Kapusta

Yes, please tell us what previous marketing trends fed you.

terrymorse 

Aero is not the only downside of a wide tire.

Wide tires have less compliance than normal width tires at the same pressure. A less complaint tire produces reduced ride comfort and increased rolling resistance on rougher surfaces. These disadvantages can be overcome by reducing the pressure in the wide tire, but some athletic riders may not prefer the ride quality of a low pressure/high profile tire.

Wide tires are also heavier, and they require the use of disc brakes, which are also heavier.

rsbob 

Very much like thinking about new cars. Always better features, faster, more comfy, better mileage or electric and on and on, but then there is the price and depreciation.

One Wheel

Ah, yes: the soothing sensations of a cracked rim when you hit a pothole, or gravel sliding under your skin when some troglodyte fails to sweep the road before you pass by. Hope could I forget?

terrymorse 

Counterbalanced by the smooth confidence on high speed turns -- and the solid feel when sprinting full gas for the city limit sign.

Sierra_rider

I've got both bikes, the 2013ish uber-lightweight rim brake bike and the lead fishing weight, disc brake bike. The rim brake bike is fun on climbs, but even on longer climbs, there's only a small difference in the speed/power ratio between the 2. I can fit 28mm tires fairly easily on the rim-brake bike, so I'd be perfectly happy with it if I had fairly flat roads or non-technical descents. Having spent the last few years on a disc brake bike, there is a definite advantage to it on the local roads. On top of that, things like carbon wheels are no longer consumable items.

LV2TNDM

"Ah, the last of the V8 Interceptors!"

You'll be king of the wasteland!!!

PeteHski

The whole point of wider tyres and rims is to increase air volume, which allows much lower pressures and more compliance. You would never run them at the same pressure as a narrow tyre.

The pros were running sub 50 psi at Paris-Roubaix this year on 30-32 mm tyres with wide internal rims. Obviously that’s a compromise for the cobbles, but they are still very fast on the road.

terrymorse 

I would rather put it this way: fat, low pressure tires are fast enough on the road, but their performance on the cobbles overshadows their on-the-road disadvantage. And Paris-Roubaix is won or lost on the cobbles.

On the other hand, I would not want to descend a twisty mountain road with fat tires. The right tool for the conditions.

PeteHski

I find the latest 30 mm Contis are great on mountain descents. The pros might use 28 mm (and sometimes 25 mm front) but I think the slightly wider tyres are better all-round for endurance riding on mixed roads. I certainly don’t feel any need to swap to narrower tyres for an alpine trip.

Alpine descents with disc brakes and wider tyres was really quite a big step forward in my book and I had decades of riding experience beforehand. Nothing would convince me to go back. When I did the L’Etape du Tour last year, there was hardly a rim brake in sight. But each to their own.

Jughed

I'm currently riding both the past (2001 steel) and present (2021 high end aluminum, CF wheels, disc brakes & a CF cyclocross bike) - swap the bikes out daily.

Both road bikes accept 28mm tires & are on GP5000's. Cross bike has both 28mm and 37mm.

20 years of innovation = more comfortable brake hoods and marginally better stopping with the disc brakes - that's about it. I guess electronic shifting is an upgrade - at a pretty steep cost. An upgrade that wont make you faster or change your ride.

The 2001 steel frame is smoother, better handling, built by hand in the USA - the 20+ year old paint is holding up better than the two newer bikes. The CF frame rides like a brick. It is brutally rigid, the most uncomfortable frame I've ridden, on par with my old CAD 3. The newer aluminum is better - but not even close to the old steel.

For Joe Schmoe century rider that slogs up a mountain every so often, even a fast group rider type - all of the other marginal gains these bike claim, all the extra cost added for these marginal gains - really means little or nothing in terms of performance. Tires and wheels, which can be put on any bike = the biggest bang for your buck.

Everything else is completely insignificant for the non pro tour racer. And that is the buying the hype argument - Joe century dude in can spend 1000's and 1000's - and may, may being the key word, save 5 min of rolling time. And the cost of that rolling time, with a new aero frame - comfort. The wider tires and more comfortable brake hoods - offset by a frame that rides like a brick.

