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Carbon vs aluminum

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Old 12-31-20, 04:55 PM
  #26  
cxwrench
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Originally Posted by woodcraft
The pros are
- basically no pinch flats
- no fragile bead hook profile
- pretty much eliminates heat dissipation/ delamination issues for rim brakes
- lighter
- better safety margin for high speed punctures
- can run lower pressure
- arguably fewer flats
- bargain priced used available.
^This^
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Old 12-31-20, 05:23 PM
  #27  
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Don't buy tubulars this day in age.
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Old 12-31-20, 06:00 PM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by Dave Mayer
For a wheelset, low rotational inertia is the #1 performance requirement, which helps you to reconnect with the wheel in front of you coming out of corners. If you are behind a group of say 10 riders, at 40kph, you are basically coasting. But if you drop 10 feet back, exposed to the wind, you have to amp up the watts to close to that of the pacemaker. As in 100 to 400 watts ASAP. If you cannot, and drop back, then you are finished: solo for the rest of the ride.
How many watts does it take to spin a pair of wheel up from 30 to 40kph?
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Old 12-31-20, 06:02 PM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by akirapuff
Its a lighter wheelset for one. Also weight savings from tires and better feel. I understand the maintenance is harder.
Shaving a bit of weight off your wheelset is a ckmlelte waste of time and money.
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Old 01-01-21, 03:45 PM
  #30  
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Logic says any gain in acceleration you get from lighter weight is offset by a loss of inertia; you have to work harder to maintain speed. You get a slight benefit for climbing, and maybe improved braking.

Another benefit of a lighter bike that occurs to me is less unsprung weight; every time the bike has to move over a bump, that's proportionately less energy lost from whatever fraction of the force that doesn't end up moving the rider too (rider could be unweighting, seatpost could flex). That might be approaching significance, but I haven't seen anybody talking about that, let alone trying to quantify it. The unsprung weight factor might also be relevant for grip.

But it's all pretty marginal stuff.

What isn't marginal is what a frikken beast your whip feels like when it's rocking a deep 1kg wheelset.
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Old 01-01-21, 03:51 PM
  #31  
Robert A
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I love my tubeless setup, but no way do they have the same feel as sew-ups, especially silk sew-ups. And with tubeless, I am slightly less confident that I can get up and rolling again if there's a flat.

Last edited by Robert A; 01-01-21 at 04:02 PM.
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Old 01-01-21, 03:55 PM
  #32  
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Originally Posted by Kimmo
...every time the bike has to move over a bump, that's proportionately less energy lost from whatever fraction of the force that doesn't end up moving the rider too (rider could be unweighting, seatpost could flex). That [i]might be approaching significance, but I haven't seen anybody talking about that, let alone trying to quantify it.
Read up on impedance and rolling resistance. This has been covered.
https://blog.silca.cc/part-4b-rollin...-and-impedance
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Old 01-01-21, 03:59 PM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by asgelle
Read up on impedance and rolling resistance. This has been covered.
https://blog.silca.cc/part-4b-rollin...-and-impedance
I've read that. There's no investigation of the effect of bike weight on impedance. And it'd be tough to test for - how do you control for the rider's degree of unweighting?
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Old 01-01-21, 04:02 PM
  #34  
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Originally Posted by Kimmo
I've read that. There's no investigation of the effect of bike weight on impedance.
That the break point is a function of system weight has absolutely been discussed, perhaps not in the one article I cited, but in the context of understanding the factors that determine when the breakpoint occurs. There's little point in understanding the slope of the Crr curve beyond that point as it doesn't make sense to ride there at all.
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Old 01-01-21, 04:22 PM
  #35  
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Originally Posted by asgelle
system weight
That's rider and bike, but it's a gross oversimplification given there's no rigid connection between the two.
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