"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - so, when the h3ll are they going to build...

a TT bike that has:

the "speed skeg" of the Scott Plasma2 and

the "hatchet" front end of the new Giant and

the BB rear brake of the Felt and

the seat tube swoop of the P3 and

the behind the fork caliper of the Jamis or

the centerpull caliper of the Spec. Transition and

the jetstream seatstays of the Ridley and

the downtube leading edge of the Wilier Chrono and...

streamers and whirlygigs* on the handlebars and hubs


(* insert any other "negative drag" devices here)



if ANY of this really worked- why isnt there any consistency between the brands? look at the Cannondale Slice... pretty basic geometry, a tiny bit of shielding for the rear wheel, traditional caliper placement.... and its being run at the highest level of our sport.

all these frames share fixed points in the wheelbase, seat, BB, and head tube locations... they all are subjected to the same laws of physics... they all travel thru the same basic fluid...


why all so radically different?


evolution shows almost universal acceptance of a superior solution to a given task/environment. fish have a pretty consistant LxWxHxD ratio... mammals have grown to pretty much all have 4 legs and an articulated head... airplanes and helicopters are all suspiciously similar in basic design....


why? because it all works.


so how much of this is the Nike "Air" vs the Reebok "Pump" vs the Sketchers "Freshers" vs whatever...

just something different to make you buy something new?

So this all boils down to : gee... why don't all TT bikes look the same?
Let me suppose, then that all Formula 1 cars should look the same; All Fighter Jets should look the same, etc.

This may be an argument for "Intelligent Design".

Trek is probably working on it now, seeing how they simply take others designs and incorporate them into one bike...

...cough...Madone...cough

evolution shows almost universal acceptance of a superior solution to a given task/environment. fish have a pretty consistant LxWxHxD ratio... mammals have grown to pretty much all have 4 legs and an articulated head... airplanes and helicopters are all suspiciously similar in basic design....

Actually, terrestrial tetrapods have four legs and a head because the common ancestor of all terrestrial tetrapods had four legs and a head, not because there is something inherently superior that particular body plan. Lots of invertebrates occupy similar niches, but the number of limbs is all over the place. Insects have six legs, arachnids most commonly have eight (ten, maybe, if you count modified forelimbs, but I don't remember), let's not started on centipeds, millipedes...

Anyway, the point is: you don't understand evolution as well as you might, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and most importantly of all, manufacturers are constrained by patent law. So they'll take what they can in whatever way they can manage it.

why all so radically different?




You have a very different definition of "radically different" than I do.

They did this with a car....it was called the Edsil...

nd most importantly of all, manufacturers are constrained by patent law. So they'll take what they can in whatever way they can manage it.

End thread/