KonAaron Snake 

30 new replies to a 4 year old thread, all of which can be summed up by:

It depends.

Kindaslow

There are two nice bikes for sell in Seattle, at ReCycled Bikes, that are within that realm. They are great bikes, I just like my new ones better. But, to be far, the new ones are in a league above the old ones. I do know I have made some folks very happy over the years, as I have found new loves....

ppg677

Um, why wouldn't you expect 40+ year of safe service life out of a CF frame? Only reason I can think of is that they don't fail gracefully. Carbon fiber aircraft are designed with 40+ year service lives.

Kindaslow

Don't anyone about those CF planes or we might be arguing about horse drawn buggies, given those CF planes have been proven not to work.

tmh657

Indeed. And your other statement. "It depends" which echoed sentiment from an earlier post. I had a CAAD10 for a couple of years. Boy is it stiff, awesome power transfer. A great aluminum tool. Now I have another Cannondale, Supersix Evo Hi-Mod. Pretty close to a horizontal top tube. 15.4 pounds WITH pedals and bottle cages. It's a great tool for climbing and passing a few guys on those hills that I couldn't before. Carbon has it's place. It's ultra stiff but pretty comfortable. The carbon is engineered to be that way I guess.

The bike that gets the most saddle time is my 1996 Serotta Atlanta with 10 speed Ultegra and mid level wheels. (See avatar). It just feels right. I can ride 40 miles and feel like going 40 more. I have another 1996 Serotta Atlanta that has a carbon fork. I don't like it as much as the Atlanta with a steel fork. Same tires and mid level wheels.

My '81 Trek 716 has just been built up with 5700 bits and 32c tires. A nice 531 frame with modern drivetrain. Best of both worlds.

Salubrious

They don't fail gracefully either. Either way, my concern is that if a carbon bike falls over, its going to need a complete examination to determine if its still safe to ride. When airplanes fall its kind of a big deal and pilots try hard to avoid that- or otherwise abusing the airframe in a storm or the like (I'm a pilot FWIW...).

Of course steel and aluminum fail in aircraft if you drop them too- not sure the analogy holds up, but I do have more confidence that a steel bike frame will still have decades of service left if it falls over. Maybe the bottom line has more to do with confidence than anything else...

nlerner

This debate won't be settled by the time I'm wearing Depends.

KonAaron Snake 

They'll be electronic by then.

Kindaslow

For pleasure or for need. Well, I guess you have ruined one of those already.

72Paramount

I can remember in my bmx racing days being at the Stockton fairgrounds. This particular race there was a kid in my class who was racing on a hi/10 steel yamaha with dual spring shocks in the back and a motorcycle front fork. His racing plate was made of a paper plate cut in half and duct taped to the bars. If I remember right it even had a coaster brake. That kid got 4th in the final heat that night. I got third on my new chromoly robinson. If I were on that yamaha I wouldn't have made it to the final heat. The guy on the outdated bike was a superior rider, no question about it but I placed higher because I had a better bike. I would think that we could all agree that a new top of the line pinarello dogma (team sky with any of us piloting it would lose to brad wiggins on a walmart schwinn tourist. The rider makes the bike, not the other way around. Merckx said it best when he said "don't buy upgrades, ride up grades. I still like vintage bikes better, steel and carbon, for the riding I do now it doesn't make any sense to have a 10,000 dollar bike. A vintage 1500 to 2000 dollar bike does everything I need it to and they just look cooler. History, nostalgia, whatever it is, I just enjoy riding vintage more than riding modern. Just my OPINION!!!

OldsCOOL

I enjoyed your story! My son rode a vintage PK Ripper at Waterford Oaks 15yrs ago. You just brought back some good memories!

rekmeyata

Not only does the analogy not hold up but aircraft CF is completely different and a heck of lot stronger than a CF bicycle frame. And there's now even discussions going on about the long term life of CF used in aircraft; see: Report questions long-term safety of composite planes - tech - 03 November 2011 - New Scientist In military aircraft they actually have to replace structural CF parts every so often to maintain high performance abilities so problems don't become...well problems, but in civilian aircraft that isn't so easy. Of course visual inspections of these civilian aircraft are being done all the time but what happens if the old human eye misses something? The military doesn't care about the cost of replacing parts because it's just taxpayers money, so every so many hours they just replace the parts but with civilian aircraft the issue become money so they're not going to just replace parts unless a part fails the human eye test. Also the military designed those CF parts to be fairly easy to pull and replace by trained aircraft mechanics. Also military combines kevlar with CF to protect against penetration and to aid in the strength of the part. But realize too that CF military and civilian aircraft don't use all CF in the planes, they use titanium in frame components, fastening parts, and now even major and minor engine components instead of aluminium or steel because of it's abilities in strength, lightweightness and to resist heat and corrosion especially when coming into contact with CF parts.