Here is where "new" all falls apart. The list price of my high end, hand built in the USA, steel road bike was $2k+/- in 2001. Thats $3500 in today's dollars. But that bike new would cost 6-8k easy right now. Almost 2x inflation.

Maelochs

If your CF frame is too rigid you bought the wrong frame.

The notion that all CF frames are the same is ludicrous. We outgrew that idea that all Al frames were too rigid and jittery, we outgrew the notion that all steel frames--some which are gaspipe tanks and some so thin as to be bendable by hand---are the same ... why not just make the leap and accept that CF is an infinitely malleable material and can be shaped into frames with many different properties?

If you wanted a compliant, responsive CF frame you should have bought one. Sorry you didn't, but that is on you.

Same with handling ... assuming that handling is a function of age or framer material is nonsense. Handling is a function of design. Tube angles, weight distribution, tire pressure ... but neither age nor frame material determine handling.

I agree, a tire/wheel upgrade is the most notable ... but then, we are talking "upgrade." if you bought the wrong frame, changing components is not going to fix all the problems.

As for "marginal gains" .... well, everything is subjective, isn't it.

In my experience a lot of riders are not overly concerned with shaving seconds of their time on each ride. Some are. For those who are, every marginal gain matters. For those who aren't ... those marginal gains might still matter because they add up to the actual riding experience. A smoother ride, or quicker or slower handling, or more confidence in the brakes ... even electronic shifting, which you deride as a useless upgrade which won't change your ride---for a lot of riders (many of whom have posted here) electronic shifting is better than sliced bread and almost as good as craft beer. It has changed their rides, and in a positive way.

Subjective, remember?

Yea, and that fact that you have not bought the right bicycle is 20 years doesn't mean that bikes are not good, or even better, nowadays. it means you bought all the wrong bikes ... and maybe shouldn't have bought any, if your 2001 steel steed met all your needs and desires.

I am glad for every bike I have bought, because I shop carefully, and each one has brought me something i want and appreciate. I love my '84 Raleigh and my 2017 Workswell and all the rest. I hope someday you too will only buy bikes you will love.

meanwhile ... when I bike was built doesn't mean anything except how old it is. This ridiculous notion that there were "Goode Olde Days" when everything was better .... yeah, okay. How is your pennyfarthing working for you?

..... because someone out there rides one and loves it more than every other bike.

PeteHski

This is just your personal perspective on a bunch of specific bikes. Your CF frame might well ride like a “brick”, but mine certainly don’t. That’s the thing with CF, it can be designed to ride extremely stiff or very compliant, or anything in between. My 2022 Canyon Endurace is the most refined road bike I’ve owned and ridden in the last 4 decades. It cost £4,500 for a second-tier build. Not cheap, but not ridiculously expensive either. It’s just about the ideal modern bike for a fast century group ride, which is what I use it for. It’s not significantly faster than my older bikes, but it is significantly more comfortable and refined.

Jughed

I'm not saying "good ole days everything was better". I am saying the modern bikes are just flat not 2-3x better - as cost and hype would like one to believe.

And BTW, I just got the old steel bike, it's new to me... it's no slower than my current bikes, rides better, the 20 year old paint is better than the new paint on my late model Trek and Giant,

Yes, our opinions on what is "better" is subjective - but cost isn't. Hype claims are not - they use hard numbers.

Not to stray too far off topic - but my latest pick up truck is close to 2 x better than my 20 some year old pick up truck. Over 2x the power, 2x the towing capacity, close to 2x the fuel mileage, xxxxxxxx more reliable - same can't be said for bikes - but the cost and hype will try and tell you they are.

Kapusta

I think the impact of technology advances on the road bike experience are not all that big over the past 20 years. The real “advancement” is the industry’s move away from its myopic focus on pro paved road races and instead offering bikes more useful to more riders in more real-world uses (i.e., Endurance and Gravel). But these are really just changes in frame clearance and geo. And neither of these things were new ideas, just a return to better ones. The most significant component advancement IMO has been in larger tires that are still light and fast.

MTB is different. MTBs have gotten magnitudes better every decade for the past 30 years.

DangerousDanR

I bought myself a bike that epitomizes everything that the modern bike haters rage against, except it does have mechanical shifting. But it is a 1x13, so they can rant against that as well.

