Originally Posted by
MassiveD
That's right, but you can have norms, the industry designs around some concept of what the public wants, even if they have different ideas about that. I also think different riders, as you say, will experience things differently possibly because of different weight, or objective factors as well as subjective factors. I think there are objective as well as subjective issues, or one couldn't design anything.
absolutely, it's like gearing, having a given gear inches number gives a black and white number to a low gear for example. What I find interesting is that of my bikes that I ride during the season, a 26in mtn bike, a 97 or 98 Rockhopper comp, and a cross/touringish 700 dropbar bike, the mtn bike steers very very quickly, something I like with city commuting and avoiding potholes etc, it steers really really fast and precise. Compared to the Tricross it is much quicker steering, and you really notice it over about 50kph, the rockhopper still steers very quickly at speed--but the interesting thing is that it is still stable and for me, not worrying or giving any indication of concern at whatever speed I can get it to.
I compare this to a friend of mine who has a Trek 520, and he finds the Tricross way to twitchy for him.
So its interesting to me that even with a much faster steering bike like the Rockhopper, it still remains stable and confident at 70kph, or about 45mph , thats about the fastest Ive gotten it to, so it does seem that numbers can indicate that a bike will steer quicker than another, but it may not clearly how the bike feels when it does get going fast, or with a load on it and going fast.
This is one of the reasons why I am so fond of this old Rockhopper, it works well unloaded and it takes a good rear end load really really well also, stays very composed and like I said, while still fast steering, it doesnt display any concerning handling issues.
It would be interesting for me to try to find the specs of these bikes, I really dont have a good understanding of trail and all that, and certainly havent retained the numbers for my bikes, even if I had seen them at one point. Would be interesting to compare to other bikes I have had and ridden, and to other bikes mentioned here.