Originally Posted by Jughed

My old road bike was a CADD 3 Cannondale R800. It was everything you said. You could feel the power going to wheel, felt like no power was lost. But the thing would rattle the fillings out of your head.

My new road bike is a modern aluminum version of that bike, Trek ALR 5. The frames are worlds apart - in comparison, the Trek is smoother/more "compliant", but is also stiff & has decent power transfer.

Originally Posted by Trakhak

Another unappreciated factor in the equation, at least for the U.S. bike market, is that for many decades, bikes were ridden almost exclusively by children and were therefore part of the toy market. Margins were thin for manufacturers and retailers alike, but costs were low at the point of sale, since the three or four models of single-speed balloon-tire bikes that dominated the market took only a few minutes for low-paid staffers in department stores and hardware stores to assemble.

Sales of more-sophisticated bikes to adults in the U.S. began to increase slowly in the 1960s but really took off during the early-'70s bike boom. Unfortunately for the specialty bike shops that began springing up, the costs of assembly and warranty work went way up (to say nothing of the cost of maintaining sufficient inventory in all the brands and models and sizes and colors of bikes and all their components or of all the other costs of doing business), but the profit margins remained the same. (Ironically, profit margins elsewhere in the toy industry increased dramatically over the same time period.)

Margins in the bike industry stayed essentially the same until carbon bikes started to be a real presence. Love carbon bikes or hate them, people regard them as representing a paradigm shift in technology in the industry. They enabled manufacturers and retailers to begin to pull prices up from the toy industry profit margins that bike buyers had enjoyed and industry professionals had suffered from for decades. (Compare what happened during the couple of years when CDs were supplanting vinyl records. Once the machinery was in place, CDs were far cheaper to manufacture and distribute than LPs, but the CD prices were much higher.)

So, as a former bike store manager, I'm happy to see the prices that higher-end bikes have reached, especially since they've enabled a more general (if more modest) increase in margins that applies to other bikes and equipment. It's about time prices got to where bike store owners could afford to make a decent living.

Too bad the even more recent changes, including ever-expanding consolidation of formerly independent bike shops into networks of company-owned stores, have ensured that most of those store owners won't be able to survive in the bike industry for much longer.

Originally Posted by Jughed

That plus the Lance Armstrong/Tiger Woods (I know, not biking) effect coupled with the internet forums...

People began to believe that they needed the bike Lance rode, the clubs Tiger used......................

Originally Posted by Lombard

The difference you feel in compliance is most likely because of wider or even just more supple tires on the Trek, not differences between the frames.

Originally Posted by Dave Mayer

On a rim brake bike with road calipers, much of the braking forces are transmitted from the road, passed through the wheel and then to the frame/rider through the fork crown area. The fork crown is already very bulked-up and strong.

On disc brakes, the forces are passed from the road 100% to the end of the fork through the disc, and from there to the frame.

It is for this reason that disc forks have to be stronger and unfortunately heavier. Every disc brake fork I've had through my hands at the shop has been substantially heavier than equivalent non-disc versions. It is for this reason that disc-brake road bikes ride 'dead' and non-compliant. I suppose this is the reason that bikes have gone to larger tires: to compensate for the stiffer frame and fork requirement. But then bigger tires are also heavier.

Originally Posted by Lombard

The difference you feel in compliance is most likely because of wider or even just more supple tires on the Trek, not differences between the frames.

Originally Posted by Jughed

My old road bike was a CADD 3 Cannondale R800. It was everything you said. You could feel the power going to wheel, felt like no power was lost. But the thing would rattle the fillings out of your head.

My new road bike is a modern aluminum version of that bike, Trek ALR 5. The frames are worlds apart - in comparison, the Trek is smoother/more "compliant", but is also stiff & has decent power transfer.

Originally Posted by Trakhak

I understand that manufacturers sell more aluminum bikes if they claim that they're more compliant than the older versions, but I don't buy it. Making an aluminum tube more compliant is how you make it more breakable.

Originally Posted by Trakhak

A thousand times yes. The history of the "aluminum frame equals harsh ride" fallacy is as follows.

Guy buys medium-wheelbase sport touring bike with 70-psi 27" x 1 1/4" tires in the '70s. Guy eventually decides to step up to new Cannondale, in the middle or late '80s. Enthusiastic bike racer salesman (that would have been me, in our shop) talks guy into buying a Cannondale Crit series bike, with ultra-short wheelbase (and 700c x 23-mm tires pumped to 120 psi). Wheelbase makes bike handle like a Formula 1 Ferrari; tires make bike ride like Ben Hur chariot. Rider incorrectly interprets the hardness of the tires and the shocking immediacy of the handling as evidence of the harshness of the bike's aluminum frame. Misinterpretation eventually hardens into dogma on the internet.

