bruce19

I have 4 road bikes and a cross bike. The Colnago cross bike, a Masi and my CAAD 12 are aluminum. The other two are both Gurus. One a Photon (CF) and one a Sidero (Steel). I have not experienced a hollow feeling/sound or vibrations on any of the AL bikes. In fact, my CAAD 12 set up with tubeless Mavics and all 105 weighs in at 17 lb 11 oz and is one of my favorite bikes in over 40 yrs of cycling.

indyfabz

m.c. 

Ive had sensory issues my entire life. Some things are very unpleasant for me. I know things I say or do are odd to most people. I was just passing along something I found with certain materials, for me. If you don't notice these things that is good, life is easier for you.

This shows there is some difference in frame materials and vibration/shock but I don't think its a detailed report.
https://web.mit.edu/2.tha/www/ppt/Bike-ISEA.pdf

Road Fan

To go along with all the plattitudes and stereotypes being thrown about, let me add: don't generalize.

Road Fan

There are indeed differences in frame materials. I think it takes decades of practice to learn which generalizations are accurate, if any. All of us are trying to reason from a few specifics to some general characterizations. I'd be surprised if any of actually have that ability, objectively.

Germany_chris

I'll throw out my generalizations
Your saddle, tires and their pressure, and bar tape/grips influence your ride more than your iconic classic steel frame or carbon wünderframe.
I'm also going to go out on another limb..If your last name is not Vingegaard you're not going to be able to buy your way to speed so relax and buy the bike that makes you want to stare.

wolfchild

Frame material is irrelevant and unimportant.

terrymorse 

Unimportant to the consumer, maybe.

But frame material is quite important to the frame designer.

Oldguyonoldbike

In fact, I have three steel bikes and one carbon fiber bike. The most comfortable one is the one with the most tire clearance (now running 30c). The least comfortable one only has room for 23c. Both of those are steel. The carbon fiber one sits in the middle and is running 25c. Each bike handles a little differently and behaves a little differently while pedalling, but frame material is only one of several factors at play (tube diameter, geometry, wheel quality/flex, etc.).

cxwrench

23mm, 25mm and 30mm. The 'c' goes w/ 700. The 23, 25, or 30 describe the width of the tire and thus are 'mm'. Pretty much every frame made with the exception of the previously mentioned Trek Domane and maybe the older Cervelo R series bikes that had the bowed/super thin seat stays have such remarkably similar ride quality you truly would never be able to tell a difference in vertical compliance. Lateral flex is another story but doesn't affect ride quality.

DaveSSS 

Wider tubeless tires and rims with the pressure set according to the pressure calculator at zipp. com will make any bike more comfortable, but many bikes won't fit 28-32mm tires. My current frames will all fit at least a 30mm. I run 54/57 psi on 23mm internal width hookless rims and 30mm tires. I get a good ride with a stiff carbon frame.

Steamer

They are different words, with different spellings, pronunciations, and meanings.

Nothing wrong with a little education.

63rickert

On most of my bikes I can watch the fork tips flexing while riding. On the Bates with the Diadrant fork (look it up- yes, steel) the fork tips move so much it startles other riders. The frame contributes nothing to ride comfort?

On any steel fork with significant rake try mounting a fender and then push down on the handlebar. Watch the tire come closer to the fender. If you have a stiff fork nothing will happen. With a flexible fork it doesn't take much load to get very visible suspension travel, with very flexible forks you might need to mount the fender higher.

Bikes are not all the same. Different ride characteristics can be engineered into steel, aluminum, titanium, or carbon. Ever ride a Vitus 979? Aluminum frames that were super flexible. Built in quantity for many years and won thousands of races. No aluminum frame remotely close to that in current production. If you buy production frames built in current era they are all massively stiff. The buying public asked for that. Or a vocal segment did. Now those who want something different have limited choices. Simplest is to ride wide tires and keep the pressure down. Or you can buy custom from a builder who listens when you ask him for something non-fashionable. Or you can ride old bikes. New bikes ride like brick walls. And windrows of commenters will tell you that is the only possibility. There is no alternative. Bollocks, there is always an alternative.

That Bates mentioned above is also the most precise steering bike I've owned. In spite of the fact that I am way heavier than would have been anticipated when the frame was built. A flexible fork is not a sloppy fork.

63rickert

I build wheels. Yes, wheels can change how a bike rides and rim height is part of that. Yes, taller rims are much stiffer. Find an antique flat section tubular rim and you can flex it with your hands. It won't support your body weight until it is filled with spokes.

Without going all the way back to that kind of rim it is all pretty much the same. A 20mm tall rim is now considered very shallow, it is going to ride just about the same as a 30mm tall rim. In current production I like Pacenti Brevet and H+Son TB14. They are not really like vintage, some of the effect remains. Heavier and taller than vintage. Stronger too.

The way vintage wheels got their ride was nearly all of them were built too loose and they were built with erratic tension. A wheel can run perfectly true while spoke tension is all over the map. That was the only reason for 36 spokes, only a dozen of them were doing much work. The wheel kind of flopped and shimmied down the road and sometimes that felt good.

