donrhummy

while this is also only anecdotal "evidence", for myself, I noticed when I was less trained, if I biked at a hard level (near my FTP), I had a lot of trouble sustaining it and had a large drop off of energy and even pain tolerance starting around 20 minutes in. Now, I can sustain efforts above my FTP for longer than that without issues of energy or pain tolerance. This is consistent with what I've seen in other beginners vs experienced athletes. (but it is anecdotal)


Sorry, I was just bringing it back to the original bike difference, no real point other than that.

Machin

And my experience is also only based on testing a handful of friends so might not be applicable to 100% of the population.

I think a more valid point to raise is that whilst the program says that riding on the drops compared to riding on the hoods might be worth 1 minute and 56.5 seconds, in reality the actual difference will depend on how high your handlebars are and how low you are when you get "on the drops"... everyone is different, but the program gives you a good idea of how much difference to expect.

Likewise the program says that aero rims might save you 34.5 seconds in an hour, whereas in reality some aero rims might make 40 seconds difference and others 30 seconds difference due to differences in the design of the two wheels.

So please don't think that the program is "exact". What it does do is give a quantitative indication of the relative differences compared to just someone on a forum or at the local club saying "this will make you much faster than that", etc etc.

Niloc

Here's my slightly different take on the subject: Up until last fall I was riding around on '96 Bianchi Reparto Corse cyclocross frame. Nice bike to be sure (and now I race 'cross on it) but set up for commuting with moustache bars, 28c slick tires, compact crank. I decided I wanted to get more serious about road cycling and that I needed a real road bike. I had a Softride tri-style bike years ago - but that's another story. I considered roadifying my Bianchi some more, but found a gorgeous custom Rodriguez lugged steel bike on craigslist. Checked it out, it was my size so it came home with me. It was in minty condition for it's age (mid to late 80s) and was nicely kitted out with full Campy 9-speed - a mix of chorus, centaur and veloce - all in alloy, no plastic. Shiny FiR medium dish wheelset. I swapped out the bars and stem, put my Brooks on it and it was good to go. So I consider it a nicer bike, but it's clearly not new and I'm sure weight wise not much different than my Bianchi and probably a lot heavier than most of the bikes mentioned in this thread. But man do I love riding it, it's so smooooth. Campy Ergo is awesome. It's making me faster because I love riding it and I'm getting in some decent miles and looking forward to riding it some more, hence improving the engine. So yeah I think a nicer bike can make you faster.

AdelaaR

You have your height, distance and ascent in imperial units but then suddenly you change to kilograms for weight ... why is that?

Dudelsack 

Because he's seen the light, I suppose.....

AdelaaR

Also, your tool assumes too much about the original rider.
I entered my info using data from an actual TT with full TT bike and everything like discwheel, 21mm tubulars, shoe covers, etc ...
The tool then tells me that I could use all kinds of TT stuff to get faster, which is abviously nonsensical.

Dudelsack 

You say that like its a bad thing.

Bah Humbug

Frame stiffness effect on performance is always a good topic for a ten-page flame war.

Bah Humbug

The problem is you're coming off as extremely negative about other people buying things they enjoy and then you're getting offended that people are being negative about your opinion.

And, in your example, the Miata driver may have more skill, but if I could afford a 911 to drive poorly instead, I'd much rather do that than drive the Miata poorly. And laugh at anybody who whined about it.

grolby

Okay. Go for a ride without the bike and get back to me on how that goes.

Does it make it more clear what I'm getting at when we get absurdly reductionist like that? Cycling is ALWAYS about the bike. It is not 100%, but the bicycle is what enables the activity. It's stupid to say that it doesn't matter, because it's pretty clear that you need a bicycle if you're going to cycle at all. And if you concede that it matters up to a point, but no further, how does that make sense, either? If the experience is a product of using your body to operate a machine, changes to that machine, however marginal, will always have some effect, even if it is the sensation of or belief in speed, or comfort, or whatever rather than a measurable change. Cycling is the marriage of industry and athlete. For lots of us, that's part of what's so fascinating about it. There is some desire from some to abstract the bicycle away, and I find that very strange.

No time to really react fully to this, but I think you're getting into some very interesting territory here. We know that what we think about things affects our experience of them - wine is a great example. If a bottle of wine is more expensive, we perceive it as tasting better than the same wine in a bottle marked with the label of a "lesser" vintage. There are questions about to what extent this is a good thing that we can use to hone our enjoyment of our experiences and where it becomes snake oil and fraud, but I don't think the answers are simple. It's a pretty fascinating element of human psychology, and it definitely plays into how we feel about our bikes, too.

joe_5700

Nice job on cherry picking my original quote... If you would have included the rest of my quote your post would be moot. My point was you have extremely diminished returns on a road bike that is ~20 pounds when you upgrade it. If you are getting dropped on fast group rides/road races on your current Sora equipped road bike with Mavic CXP22's, you are not going to be able to hang on with lighter rims and dura ace components.

fietsbob

For a given speed the air resistance is unchanged, no matter what bike you use.

higher altitude will make the air less dense as the gasses are held around the planet by it's gravity.

Harun

I get angry/jealous that other people have nicer bikes than me, which makes me train harder, which makes me faster.

So having a nicer bike makes you slower.

grolby

I didn't think it was cherry-picking, seeing as I addressed that very point (which is not exactly a revelation, returns are ALWAYS diminishing): gains, however marginal they may be, are still gains and still relevant. There is a point at which you have decided that the gains are worthwhile, after all you are not riding a Schwinn Varsity, are you? What makes you think that deciding it's worthwhile to ride a 20lb Sora bike over a 40lb Varsity is less arbitrary than preferring a top-end 14lb carbon fiber speed machine? Because it's not. The line is necessarily always arbitrary, because we all have different value systems and interests that lead us to decide what we can afford and what's worth our time and money.

