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Hambini yes or no?

Old 03-16-20, 11:13 AM
  #101  
woodcraft
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I watched one of his frame-trashing videos, where he says that the bearings are crap,

and scratches the race with a utility knife ('tho you can't see it on the screen).

I tried that with my 5 for $13 super cheap-o BB bearings- not even close to scratching,

and don't think I've ever seen a scratched or scratch-able sealed bearing.

Have you?
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Old 03-19-20, 05:05 AM
  #102  
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Originally Posted by tyrion
How many watts can you afford to waste? (Rhetorical question since Hambini's target market is watt-weanies.)
I think Hambini's point in his discussions of the watt losses is not necessarily to sell his BB's. His criticism's are valid when it's the manufacturers who consistently tout the watt gains of their products due to their company's detail to "wind-tunnel" testing and expensive CAD designs. His point is that all of that "amazing" engineering is lost for good if you can't efficiently manufacture your bottom bracket bearings to line up as to avoid stresses. It's the dirty little secret they don't want you to measure. Instead, you're supposed to be impressed by the flash and beauty of the frames they have. It's good to have a really good frame and components. It's much better to lose weight, eat good, and train properly.
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Old 03-19-20, 05:22 AM
  #103  
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Originally Posted by ExMachina
I like Hambini in general but these ranting videos of his are more about entertainment than anything else
I take them with a gain of salt. He is a top mechanical engineer who has worked in an industry that accepts nothing but quality and precision. in his mind, there is no "tolerance" for what, in his view, is shoddy performance in the industry. In fact, he considers it an insult to his trade. Yeah, his language is worse than a street hooker, but it's all in fun. It's just his way of blowing off steam about how poorly engineered and manufactured these bikes can be.

What I don't think is fair is taking "one bad apple" and creating a fuss about how QC or processes at one company or another are all crap. Now in the case of Cervelo, where they changed tolerance specs of their BB's, that was a farce. Even the bearing manufacturers said the couldn't warranty their bearings in that loose specs.

Last edited by UKFan4Sure; 03-19-20 at 05:27 AM.
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Old 03-19-20, 05:30 PM
  #104  
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Ok. An insulting post and comeback responses which aren’t appropriate. Let’s stop the bickering. We are watching this thread closely so stick to the posting rules.
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Old 03-22-20, 11:57 AM
  #105  
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I watched one of his early video's on the BB 30. He is sedate and not the 5 year-old he claims to be in later videos. I don't see the problem with his presentations, but if you don't like him don't watch him. Or, complain directly to him. https://www.hambini.com/about-hambin...about-hambini/
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Old 03-24-20, 12:58 PM
  #106  
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Originally Posted by tyrion
That's more like bad management. Castration of BP executives might be acceptable.
They should be treated like Guy Fawkes in the Gun powder plot. They almost killed my wife with their stupidity.
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Old 06-26-20, 06:48 PM
  #107  
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Originally Posted by WizardOfBoz
Wow, there's so many angles to this. First, I'd say that there's no set answer to "Hambini, Yes or No?". He's a young engineer, clearly bright enough, not mature enough to be introspective and charitable to those who've criticized him.