Comparatively few of us here have owned both a Cannondale and a high-end Italian steel bike (in my case, a Bianchi Specialissima Supercorsa) with similarly short wheelbases. But those who have owned both know that the Italian bike is no more "comfortable" than the Cannondale---just heavier.

Originally Posted by Jughed

So... circa 1993. I went directly from a 90'+/- Trek Steelie race bike(not fine Italian, I understand) to a Cdale R800. Similar tires, similar geometry, same pressures - and that is where the similarities ended.

The steelie was soft and smooth, plenty of frame flex/give and near zero road buzz. Every steel bike I rode was like that, even a Bianchi...

The Cdale rode like a concrete block. Zero flex, zero give - all sorts of road buzz - there was no misinterpretation. The frames were night and day different.

I just donated that old Trek to goodwill last year. It was nicknamed the "old Buick", because that's what it rode like. Soft and floaty.

Originally Posted by Trakhak

A bike racer/materials engineer has a YouTube channel ("Peak Torque"---I recommend his videos highly) where he evaluates many claims concerning bike technology. One video concerned what people believe about what makes one bike more comfortable than another. He measured compliance of frame and components and found that the saddle, seatpost, and tires were by far the principal factors. The bike's frame was down in the statistical noise range of factors.

Your Trek likely has a greater free seatpost length and wider, lower-pressure tires (and, I would guess, a longer wheelbase) than the Cannondale. I understand that manufacturers sell more aluminum bikes if they claim that they're more compliant than the older versions, but I don't buy it. Making an aluminum tube more compliant is how you make it more breakable.

Originally Posted by Keefusb

Back in the racing days, I rode a Cannondale R900 2.8 with a Profile carbon fork. It was light, and you could feel the power from your legs going right down to the rear tire, but those cantilevered seat stays and the overall stiffness of the frame made for a chattery, non-compliant ride, even at a 60cm frame size.

My son now has the Cannondale as a city bike (Baltimore). My tired old bones prefer the snappy comfort of lugged steel nowadays. I hear modern carbon bikes are compliant yet stiff and have much better ride characteristics than they used to, I'm just not ready to plunk down the big coin for an expensive new carbon ride.

Originally Posted by Jughed

So... circa 1993. I went directly from a 90'+/- Trek Steelie race bike(not fine Italian, I understand) to a Cdale R800. Similar tires, similar geometry, same pressures - and that is where the similarities ended.

The steelie was soft and smooth, plenty of frame flex/give and near zero road buzz. Every steel bike I rode was like that, even a Bianchi...

The Cdale rode like a concrete block. Zero flex, zero give - all sorts of road buzz - there was no misinterpretation. The frames were night and day different.

I just donated that old Trek to goodwill last year. It was nicknamed the "old Buick", because that's what it rode like. Soft and floaty.

Originally Posted by Jughed

So... circa 1993. I went directly from a 90'+/- Trek Steelie race bike(not fine Italian, I understand) to a Cdale R800. Similar tires, similar geometry, same pressures - and that is where the similarities ended.

The steelie was soft and smooth, plenty of frame flex/give and near zero road buzz. Every steel bike I rode was like that, even a Bianchi...

The Cdale rode like a concrete block. Zero flex, zero give - all sorts of road buzz - there was no misinterpretation. The frames were night and day different.

I just donated that old Trek to goodwill last year. It was nicknamed the "old Buick", because that's what it rode like. Soft and floaty.

Originally Posted by Rolla

When it comes to ride characteristics, things like wheelbase and tire choice probably make a more palpable difference than frame material to most riders. As an analogy, in acoustic guitar forums people argue incessantly about the tonality that different woods impart, but I'm of the belief that string choice plays a greater role. In both, it's about "where the rubber meets the road."

Originally Posted by Eric F

I'm not any kind of engineer, but I would suspect that the difference in feel could be largely attributed to tube sizes/shapes more than the materials the tubes are made of.

Originally Posted by Eric F

Hell, electric guitar/bass folks argue the same stuff. I totally believe that everyone in the crowd in the noisy bar my band is playing in can totally hear the improved clarity and sustain from the birdseye maple neck on my bass.

Originally Posted by Jughed

I ran 23C Conti's @100psi on the Cdale. The Trek came with cheapo 25's that I ran @100psi.

Originally Posted by Jughed

And the only point I was making - you don't need a CF frame to get better ride quality.......

Originally Posted by Keefusb

BTW, I was in a bar listening to electric blues music recently, and I got into an argument with my wife about whether the rhythm guitarist's guitar sounded like it had a maple neck or a walnut neck.