No. That's not what I said. What I said was that it is possible for a person to be trained to be a professional bicycle test rider in the same way there are professional drivers for cars. I don't know if any professional bike rider is a real position. It very well could be. This is done on literally every car component from engine mounts to transmission shifting to tire design. I'm finding this part of the discussion almost comical. Just because a group of you aren't familiar with this practice does not mean it's some sort of figment of my imagination.

Keep in mind, these people do not necessarily define what is 'good' or 'bad'. What they do is identify a certain quality that the designer is shooting for or trying to avoid. Their opinion (in the case of cars) relates back to the human component of a NVH (Noise, Vibration, Harshness) issue. It is not done strictly by a 'math equation'. Of course, even using this terminology displays a complete lack of understanding of what is happening.

Often 'good' targets are set by marketing or product development and defined by the competition. Let's say that the marketing department of XYZ bike company says that they like how the Specialized Roubaix rides, but they want it to look different and have other options. They don't want to simply recreate the Roubaix, they just want their bike to have that type of ride. Engineering then has to come up with various way to hit these design bogeys. The first part of hitting a goal is defining it, so they go get a Roubaix, ride it, instrument it and make a good definition of their target.

Let's comment on what exRunner said. Does the auto industry have it all figured out? No, because there is not any one answer. BMW is a company that, IMO, does a really good job of the ride, handling and NVH compromise. A lot of people agree. Having said that, they do it at a price. When Hyundai was building their new sports sedan you can bet your ass they had several BMW's that they kept right next to their test cars. I know this for sure, because I know one of the Hyundai development engineers. Did they completely recreate the BMW? No. Product strategy people said we want to hit targets A, B and C and we want to do it for 40% of what a 5 series costs. Most people seem to think they've done a fairly good job of it. You may or may not agree.

Is any of this getting through or are you guys being obtuse for the fun of it?