*Z is Zeppelin sized. As opposed to "D" (dirigible) or "B" (blimp).
Hi WizardOfBoz, I thought you would find it interesting to knows that Hambini is actually not a young engineer (although I understand young is relative!) Yes, he is an engineer with a doctorate. But, based on things he's said in his videos, he has to be between the ages of 40-50 years old as he has been a practicing engineer for well over 20 years. I know he looks on camera like he's 5 years old. But, if you ever look at his hands they tell the tale. They are well worn from years spent rescueing out of spec bottom brackets from despair and oblivion. Kind regards, Mr. Luigi
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Old 04-25-22, 04:04 PM
  #108  
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Old post but: When the BLM thing happened, he posted about his experiences of being of colour and the prejudices. Then he champions stuff from the Chinese who persecute on a daily basis. There are many of (him). Peak Torque being one and an absolute ton of Aussie ones, all having their egos massaged by communist, oppressive Chinese products being made available.
So he's a talented engineer, it's not aerospace, it's a bloody bicycle.
Hatefull due to his dual standards. £££
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Old 04-25-22, 06:12 PM
  #109  
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Originally Posted by nickyb
Old post but: When the BLM thing happened, he posted about his experiences of being of colour and the prejudices. Then he champions stuff from the Chinese who persecute on a daily basis. There are many of (him). Peak Torque being one and an absolute ton of Aussie ones, all having their egos massaged by communist, oppressive Chinese products being made available.
So he's a talented engineer, it's not aerospace, it's a bloody bicycle.
Hatefull due to his dual standards. £££
Really? You mean Sensah, Farsport and Winspace are persecuting people on a daily basis?
In what way are Farsport wheels 'communist oppressive'? I thought they were reasonably priced carbon wheels? I had no idea the wheels were communist!
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Old 04-25-22, 07:30 PM
  #110  
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Originally Posted by nickyb
Old post but: When the BLM thing happened, he posted about his experiences of being of colour and the prejudices. Then he champions stuff from the Chinese who persecute on a daily basis. There are many of (him). Peak Torque being one and an absolute ton of Aussie ones, all having their egos massaged by communist, oppressive Chinese products being made available.
So he's a talented engineer, it's not aerospace, it's a bloody bicycle.
Hatefull due to his dual standards. £££
Originally Posted by icemilkcoffee
Really? You mean Sensah, Farsport and Winspace are persecuting people on a daily basis?
In what way are Farsport wheels 'communist oppressive'? I thought they were reasonably priced carbon wheels? I had no idea the wheels were communist!
Hey do you guys want this moved to P and R? Or is this Mechanics chatter?

Why is this being discussed here?
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Old 04-26-22, 11:46 AM
  #111  
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Originally Posted by nickyb
Old post but: When the BLM thing happened, he posted about his experiences of being of colour and the prejudices. Then he champions stuff from the Chinese who persecute on a daily basis. There are many of (him). Peak Torque being one and an absolute ton of Aussie ones, all having their egos massaged by communist, oppressive Chinese products being made available.
So he's a talented engineer, it's not aerospace, it's a bloody bicycle.
Hatefull due to his dual standards. £££
Originally Posted by Siu Blue Wind
Hey do you guys want this moved to P and R? Or is this Mechanics chatter?

Why is this being discussed here?
I agree. Post is entirely inappropriate.
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Old 04-27-22, 11:05 PM
  #112  
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Regardless of what you think of the dude, he's a good engineer and I'd trust his data and his assessments of appropriate tolerance. That said, he only gets the worst frames sent to him. His reasonable argument to this is that there should be QC in place to keep any bikes way out of tolerance reaching the public, so take that for what it's worth. Some manufacturers (and particular periods of their manufacturing) have some notoriety--Cervelo somewhat generally (and he legitimately reams them over having a internal published manufacturing tolerance that really isn't acceptable), also a lot of Cannondales, etc. I'm working mechanic but I haven't seen enough Canyon (especially road bikes, which tend to have owners more concerned with BB performance). Take what I say with a grain of salt since I currently work for a Giant retailer, but while I've seen other manufacturing issues, they seem to have remarkably good BB shell tolerances in my experience.

I am in general in support of him giving manufacturers a hard time about their tolerances, because they really need to sort this crap out. It's a frickin' cylinder with some bearings crammed in--they should be able to get this right. There's no reason that PF BBs should suffer more issues than threaded.

Ride what you got unless your BB is actually a problem. If you have issues that seem to stem from tolerance (rather than water/grit intrusion) then take it up with them. The downside is that it's trickier with them being direct to consumer.
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Old 04-28-22, 06:22 AM
  #113  
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Originally Posted by cpach
Regardless of what you think of the dude, he's a good engineer and I'd trust his data … .
You know it’s been clearly shown he fabricated wind tunnel data.
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Old 04-28-22, 08:53 AM
  #114  
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Originally Posted by cpach
It's a frickin' cylinder with some bearings crammed in--they should be able to get this right. There's no reason that PF BBs should suffer more issues than threaded.
As an engineer I will say engineering problems are almost never as simple as lay people make them out to be. Probably especially true in the bicycle industry where you can’t throw nearly unlimited money at a problem until it goes away.
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Old 04-28-22, 09:22 AM
  #115  
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Originally Posted by billridesbikes
As an engineer I will say engineering problems are almost never as simple as lay people make them out to be. Probably especially true in the bicycle industry where you can’t throw nearly unlimited money at a problem until it goes away.

