adszhu

Hi,
I am an amateur cyclist, riding a 10-year-old road bike, which I bought for $1000 that time. I used to ride distances around 100km.
I plan to upgrade my bike, so I decided to investigate what to pay for to get the best result.
My current by has a no-name 7005 alu frame, and equipped with full Campy Mirage.
So, what do you think, how much the features below should increase my average speed?
First of all, on a plain route of 100km, how faster could I be on a top-notch bike, like a carbon Trek with Zipp wheels, assuming my current average speed is around 33 km/h?

Frame: doest it make sense to buy a cheaper carbon frame? Is it so much stiffer that I can see the result in the numbers?
Wheels: would an entry level wheelset (Campy Khamsyn), or a middle one (Mavic Ksyrium), or a racing wheelset (Zipp 404) give me a noticeable difference in time?
Tyres: clinchers vs tubulars, TPI? Is the pro tyre worth the price?

I don't want to go and buy a Trek or Cervélo with nice wheels and get disappointed when I measure the same results like with my current bike...

Thanks in advance,

Ádám

canam73

Good fit. Comfortable, sustainable aero postition that allows for good pedaling power.

urbanknight

legs

hao

Sorry to tell ya, but you will most likely see little to no improvement.

VA_Esquire

an engine.

gregf83 

A flat back.

EKCooper

I thought the answer was supposed to be "Cervelo"? ;-)

And, it depends on what you're doing. Some things, like aero wheels and aero helmets, will allow you to shave seconds off your overall time, but mostly it depends on you and your legs and lungs. Although I do triathlons, I really compete with myself and the only way to get better than myself is to ride more.

Nuggetross

double discs and fork mounted bars.

veloboy971

The pedals and cranks cause without those you wouldn't gbe able to move

mvnsnd

To answer your question, It depends. Is your terrain hilly, then lighter wheels/tires may help. If it's generally flat, then wind drag on you is a big factor in speed. Reducing your drag will make you go faster. Try lowering your handlebars if you can to get a more aero position. And of course work on the legs to make you faster.

rumrunn6

training

w98seeng

I don't know much about individual products, but common sense says that there are certain things that will make a ride faster or more efficient. The more efficient a ride is, the farther you can go on the same amount of energy output. A lot of these tips are common sense, but they will help in going faster, or farther.

1) Getting the most out of each pedal stroke. I think that the different style of BB's will give different results in pedaling. A square taper BB allows for more flex so your pedaling will be less efficient. I believe the exterior BB's allow for the least amount of power loss.

2) Less rolling resistance. The bearings in a wheel and the tires have rolling resistance that uses up more power. The less resistance there is, the more your efficient your pedaling will be. A tire with a smoother surface and more air pressure will give better rolling resistance. Possibly ceramic bearings (not too sure about these) will also help with rolling resistance. Good quality bearing grease and properly adjusted bearings will help also.

3) A lighter bike helps with efficiency also. Components that are clean and properly maintained will help.

Ian

cmolway

+1 on the legs.

merlinextraligh

To answer your actual question, a high end CF racing bike with Zipp 404 tubulars will likely be 3-4lbs lighter than your current bike. On a steep climb, this will be worth about .1mph.

The aerodynamic advantage of the Zipp wheels will be worth about 1-2 minutes over your 100km route, or about .1 to .2mph

So you could reasonably expect to see the same effort that now gives you a 33 kph average go up to 33.2 to 33.3 kph

In other words, hardly enough to be perceptible, but enough to make a difference in a tightly contested race.

AngrySaki

Unless you're riding on knobby tires or something, I don't think any other upgrade can come close to what aerobars can do. But they're not for everybody, especially if you do all your riding in groups.

Homebrew01

Those 2 things are about the least important of all the possible ways to improve speed, unless placebos work well for you.

himespau 

They say time is money right? Well, spend that time on the bike working on the engine. Probably the best cost/benefit investment.

merlinextraligh

Unfortunately, common sense is not so common.

1)As for external bearing BB's being more efficient. There's no evidence that BB flex makes pedaling less efficient. Absent a truely deminimis heat loss, there's no loss of efficiency from bb or frame flex. (if you don't believe me there are voluminous threads on here explaining this.)

Also external bearing BB's tend to have more friction loss than the old square taper BB's, so the square taper is actually more efficient ( although friction loss in bearings is way down on the importance list)

2) The difference in bearing friction between components, even between steel and ceramic bearings is so small that it's virtually irrelevant. IIRC, a Velonews test showed that going to full ceramic bearings was worth less than one watt of power.

When you're looking at the forces oppossing a bike from going forward, friction loss from the bearings is a very small part, and the slight difference from better berings hardly matters.

3) Higher tire pressure actually increases rolling resistance in the rear world.

4) I'll give you the lighter bike bit, but it only really matters in climbing, and the advantage is way less than many people think.

5) Intuitively a clean bike, particularly drive train, should be more efficient, but I bet you can't find a single study that shows a clean chain actually increases speed. In fact IIRC, there was a Johns Hopkins study that found no improvement in efficiency from lubing your chain.

WonderLake

Legs.

WonderLake

Or is it lungs?

urbanknight

Lung are useless without the legs.

himespau 

or you could just eat a lot of beans the night before for some jet power.

urbanknight

I know the maturity in this forum is pretty low, but c'mon.

hao

It could also be used to poison the rider behind you and create a gap.

renton

Legs are not a bike feature.