But in bicycle frames the stoutness of an aircraft CF is not needed, so to keep weight and price down manufactures make a far lesser grade of CF for bikes, and because of that there has been recently new information, base on time now since CF bike frames have been around a bit, that CF frames does indeed fatigue; see: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2012/...es-going-soft/ Not only is this article pointing to this problem but lately in my LBS the mechanic that I know is now even admitting he's pulling away from buying CF bikes for his own use because of all the problems he's seen over the years working as a bike bike mechanic! So he's sold all of his CF bikes. This sort of honesty concerning CF is not going to be prevalent in the bike world because LBS's need to sell CF bikes so the marketing will continue to trump these bikes as the greatest thing ever to happen to the biking world. The bike mechanic did say that the older 90's era CF bikes were actually stronger than the ones today because they used thicker CF material, but in that process they were actually heavier than aluminum bikes, this I know because I had a friend who had a late 90's CF OCLV Trek that weighed 19 pounds but was expensive bike in the day, this bike weighs more than my TI bike! But it's still going, and he rides it a lot. But being heavier meant sales would not happen so companies started to figure out how to make it lighter so they could sell a lot more.

Of course CF is not biodegradable and in fact is one of the worst products to have in a landfill and is very difficult to recycle so much so it's cheaper to create virgin CF instead of recycling it so it ends up in dumps.

Problem is the average bicycle rider hears that so and so won the TDF on a specific brand and model of bike and now they want that bike, it's the old NASCAR saying, whatever car wins on Sunday sells on Monday, and now us riders are doing the same thing. But is a race bike suitable for everyday riding day after day, year after year? The pros get their bikes replaced every season (assuming no crashes) for free, we don't get that luxury, but why replace the bikes if they're still supposedly good? because of known long term problems they don't want their riders to face, so now the question for us is how long will these Cf race level bikes last and hold up to constant banging of streets? I think that above website is giving us a clue.

Salubrious

I know three frame builders that said the same thing: they used to spend a lot of time repairing carbon frames. Now they just make steel.

I'm convinced anyway that this is a very real phenomena. If so, it might really have the potential to bite the industry in the rear.

modelmartin

They are all great! I wish I could afford more modern bikes. I have rented a Trek Domane on a vacation and loved it a lot. At home I put most of my miles on an Aluminum Technium and a few steel bikes, too. I would like to find a resonably priced Raleigh Revenio carbon. Then I will have a raleigh in steel, aluminum, Titanium and carbon!!

Dave Mayer

In general, the newer bikes are superior in terms of weight, strength, ergonomics, braking, gear selection. So better all-round.

However, you really have to break it down:

The Good:

• Carbon - a wonder material. Significantly lighter (for the same strength) than all other frame materials, and carbon fibre can be highly customized, depending on the application. Plus carbon does not corrode, and it does not suffer from stress fatigue like alu.
• Brifters: I rode on downtube shifters for 3 decades. They suck. Bar ends suck even worse. Brifters are safer and far more convenient.
• Braking: modern dual pivot brakes are far superior than any of the old single pivots. More power and they self-center.
• Electronic shifting. Clean fast shifts. Nice systems.
• The SHimano Alfine hub. A super nice piece of technology for 90% of the riders out there. Too heavy for road racing applications, but this is where gearing technology will end up 20 years from now - probably attached to electronics.

The pointless:

• Sloping top tubes on road bikes. This is a crossover from the mountain bike world, for no other reason than ex-MTB riders expect it. It actually results in a slightly heavier bike when you factor in the extra long seatpost, and how you have to bulk up the frame to take the stresses of the longer seatpost.
• Disks on road bikes. Another crossover from the MTB world. Again, for no other reason. Good rim brake setups are more than powerful enough, and significantly lighter.
• Cogs. 7 or 8 cogs in the cassette are more than enough. But for the last few decades the component makers have been on a N+1 cog upmanship war with one another. This helps render previous generations of bikes obsolete, and helps create some sales buzz. So good for retailers and manufacturers. And for the ego of naive early adopters who 'need' the newest bling. But not for the vast majority of riders. Have you priced out 11-speed chains and cassettes? Ouch.