For reference, I'm not an engineer but I am a workinc mechanic. Sure, of course, but there are some seriously misplaced priorities when they engineer a 60g weight savings, or a half watt of drag, off a frameset and deliver frames with bb shells way out of tolerance. This has a huge impact on user experience, has real impacts on mechanical efficiency, and also is a massive time and money suck for local retailers. Also some companies have way more pf bb problems than others. This has been such a problem that threaded shells are making a comeback for road/gravel (often as T47).

This is made worse by bad ideas being common, like 30mm spindles being shoved in BB86/92 shells with impossibly thin bearings.
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Old 04-29-22, 09:30 PM
  #116  
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Originally Posted by cpach
For reference, I'm not an engineer but I am a workinc mechanic. Sure, of course, but there are some seriously misplaced priorities when they engineer a 60g weight savings, or a half watt of drag, off a frameset and deliver frames with bb shells way out of tolerance. This has a huge impact on user experience, has real impacts on mechanical efficiency, and also is a massive time and money suck for local retailers. Also some companies have way more pf bb problems than others. This has been such a problem that threaded shells are making a comeback for road/gravel (often as T47).

This is made worse by bad ideas being common, like 30mm spindles being shoved in BB86/92 shells with impossibly thin bearings.
I get it. As a tech you're at the sharp end of customer complaints. And Hambini makes and sells bottom brackets so he's hardly a neutral observer.

But frames are not sold based on the BB shell tolerance. You say 'misplaced priorities', but what are the customer's priorities that drive the design?

Let's look at it from a different angle: Marketing is telling the engineers at Superduper Bike Company LLC that customers are demanding the lightest, most aero frames. But the engineer says, 'Nah, customer is wrong, BB spec is more important' and designs a frame that's heavier and not quite as aero, but that BB shell will never be more than +/- 5 microns off. However in the 'Road Bike Zealot' magazine frame round up the review says, "Superduper's new frame is almost .1KG heavier and in our wind tunnel tests it was 0.25s slower over 40km than the other frames ranking it at the bottom in our test." Zero mention of that wonderful BB. A blog by the popular "NYC Bike Braggart" nicknames the new frame 'The Pig' because it feels so heavy and slow. Sales nosedive. Instead of selling an expected 10,000 units, only a few hundred frames are sold. Continued development of high-end frames at Superduper is now in question and Engineering is 'invited' to explain this f*up at the next board meeting.

A lighter frame isn't a misplaced priority if it sells better. That some frames produced are bad might be the cost of hitting other metrics, and accepting the cost of some returns preferable to not hitting cost or weight targets. The unfortunate part is that some customers are certainly getting lemons which if not resolved properly to the customers satisfaction is inexcusable. Maybe it's time that the Lemon Laws are extended to bike retailers so the customer has clear recourse and drives higher industry standards.
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Old 04-29-22, 11:43 PM
  #117  
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Originally Posted by billridesbikes
I get it. As a tech you're at the sharp end of customer complaints. And Hambini makes and sells bottom brackets so he's hardly a neutral observer.

But frames are not sold based on the BB shell tolerance. You say 'misplaced priorities', but what are the customer's priorities that drive the design?

Let's look at it from a different angle: Marketing is telling the engineers at Superduper Bike Company LLC that customers are demanding the lightest, most aero frames. But the engineer says, 'Nah, customer is wrong, BB spec is more important' and designs a frame that's heavier and not quite as aero, but that BB shell will never be more than +/- 5 microns off. However in the 'Road Bike Zealot' magazine frame round up the review says, "Superduper's new frame is almost .1KG heavier and in our wind tunnel tests it was 0.25s slower over 40km than the other frames ranking it at the bottom in our test." Zero mention of that wonderful BB. A blog by the popular "NYC Bike Braggart" nicknames the new frame 'The Pig' because it feels so heavy and slow. Sales nosedive. Instead of selling an expected 10,000 units, only a few hundred frames are sold. Continued development of high-end frames at Superduper is now in question and Engineering is 'invited' to explain this f*up at the next board meeting.