My records for this year show that I am about 5% faster in spite of a rather serious injury. I run the tires around 90 psi, and a 28 mm GP5000 at 90 on a 60mm rim rolls faster than a 25 on 46 mm rims at 105 psi did.

Build weight was very similar to my steel or titanium bikes. The brakes are better by far than the rim brakes were on alloy wheels.

My aero plastic abomination has done one century and numerous metric centuries this season. It is much more comfortable than the metal bikes.

It is more stable at speed and corners better than the metal bikes.

And I didn't spend five digits in US $ for it. Oh, wait... the people trash talking don't own or ride one of these aero abominations. They must know what they are talking about, or else they don't know<fecal material> from Shinola.

Maelochs

Basically, anyone who pays any attention to the hype is going to need a shower ... but it is a personal choice.

As for price? The price may have doubled, but the price has more then doubled on Everything, depending on how far back you look. Are milk or bread four or six times better than they used to be, just because they cost that much more?

Are workers five time better because min wage is five time higher?

Bikes have developed over time. I would say bikes have "improved" over time ... but there are always going to be people who think the pennyfarthing of the safety bicycle (or some other random development phase) was the peak. Can't help them, can't shoot them (or rather, not worth the risk and the effort. ) But in general, I can buy a bike which will last as long or longer, ride a given pace on given terrain with less effort, be more comfortable, and will stop and turn as well or better than, say, the bikes i was riding in the mid- to -late sixties.

Probably in the early '70s or so higher-quality bike started hitting the consumer market .... but even the best of those bikes were much more focused, much more specialized, than a bike built today which would offer a rider equal performance with greater comfort.

And I know there will be a few guys saying how their steel-framed 12-speed Wunderbike with 52-42x 1-21 gearing and 18-mm tires at 165 psi was every bit as fast and every bit as comfortable over as many surfaces as a modern CF bike with 30-mm tires ..... but look at what the pros are riding. Sure, they ride what the team tells them ... but the teams need to win to stay in business, and they know beating up riders is not the key to victory.

Sure, the old Porsche 930 was a monster car when it was new ... in 1975. Now it would be outperformed by any number of hot-hatch econoboxes ... sure they are fords or Toyotas, not Porsches ... but on a track, the turbo Fiesta or whatever would go wheel-to-wheel and be easier to drive.

But after all that ... it is all Personal Preference.

I ride what I like. I don't try to convince other people it is "The best" for anyone but me, and that is only for right now. If I enjoy the ride ... there are no metrics for that, but the rider knows. And to me, that is what matters.

PeteHski

Road bike evolution is slow and incremental and the engine is human (excluding e-bikes). So objective performance gains are always going to be very marginal, but they do add up over time. UCI regulations also limit potential performance gains to some extent.

But what I personally like about the current crop of bikes is their balance of refinement, comfort, versatility and speed. There is nothing I miss in any of my old bikes. If there was I would probably still ride one.

PeteHski

I live right next door to Silverstone race circuit, so we get a lot of sports cars on the local roads. Last year I was following a Porsche 930 in a Tesla Model X. He saw me in his mirror and decided to give it the full beans. It was almost sad how easy it was to follow my childhood icon (in a 7 seater SUV) and I own a classic 911 myself. They are just not that fast anymore. Anyway it's way OT, but your comment reminded me of this encounter.

terrymorse 

Dial it back about ten to twenty percent there, dangerousDan

masi61

This analysis of the ride quality of wider tires is pretty confusing to me.

terrymorse 

Wire tires are also tall tires (taller sidewalls), and they are typically inflated to lower pressure, so they deform and squirm more than a narrower, shorter tire, inflated to a higher pressure.

Jughed

yep, what DD didn’t consider, while I like my old steel frame and baby boomer shifters…

His new bike is #2 on my wish list, only behind its brother the Huez.

Time isn’t selling hype, they are selling machines.

SoSmellyAir

A few skilled drivers have told me that older 911's (with their antiquated traction control systems) are quite difficult to drive fast on windy roads. Even with my slightly above average driving skills, I have managed to chase one on Palomar Mountain Road in my modified A3 until he pulled into a runoff to let me past.

Jughed

Some were called widow makers for a reason…


Never drove one in real life, but they are a handful in driving simulators… the GT3 RS will test your skills. I’ve been trying to master the RS of late - it’s a thing to drive.