The dumb:

• Suspension forks on road bikes. Remember this must-have item in 1992? Fortunately this fad died an early death.
• Clinchers. The vintage bikes were way ahead on wheel selection. Clincher wheel setups are heavy, fragile and susceptible to pinch flats. Plus they are scary dangerous when you do have a sudden deflation. Tubulars are far superior and always will be. As demonstrated with the pros - when money is at stake, all of the riders are on tubulars all of the time.
• Tubeless. Why? These combine the heavy and fragile clincher rim with heavy and dead feeling tubeless-compliant tires. If you need a lightweight, bulletproof training wheel solution, inject 20cc of Stan's in your tubulars.

rekmeyata

It won't bite the industry at all due to slick marketing and all the Pros riding them. There may come a time that a new frame material might come along then CF will be put to pasture and a new controversy will arise, or maybe CF with an exoskeleton of Titanium, or something even way different called transparent polymer, then there's liquid metal but I have the feeling if that came to past for frames it would be hugely expensive. The future is a bit odd because one very promising futuristic frame that failed due to out of control costs for R&D and early frame failures from a company called Kirk Precision Bicycles who invented a new (new at the time) frame material and manufacturing process that took only 8 seconds to make a frame way back in the late 80's. This bike weighed as much as most modern carbon bikes with strength that can't be beat by anything on the market; at a international bike show Mr Kirk ran one of his frames over with a car and nothing happened to it, but statistically it was about 35% lighter than AL 50% stiffer and 1 1/2 times more rigid than heavy gauge Cromoly. Maybe someday with improving technology this type of bike can be looked at again.

repechage

You left out carbon on the marine industry. Quite a bit of reporting and documentation of problems in both engineering and production. The benefit is low weight for the strength. Corrosion is now well documented, a few carbon bike makers addressed this with glass fiber insulating layers but this seems to have dropped off, Colnago. Went another way on the C60 where they place an aluminum shell in the bottom bracket with flanges to tie it to the carbon. Carbon can be done well, it can be done poorly. The intersection of price, engineering safety factor, weight and ride attributes is a complex equation. The bad stuff will break, or will be lacking performance so alternatives will be better.
Notice that most carbon forks have tapered steerers? Carbon does not like to turn 90 degrees abruptly and stay intact. The tapered steerer allows for a better, safer design

oldbikeman65

Very interesting thread! I have Electroforged ( 2 Continentals ) and Chromoly bikes. The best riding is my 73 Conratinental. It is set up as an all around bike with mtb gearing and bars, with cross tires thrown in. I have taken this bike on the road and even advanced mountain trails. Very strong electroforged frame. Not light! Chromoly frames much lighter, don't ride quite as well. My son has a Jamis with cf stays and fork. Nice bike. I like the modern brakes and brifters are great. Rides like a wooden wagon. I have a long torso and short legs. The Continentals have long top tubes, perfect for me. I hate looking down and being out over the front axle on that nasty little Jamis that my son, who is taller, says is my size. Bottom line. Ride what is COMFORTABLE for you as an individual. We don't all drive Chevys.

crank_addict

I enjoy and appreciate the modern and the same for antique. For the moment, forget discussing performance. The major difference is in longevity and robust.

Todays modern CF with Di2 are dainty and a big caution should one simply drop it. Expensive too- price out just one replacement lever. And cross your fingers if you upgrade the software, hopefully not rendering it completely useless, irreversible. Then there's all that proprietary issue. Ex: Shimano's higher end cranks only accept Shimano rings. But for the racer, you need every performance advantage so of course one would seek the latest.

The old stuff takes a pounding, for years! And you can mix and match components and brands.