The lighter, more expensive bike is going be faster in both cases, and in both cases the gains aren't particularly large. A Varsity is not actually all that much slower than a modern entry-level road bike, especially not if you aren't competing. But do you really think it's not worth buying the modern entry-level road bike?

Even within the world of expensive bikes, there are significant trade-offs to be made. I ride and race on a nearly 19lb steel bike. For the same money, I could have had a very nice high-mid range carbon fiber bike, probably a good 2-3 lbs lighter than the one I have. Instead, I put my money into a custom frame that fits me superbly and gives me supreme confidence in the handling of my bike in crits and on twisty descents. But I necessarily am slightly slower up hills as a result. Though I do think having the right fit makes me faster on the flats and in criteriums, so that's complicated matters, hasn't it?

So what's worth spending for and what's not? Low weight or the perfect fit? Carbon fiber or steel? No matter what I do, I'm not being transformed from a nobody into a race winner, but it's still worthwhile to have a better tool for the job at hand. It's no more foolish to go for a faster bike even if the faster bike isn't faster enough to stop you getting dropped on group rides. It's only foolish if you're not getting your personal money's worth out of that decision.

joe_5700

Grolby, are you a fan of Nathaniel Hawthorne's works or what? You are a tad long winded. Anyways, do you think that your 19lb bike prevented you from climbing onto the podium or gaining a few spots in your crits?

Here is some good reading.

https://forums.roadbikereview.com/gen...le-225299.html

I used to think that when I upgraded a bike I was buying speed. My Strava results say otherwise. The only time this is not true is when I ride my TT bike on the same routes as my road bikes. The gains are all due to my body position on the bike...

Machin

Good question... In the UK we generally use imperial units when talking about transport related issues (all road signs are in miles).... whereas there is less of a "common standard" in use for weight, so I tend to revert to the SI units... (all the hidden calculations are in SI units). I could add an option to change units between metric and imperial if that would help?

Yeah, I agree... really I need to have all of the options in the "Tell us about your ride" section so you can select exactly the configuration you were in. My initial thinking was to try and keep it fairly simple so as not to scare people off, but you're not the first person to suggest this, so I'll have a think about how I can implement this. Cheers!

Brian25

I love a these bikes; little difference responses, which are of coarse true. I can say that i used to race over 60 criteriums a year with light sew- up wheels i could stay in, and even place, but when ever i tried to race on the heavier clinchers i really could not stay in, let alone get a placing. As soon as i put the sew ups back on i was able to stay in again. There is an old saying that saving a pound in your wheels is like saving about 5 pounds in the frame etc...
Another thing i recommend is "pedal counting" find if this helps. Try pedaling super hard with one leg for 10 to 15 revolutions, as the other leg is not being applied, and when your count is up switch legs. good luck Brian

Dudelsack 

Machin

If we assume that guy's position on each bike is roughly similar (he says there are more spacers under the stem of the old bike, but that means nothing without knowing the frame dimensions) the main differences between his two bikes are a little bit of weight (2lbs) and the deep rim aero wheels.

My calculator suggests this should have saved him about 12 seconds over the 5.7 mile (16 minute) course.... it is not surprising that he couldn't tell the difference.

lsberrios1 

I wonder what going from a 17# bike to a 13.5# bike would do for my Strava Segment PRs! I think I could take some KOMs

canam73

Just create your own segments and keep them private. You will always be KOM.

Machin

The "Riding with two full bottles" scenario on my program simply adds 1.5kg to the bike/rider weight (i.e. it assumes you were riding with empty drinks bottles previously so no aero difference is taken into account).... this is about the same as your 3.5lb difference... in a 6 mile, flat-ish ride (200ft of ascent) it would save you about 2 seconds... is that enough for KOM?


It'll be more of a difference on a slower course with more ascent...... have a play....

lsberrios1 

I guess I could do that. "123 main street Driveway KOM" kinda thing!

lsberrios1 

hmmm... it is not! buttttt...bear with me. I currently am 13th/548 (not lucky) place on a segment that is .7 miles at an average 3% down by exactly 20 seconds from first place. Took the 1st place 1:53 seconds to reach the top at an average (PM measured) of 504watts. It took me 2:13 at an average of 507watts (PM Measured) to get to the top. I was 178 pounds when I attempted that climb, now I weigh 166. The run was towards the end of a pretty harsh 24 mile ride where I did some Threshold intervals so I was a little fatigued.

Considering that my current FTP is the same, my weight has dropped 12#s, the bike is 3.5#s less, stiffer and more aero, at the beginning of the ride (instead of the end). Would I be able to break that 20 second gap?

I know this is foolish but take it as a math exercise . I will attempt to take the KOM when (and if) I get the new bike hopefully in the next 2 weeks. What do you think will happen when I do?

grolby

I have no idea. I don't, to this point in time, do well in climbing-heavy races anyway, but if I were climbing Mt. Washington I would be slower on this bike than one 4 lbs lighter. Do you deny this?

I also don't know if I would lose many spots in crits if I were racing on that 40 lb Schwinn Varsity. I did some races on a 23 lb 80's road bike a few years back, with downtube shifters. I didn't do too badly. But I prefer my current race bike both to that 80's roadie and to the Schwinn. It's certainly faster than both of them, but not by so much that I would do substantially worse on either.

But you still haven't answered my question: why are you riding a 20 lb modern road bike instead of a 40 lb Schwinn Varsity? You're not any less likely to get dropped on the newer, fancier bike and it isn't going to help your Strava times anyway, so why waste the money?