prj71

No, because I don't care. That's someone else's goofy topic. Not mine.

livedarklions

That wasn't a challenge. You're already far enough into the weeds. This thread specifically was NOT about racing so how does your question have anything to do with the thread? Don't answer that, I went beyond caring about your weird little side-argument about 20 posts ago..

genejockey 

Dude. This is bikeforums. This thread is a year old, and we're 21 pages in. It's a wonder we're still talking about bikes in it.

WhyFi

It's not about the bike[s].

Kapusta

The only thing you MIGHT have established is that it cost more to compete at a high professional level. I say MIGHT because I have not seen a price breakdown for specifically what the guys at the highest level were actually riding. You are claiming it was the exact same thing as what you had in college. I am dubious of this claim.

But yours is a moot point, anyway. Have you ever seen a cost index (housing, cars, groceries, gas...) that uses the most expensive option as the metric? NO. Because it is a silly, stupid metric to use. They all use some variation of average or median. Why should bikes be any different?

And it is even MORE irrelevant because you are talking about the very thing the OP specifically says he is NOT talking about.

livedarklions

I get the notion of thread drift, but this exchange about the costs of halo bikes through the decades is so not entertaining that I will invoke pretty much anything at this point to make it go away. I was surprised that I was getting entertained when the thread got bumped, but now it's getting to be a completely tedious series of put-downs over a WGAF side-issue.

PeteHski

It's not ridiculous if you are comparing relative costs. I would imagine Shimano now have 10x as many engineers working in product development compared to what they had in 1986. It's a totally different ball game and yes the "halo" models of today are uber-expensive. But what's the point of complaining that they cost more than ancient tech that isn't remotely comparable?

My experience is in motorsport and guess what? F1 cars of today cost a s*** load more money than they did in 1986. But apart from having 4 wheels and driving around a track, there is very little comparison.

mschwett 

... which is the exact same thing i pointed out. were you suggesting that a "pro" wouldn't ride 12 speed DA? pretty sure that's who that stuff is made for, among others.

PeteHski

Yep, of course DA is aimed at pro-racing and anyone else who can afford it. The benefit for the masses is the trickle down of the latest tech to the lower group tiers, which happens pretty quickly in the cycling industry. Ultegra is using identical tech and 105 is not far behind the curve at a fraction of the cost. It's even closer between SRAM Red down to Rival level.

If there was no innovation, the whole industry would become stagnant and that would not be good news for anyone really - except for those who obviously wish to be stuck in some arbitrary time. An old conservative guy might prefer everything to be exactly how it was 40 years ago. But I doubt many 20 something year olds would agree on that. No doubt in 2060 there will be a bunch of old guys wishing bikes were exactly the same as they were in 2022. I just find it more interesting in life to look forward rather than backward.

wolfchild

By 2060 bicycles will will be so complex and sophisticated that it will be impossible for a home mechanic to do any type of service or maintenance...Nothing wrong with looking forward into the future, life is definitely better now than it was 300 years ago.

timtak

I am stuck in about 2007 when the last not-really-expensive horizontal (non-compact) carbon frames were made.

The not-under-the-bar-tape gear cables of the Ultegra ten speed FD6600 worked really well and were not surpassed by 105 until 11s FD5800 and then not by much in terms of click-niceness.

I think that "aggressive" frames (which were once commonplace) e.g. with less than 14cm head tubes. are still made today but they tend to be extremely expensive.

As I have written elsewhere, more than once, the super-duper aero frames that are available these days tend to come in a comparatively relaxed geometry encouraging riders to slice their super-duper frame through the air, while their chest acts as a drag parachute. It is pretty bizarre.

It makes sense to pros riding in big groups, and amateurs riding on their own with big bellies.

HTupolev

Eh, depends.

There's significantly less intrinsic disadvantage to old road bikes than most cyclists imagine. Aerodynamically they do generally take a hit to a modern aero-oriented build, and of course there are a variety of factors that tend to make them heavier than modern road bikes. But weight isn't quite as impactful as folks tend to guess, and there are plenty of modern road bikes that avoid similar scrutiny despite not being very aero. Most other disadvantages are pretty circumstantial or conditional.