Everything affects how the wheel rides. High flange hubs do ride stiffer than low flange. Butted spokes ride smoother than straight gauge. Real butted spokes at 2.0/1.5mm ride better than fake butted at 2.0/1.8. Lower spoke count rides better. These are small effects but they add up.

Quality of the build matters more than any of the other little details. I have used salvage rims and hubs to build for clients with $3000 wheels and my wheels were preferred. When the order was build a cheap set of spare wheels and the customer sells the name brand wheels because they just don't match up to hand built you did good. And having just said that I build really good wheels I will also say that some pre-built system wheels are just as good as mine. But they are not all the same, they are not interchangeable widgets. The price is mostly the cost of advertising. Quality does not equal price.

70sSanO

Thanks! Really good stuff.

Not sure if it pertains, but my old Cannondale Criterium went from 36 hole MA40’s to 32 hole TB14’s. Hubs were Superbe Pro to DA 7700.

Although most would say comfort is not even remotely an appropriate term for the ride, I’m still riding the bike at 70.

John

cxwrench

You may build wheels but I think you're confused when it comes to the physics involved. And you have some rather odd opinions. 'Fake butted'? High flange hubs are laterally stiff, not radially. At least not that anyone can feel once they get past the tire. You don't think people knew how to build wheels years ago? I completely and totally disagree. Built too loose and erratic tension? Sure, that happens today as well...it was definitely not the rule in the 'vintage' days.

63rickert

Take a ride on a wheel with a really high flange hub like a Prior. You will feel the difference. If you do the comparison test with two flat rims you will feel it more. Tall rims remove so much feel nothing matters.

Yes, there were good wheel builders in past. One wheel I have in regular use was built by Oscar Wastyn in 1959. I checked it, glued a new tire, I ride it. Needed nothing. There were certainly other good builders. They somehow established uniform tension before meters existed. Quite a trick. OEM or shop built, most vintage wheels were bad. My memory is not failing on that one. I still come across vintage wheels and racks of vintage wheels and most are pretty useless. When the wheels come with provenance it is disappointing to find all the known names who just did not build well.

The most used spoke when I began was Berg-Union .080"/.060". Same thing as 2.0mm/1.5mm. We got them from Schwinn. All sizes in stock, always, and they were cheap. Schwinn used those spokes on millions of bikes. Only small wheel juvenile bikes and heavyweight trucks got straight gauge. Now 2.0/1.5 is considered exotic. Millions of Schwinns say it should be normal.

I am an old man and likely a confused old man. Saying "confused" and "Physics!" is what you attempt when you got nothin.

terrymorse 

Placebo effect, at least for vertical compliance. No human is sensitive enough to detect the vertical compliance difference between two identical rims, laced to a high- and low-flange hub.

Not really that hard to do. I was tensioning by ear in the 1970s, a technique I learned from my dad (who built wheels for Jobst Brant in the early 1960s, including some interesting tubular wooden rims that Jobst wanted). Tap each spoke with the spoke wrench, listen for the note. My wheels stayed true.

Thin spokes are "exotic" because wheel building machines have trouble tensioning spokes that thin--they tend to wind up when tensioned. Not a problem when tensioning a wheel by hand.

cxwrench

Uhhhmmmm...no. To pretty much everything. Everything you've posted is 'thinks' and 'feels'. Nothing more.

easyupbug 

Exactly right, only you know your requirements. At soon to be 73 with arthritis in my hands & knee I am sensitive to road/trail conditions, frame builders and their materials, tires, anti-vibration gloves, etc. I ride my bonded aluminum 1990 Vitus 979 in our retirement community with very well maintained bike lane conditions but today up at our mountain cabin it would do me in very quickly.

Road Fan

My comment was in the context of differences between frame materials, not in differences related to other parts and such. And I'm actually not talking about speed but rather comfort and ease of climbing.

63rickert

You've not done the experiment with a grands flasques hub.

Some can get even tension by tone. Most using that technique don't. Off the top of my head Ron Boi, Davey Danek, Ike Safter built uniform tension before meters and none of them could be bothered with listening to pitch of a spoke. No idea how they did it. Most could not.

Yes concerning automatic wheel machines. No to all the mysticism (from others, not pointing at you) about thin spokes being unmanageable or unworkable on drive side right. It is really a shame riders don't get to use thin spokes any longer or if they do pay an arm and a leg. Again, millions of Schwinns. 2.0/1.5 works quite well.

The other commenter saying I make it all up not worth responding to.

terrymorse 

I don't need to do the experiment, because the result would be trivially obvious:

The vertical compliance difference between otherwise identical wheels with small and large flange hubs is undetectable by a human.

Paul Barnard

Treat yourself to a titanium frame. You deserve it.

63rickert

Anyone interested in frame compliance should look up video of ISO 4210 frame testing. You don't need me to find that, you need a search bar. And you will see that all frames move around quite a bit. A frame with no compliance at all would be no fun to ride and then it would break.

At least some of you must have had a ride on zero compliance disk wheels for TT. Again no fun to ride. Why it is controversial that shorter spokes at higher tension, taller rims, larger hubs all move a wheel in direction of a disk wheel is beyond me. Everybody recites stiff, stiff, stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff . There are examples available of what zero compliance is and how it rides. You can ride on solid rubber tires too if you think stiff is good.