Originally Posted by
Nessism
Do you work in Marketing? People in that profession love to "label" things and create categories for different types of products in order to create product differentiation.
Since you have made this personal...I'm not a professional frambuilder, just a garage builder. Most of the frames I've made have been for myself. The nice thing about being able to build frames is that it's easy and cheap to experiment with different geometry's and such...something I've done quite a bit of. I have personal experience with high/low BB's, long/short top tube, long/short trail, etc.
In my experience, changes in these frame characteristics are noticeable in subtle ways but are not worthy of creating a new frame classification for.
As a builder, if someone came to me and wanted a frame to race crits on, I'd tweak the geometry slightly to accommodate them. The changes would be small but I'd do it because that's what custom builders do (at least many of them do). If you want to label a frame like this a "Crit" frame, go ahead. What ever makes you happy. I can tell you that a frame like this will only be slightly different from a general road use frame I would build for that same person - guy most likely wouldn't even notice the difference.
As I thought. Oh, and I didn't want it to be personal, but I've repeatedly been assailed with attacks and ridicule regarding the matter of a criterium bike - so I'm not accepting 100% blame nor any complaints right now.
You know, a professional (lets take Lance for example) could, without the shadow of a doubt, win a Tour de France, or any race for that matter, on a touring frame.
But it doesn't mean he'll be happy about it!
And he'd have to work a little harder (as if racing isn't demanding already), and be more careful in the turns. He'd also literally be putting his life in danger in some of the passes and turns they ride through.
"it works" doesn't mean it can't work better, and doesn't mean an experienced racer won't feel the difference. Yes, the average person doesn't ride a bike hard enough, fast enough, through testing courses like racers do, and thus will probably not fully feel the difference. But I do. Any I'm betting that any experienced racer does as well. All you have to do is try in a race, or at least in hard training pushing the limits (ie: not just making circles in the parking lot at regular speed).
BTW, the two things I find are true marketing hype (since it's been referred to so often), are aero downtubes and dual pivot road racing brakes. Why would you want to make the one tube, that is referred to as the "backbone of the bike", easily twist when a round shape keeps it nice and rigid. It already "looks" oval to the wind (think of it's horizontal cross-section - not at right angle to the tube, but parallel to the ground). And why wold one want a brake that has a different mechanical advantage with one lever than with the other? THAT is marketing BS at work. (remember Shimano's dura-ace AX brakes? I inherited a pair... nothing works worse than those, and they're heavier, all that for a doubtful aero advantage). But fine-tuning a frame geometry is no hype. It's needed as the results are very real.