The trouble is, those "circumstantial or conditional" issues very often apply.

An obvious example being gearing. Especially common is for a vintage bicycle to lack low ratios that are adequate for their terrain and rider. There's not a very good technological reason for the severity of this problem: there have always been derailleur systems available that can comfortably handle significantly wider gearing ranges than the contemporary racing-bike norm, and even professional racers used to routinely bottom out their gearing on climbs, so this problem has always been both visible and solvable. But fashion dictated avoiding low gears, and the bicycle drivetrain industry has always been obnoxiously incremental with gearing arrangements. So, reasonable or otherwise, for a lot of folks on vintage road bikes in hilly areas, you either make drastic drivetrain modifications or you frequently bottom out your gearing. Depending on how bad it is, the hit to climbing performance and rate of fatigue can be very tangible.

Cockpit fit is another area where a lot frequently can and does go wrong with vintage road bikes.
The most common issue is probably that people try to fit them like modern road bikes. If you fit the hoods as a primary performance cruising posture, a lot of problems can arise: the thenar region of the hand can get uncomfortable because the "main" riding position isn't a good handrest, braking is hard because the lever has to be pushed down by the fingers, the drops are too low to be useful, etc. In most cases, a vintage steel road bike used for spirited riding should be fit to use the drops as a major position, with the hoods thought of more as grip nubs than as handrests. Most handlebars from those days were shaped to optimize the utility of the drops*, including forming them into a pretty decent handrest shape (resulting in a nice arms-outstretched posture that's comfortable, has optimal brake access, and enjoys maximal hand security). This sort of fit does tend to make the aero-hoods position less aero than on a modern road fit, although there are still highly-aero postures available at the cost of a bit more upper body tension.
One issue, specific to vintage bikes that place the shifters on the downtube, is that the location of the downtube adds an extra fitting constraint. Specifically, the downtube shifters need to be in a position pretty close to where the hand ends up when the rider swings their arm inward. If they aren't, and especially if the downtube is too far away, you get problems of the "reaching to shift" variety. If this issue exists on a given bicycle+rider combination, it can be difficult to solve.
And in some riding circumstances, modern interfaces have a modest advantage that's not really circumventable on vintage equipment. For instance, sometimes it's beneficial to be able to shift easily while pedaling hard out of the saddle, and that's something that wasn't really feasible until brifters were introduced.

Another factor is that a lot of people only put much effort or money into a bicycle if it has high market value, and that often isn't the case for vintage steel. There are many things where this doesn't make a big difference (like cable housing on a friction-shifted drivetrain), but there are also things like tires, where the decision to go with some $15 500g thick stiff gumwall can have an enormous performance impact compared to a GP5000.

When a lot of factors are acting all at once, the costs can get quite high.

*In my experience, modern road setups tend to feel worse in the drops than their vintage counterparts. I think there are two causes. One, modern brake lever shapes and pivot points are optimized for actuation from the hoods. Two, the drops themselves have to make room for this alternate lever shape, and for the additional presence of shift levers attached to the underside of the brake levers. The required shaping does end up making the drops "more usable" than if modern hood placement were used with traditional drop bars, but for the drops in and of themselves, I think it makes for funky grip ergonomics and creates some positional redundancy with the hoods.

Herzlos

Of course by 2060 bicycles may also no longer need any kind of service or maintenance. Who knows?
Maybe we'll have fully cordless shifting/brakes with self adjustment and 10 year batter lives, tyres that are truly puncture proof with self adjusting pressures.
Maybe we'll still have essentially what we have now with super strong super lightweight components.

All we know is that in 2060, some people will still be saying that bike design peaked in (year they got their last good bike), and that everything made after (arbitrary date most people can't remember) aren't real bikes for some reason.

PeteHski

Yeah, we've heard your crackpot theory many times before.