A lighter frame isn't a misplaced priority if it sells better. That some frames produced are bad might be the cost of hitting other metrics, and accepting the cost of some returns preferable to not hitting cost or weight targets. The unfortunate part is that some customers are certainly getting lemons which if not resolved properly to the customers satisfaction is inexcusable. Maybe it's time that the Lemon Laws are extended to bike retailers so the customer has clear recourse and drives higher industry standards.
Weight is unrelated to bore tolerance. Athletes are irrational regarding performance, but reasonable bore tolerance is fairly important if going faster is the goal, not to mention the maintenance difficulties. I don't mean watt or two. Really bad shells blow up in a fraction of the time and are noisy and create an abundantly obvious amount of friction. Manufacturers need to suck less at making frames, and we need more resources holding them accountable. Hambini isn't great at this for a lot of reasons, but I get some of his intentions.

Good manufacturers could market this if they wanted to. Plenty of companies exist on half watt claims of lower fiction. They could just claim that their stock BB saves 2.4 watts over the industry average or whatever, which would appeal to the riders buying race targeted bikes.

As a mechanic this is doubled edged. On one hand, it gives me the chance to create solutions where others have failed. On the other hand, it really sucks if the bikes you're selling have major issues. So far I've been pretty lucky, except for having to face way too many flat mount disc mounts on new bikes.
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Old 04-29-22, 11:53 PM
  #118  
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Originally Posted by billridesbikes
I get it. As a tech you're at the sharp end of customer complaints. And Hambini makes and sells bottom brackets so he's hardly a neutral observer.

But frames are not sold based on the BB shell tolerance. You say 'misplaced priorities', but what are the customer's priorities that drive the design?

Let's look at it from a different angle: Marketing is telling the engineers at Superduper Bike Company LLC that customers are demanding the lightest, most aero frames. But the engineer says, 'Nah, customer is wrong, BB spec is more important' and designs a frame that's heavier and not quite as aero, but that BB shell will never be more than +/- 5 microns off. However in the 'Road Bike Zealot' magazine frame round up the review says, "Superduper's new frame is almost .1KG heavier and in our wind tunnel tests it was 0.25s slower over 40km than the other frames ranking it at the bottom in our test." Zero mention of that wonderful BB. A blog by the popular "NYC Bike Braggart" nicknames the new frame 'The Pig' because it feels so heavy and slow. Sales nosedive. Instead of selling an expected 10,000 units, only a few hundred frames are sold. Continued development of high-end frames at Superduper is now in question and Engineering is 'invited' to explain this f*up at the next board meeting.

A lighter frame isn't a misplaced priority if it sells better. That some frames produced are bad might be the cost of hitting other metrics, and accepting the cost of some returns preferable to not hitting cost or weight targets. The unfortunate part is that some customers are certainly getting lemons which if not resolved properly to the customers satisfaction is inexcusable. Maybe it's time that the Lemon Laws are extended to bike retailers so the customer has clear recourse and drives higher industry standards.
Good points.

I'd add that marketing can and does greatly affect what customers want.
It's not the other way round, for the most part.
Though it's fair to say that smaller companies don't have much power in changing that, they have to see how to fit in the existing situation.
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Old 07-27-22, 12:07 PM
  #119  
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I mean technically what he says isn't wrong it's just how badly is your bike is effected if at all. So one of the biggest defects always seems to be the BB not being perfectly round. This eventually leads to loss is efficiency, creaking, and or the bearing prematurely going bad. Now your BB could be only slightly off and you never notice it, so to say all frames from "x" manufacture are bad would be wrong. It's funny the one company I remember him actually approving is Winspace, since not only was the frame very clean inside with no noticeable voids but he found the BB to be in spec which seems to not be always the case with the bikes he has in his shop, but yet again he is normally sent bikes from people who are having BB issues, which kind of brings up the point, are the bikes Hambini essentially reviews more the exception or they the status quo of what that bike brand represents? If Hambini had 100 Canyons how many of them would be in spec vs not? Hard to say since his sample size is small and then his data then becomes subjective since he starts to extrapolate his small findings for an overall conclusion.
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Old 07-27-22, 12:16 PM
  #120  
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He is only half full of it, like most 5 year olds.