NO SMOKE and MIRRORS - NEW STEEL vs NEW C.F. >>>>>>>>>
https://www.rodbikes.com/articles/steel-vs-carbon.html

DMC707

Ride what you want -- my opinion --- yes, modern bikes outperform older bikes in a number of ways ---- doesn't make them "faster" ---

My new bike has 10 gears out back - giving me a good enough spread for spirited riding with a couple of bailout gears when things get steep --- my old racing bike has a 12-21 cassette -- similar gearing to my modern bike in the first 7 , but no bailout options

Steel frame vs new carbon frame ? ITs a push in comfort, as i am riding a C'dale Synapse, which is made for all day pedaling -- , but the new carbon still has the goods when its time to stand up and hammer a bit

Weight ? not even close --- yes, if my old bike was running GEL 280 or 330's with tubulars, it would be within a pound or two , but with clinchers, its more like a 5 pound difference (Columbus tubed DeBernardi )

On an average ride like i like to do now --- its not going to matter what i choose , but i pick lightweight , more comfort and better brakes --- I dont need to have uber-fitness for those things to benefit me

Salubrious

I just want the assurance that the frame will still be safe and good to go 10-20 years down the road. That's why I went with a custom stainless frame. The material is certainly not proven over that time in a frame and I may yet encounter issues, but OTOH metallurgy is an older technology than carbon layups. I don't mind the extra weight- after all, I want something good for more than just racing.

Its not vintage of course but in my mind anyway its a classic.

dddd

I'm thinking that you're one who appreciates the 70-degree frame angles that give a Varsity or Continental frame such a stable, wonderfully balanced feel.

The weight is what it is, hardly matters unless you're competing or having to lift the bike into a car trunk, onto a roof rack, carry it up stairs or remove the rear wheel.

I disagree about a Continental having a long top tube. These bikes have a very tall bottom bracket, yet the top tube length starts out measuring very normal but is then effectively pulled back several centimeters by that 70-degree seat tube. Add to that the relatively short stem extension length that's required for use with the frame's 70-degree headtube angle, and how does the toptube even seem to be long?

I have to wonder if your Continental is perhaps the very big 26" frame size(?). I have yet to get my hands on that size and measure anything.

CicliItaliani

i own both kind: two (sometimes three) old italian eroicas, and ONE modern nice Cinelli. To me there's not a technical complete answer to be given. Tech can give unbreackable numbers and tell a thruth, for sure, and we know what bike performs better. but i mean: we can talk about geometries and weights and materials, but we can't measure the Pleasure Factor. Wich is that something that make you love something simply because it's old. because old things are not supposed to be better, but simply to be different. Driving a 1960 carburators Alfa Romeo is just a different experience from driving an even awsome electronic modern car. so are bikes, and if you own different ones you can pick them according to your daily mood

oldbikeman65

The Continental I was referencing is a 24" frame. Again I have a very long torso so I ride a bike that according to the " fit " rules is way too tall for me. The seat is almost all the way down to accomodate my short legs. In comparison to my son's Jamis,which I refer to as a nasty little bike, my Conti is huge. Still has the sweetest ride and the odd geometry of the bike coupled with my odd geometry works well for me. I do have a 26" Super Sport and it is huge. I can barely ride it. Bad buy. It just shows what fits is not always what the book says it should be. Vintage or newer, both have their place. Some retired old guys like myself have a fondness for the vintage. Besides, millions of electroforged bikes were manufactured as well as other types during the boom years giving us less expensive well made bikes to ride and to experiment with. So many parts available. So much fun to work on.

dddd

Sounds good, in that I've often advised buyers of Varsity/Continental bikes to select from the largest frame size that they can ride. The bottom bracket height can mask a too-small frame size, but yours is likely fitted the best that a Continental can be fitted.

I am proportionally long-legged, and I can't fully straddle a 26" Continental. My 1962 Continental was only available up to 24" frame size and that one sure doesn't stretch me out too much reaching forward to the bars.

As for this modern vs. vintage discussion, I find my best fit on vintage bikes, where the only time I'm riding with my hands on the hoods is while standing up for steep climbs or hard accelerations. If I had to find comfort riding with my hands on the hoods in order to constantly shift an integrated shifter, I would have to down-size the reach dimension to the handlebar, which I feel would compromise my ability to charge up the steeper hills and to sprint like an animal.

Here's a picture of my 24" Continental as fitted for me. I could sure use a different handlebar bend to raise the grip positions from the drops and from the hoods, and a longer top tube wouldn't hurt either (a longer stem unfortunately messes up the steering on these bikes, so this one's 10cm stem is as long as it can be). That's a VDO windup clock mounted to the stem expander bolt