PeteHski

Yep, this is the reality and farce.

timtak

Riders prior to about 2000 were stuck with the non-relaxed, non-compact frame bikes for decades.

But perhaps, they rode that way because they did not know better. They were not crackpot but simply underdeveloped. Crackpots are those that deny the truth that the modern riding/pedalling style is better.

I am 57 years old. Today I rode 25km to work in my faster ever time of 45 minutes, using a recumbent perched on top of a road bike style of pedalling.

Tim

Herzlos

And now more relaxed comfortable frames are available people are moving over to them in droves, because they just like them better.
So I'm not surprised that there's less demand for more aggressive frames.

hotbike

Fairing/Pannier System gives bicycles motorcycle appearance

Yes, people seem to choose ebikes that are disguised as bicycles. Meanwhile our Fairing/Pannier System makes the bicycle look like a motorcycle. Everyone asks if my bicycle has a motor. Early versions were fiberglass but polypropylene is used now due to thefts and rioting.
Design can be optimized for either aerodynamic advantage or cargo capacity, cargo version has 6x the capacity of the streamlined version.
But my frames are all 30 year old chrome molybdenum.

livedarklions

"The truth"? So basically, one size fits all despite the obvious fact that people vary enormously in pretty much every factor that could affect their best fit and pedaling style?

base2 

I'm still waiting for Di2 Wireless pedals & AXS remote brakes.

When that happens, we'll know bicycle design has peaked & we can throw all the worthless prototypes away.

livedarklions

I'm waiting for bikes to go full drone. You could pedal from the safety of your living room and your effort and control inputs will be transmitted wirelessly to the bike.

timtak

Nor am I surprised. I think many bike buyers, or at least myself, are/were too overweight to ride in an aggressive position. Comfortable frames allow people like me to take up cycling. But these days it is difficult to buy non comfortable bikes.

I am sorry. I was being sartorial. I don't think it is the truth either. But from the prevalence of comfortable frames even in the pro teams, one might think that comfortable is better/faster, when as you say, it varies.

PeteHski

Whatever works for you. I see quite a lot of variation in bike fits across even a pro peloton, both past and present. You only have to look at Francesco Moser vs Eddy Merckx. It mostly comes down to their natural flexibility and riding style.
Modern road race bikes certainly appear to be getting slightly less agressive with stack height, but sometimes the pros may have an additional choice of more aggressive frame geometry with lower stack height (e.g. Specilaized Roubaix) or size down several frames to achieve the aggressive fit they may prefer.

As an average and not very flexible rider I'm certainly not complaining about this trend!

timtak

Getting a smaller size and using a long stem is definitely an option.

The Roubaix Pro
https://www.specialized.com/us/en/ro...ext=94422-1054
says it has a short head tube at 12.5 cm in the 54 (which is about 1cm shorter than my Look or Trek from 15 years ago) but the drops are a long way above the wheels. It is also very expensive. My students -- thin young Japanese guys -- go to bike shops and get fitted up with bikes at a lower price point in the Trek/Specialized range with their chests facing the wind.

I try to get the drops nearer to wheel top height since most drag is rider drag and I guess the biggest part of that is my chest. I ride alone so I am not drafting anyone. As I say on this or a similar thread, a lot of the innovation of aero frames can shave a percent or two off total but one can be a lot more aero by getting into a time trial (or pros back in the day when breakaways were more popular) type position.

I have just set up my Madone a little too low (I bought the +- 45 degree stem for a relaxed bike). I'll be getting a minus 20 or so stem. The aim is to be in a time trial position since I only ride time trials.

A Little too Low by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

The 60mm at 17 degrees looks about right @ $11.54.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002335257888.html

Or in aluminium and carbon for ＄18USD in a variety of sizes and angles including -35 for those who want to go low.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003276252495.html

My guess is that 1cm of back lowering is equivalent to (a few?) 1000 dollars of aero frame "innovations."

On second thoughts, the above stem is okay as it is, for the time being.

Sy Reene

Yeah, a bit confusing, but this is because the Futureshock thing isn't counted as part of the head tube length measurement.