Only another engineer can figure out which half is bollocks and which is gold.
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Old 07-27-22, 01:16 PM
  #121  
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It's fun to always be the smartest man in the room (at least in your own mind).
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Old 08-01-22, 11:40 PM
  #122  
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Originally Posted by cpach
Weight is unrelated to bore tolerance. Athletes are irrational regarding performance, but reasonable bore tolerance is fairly important if going faster is the goal, not to mention the maintenance difficulties. I don't mean watt or two. Really bad shells blow up in a fraction of the time and are noisy and create an abundantly obvious amount of friction. Manufacturers need to suck less at making frames, and we need more resources holding them accountable. Hambini isn't great at this for a lot of reasons, but I get some of his intentions.

Good manufacturers could market this if they wanted to. Plenty of companies exist on half watt claims of lower fiction. They could just claim that their stock BB saves 2.4 watts over the industry average or whatever, which would appeal to the riders buying race targeted bikes.

As a mechanic this is doubled edged. On one hand, it gives me the chance to create solutions where others have failed. On the other hand, it really sucks if the bikes you're selling have major issues. So far I've been pretty lucky, except for having to face way too many flat mount disc mounts on new bikes.
I agree that weight is unrelated to bore tolerance. But manufacturing cost is certainly related to bore tolerance. A company has to balance perfection with cost and what sells, including the price they can attach to it to make those sales. It's like the old "cost/weight/durability .... pick any two" cliche. My guess is that smart people making decisions know that customers look at aero, weight and cost before relatively small differences in wattage.

Plus just because BB tolerance isn't perfect, it could very well be within the cost management parameters of manufacturing and after sales support. Among the usual good quality manufacturers, money saved by less than perfect manufacturing most likely results in very little customer dissatisfaction and what they consider reasonable costs for rectifying that small amount of dissatisfaction.

That's why the actual decision makers aren't pure engineers, accountants or marketers - although they might have training in any of those areas, or they might be really smart liberal arts majors or self-educated folks with highly developed people, systems management and big picture skills. They have to balance the exactitude of the engineers with the bottom line of the accountants and the ideal product the marketers think the customer wants.

Originally Posted by Bike Gremlin
Good points.

I'd add that marketing can and does greatly affect what customers want.
It's not the other way round, for the most part.....
Can't agree with "for the most part". Yes marketing does drive demand to a certain extent, but not for the most part. For the most part, market research and development isn't in the persuasion category or what it takes to sell a given product, it's in customer desires or how to create the product the customer wants, including the price, which is one of many product characteristic. Apple, love it or hate it, are geniuses at first knowing or predicting (based on study, not wild guesses) what the customer wants, creating it (or modifying existing technology or products into their own), and then selling it to customers largely by the the functioning of product itself, but also attaching sticky ecosystem and influencing status of those products - both of which both are "selling" the product, but might be characteristics customers want. Their strategy to "Organize Sales and Marketing by Customer, not Product" is what I'm getting at.

Last edited by Camilo; 08-01-22 at 11:50 PM.
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Old 08-04-22, 10:40 AM
  #123  
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I enjoy reading posts from people who are offended that an engineer criticized poor manufacturing tolerances.

Every brand has 'fanboys' - people who believe Brand ZYX is the best because they bought one, and to admit it's not the best is admitting they got taken. Same illogical stance as 'patriotism' - the belief that your country is the best based solely on the fact that you live there.
News flash: your opinion doesn't actually effect the greatness of a thing or place, and a rational person would admit faults without taking it personally.
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Old 08-04-22, 11:02 AM
  #124  
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Originally Posted by ClydeClydeson
I enjoy reading posts from people who are offended that an engineer criticized poor manufacturing tolerances.
The offense is not the criticism. I’m offended by cherry picking and fabricating data.
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