of virtually all metals was restricted by the U.S.government during WW2.

Kontact 

The lightest 953 frame I found is 1175g. Allez DSW SL or Caad frames ran 1050-90.

The limiting factor with advanced steel alloy is wall thickness and the "beer can effect".