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Why Did These Products Fade Away Or Die Out?

Old 11-22-14, 07:09 PM
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Originally Posted by HillRider
Corrected as shown. There is a move toward 35.0 mm also but it hasn't gone mainstream yet, if ever.
Thanks, I edited out the typo. At some point things get ridiculous. There will always be outboard flex, so the benefits of a thicker bulge at the clamp is going to be minimal. If greater rigidity is desired the better approach would be to either add more material, or extend the bulge as was SOP for aluminum bars, or both. A fatter short area at the clamp is more about marketing than technology.
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Old 11-23-14, 01:26 AM
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Originally Posted by cycle_maven
The Landrider autoshifting bike. There's one that deserved to die- a bike for people too lazy to shift gears, but energetic enough to actually move the pedals in a circle.
Those damn things linger on craigslist forever.

Last edited by Medic Zero; 11-23-14 at 01:26 AM. Reason: typo
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Old 11-23-14, 03:55 AM
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Originally Posted by FBinNY
Thanks, I edited out the typo. At some point things get ridiculous. There will always be outboard flex, so the benefits of a thicker bulge at the clamp is going to be minimal. If greater rigidity is desired the better approach would be to either add more material, or extend the bulge as was SOP for aluminum bars, or both. A fatter short area at the clamp is more about marketing than technology.

imo the buldge on cf bars was to prevent crush failures from overtorquing a clamp to prevent inherent bar slippage. thus increasing the surface area to clamp too, increasing static friction. nowadays its prolly evolved to combat associated nuances.

Last edited by sickz; 11-23-14 at 04:04 AM.
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Old 11-23-14, 10:57 AM
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Originally Posted by sickz
imo the buldge on cf bars was to prevent crush failures from overtorquing a clamp to prevent inherent bar slippage. thus increasing the surface area to clamp too, increasing static friction. nowadays its prolly evolved to combat associated nuances.
This is my understanding too. The marketing claims of "stiffer" are to not have to admit to the issue of using traditional diameters don't work well with modern materials. Classic diversionary advertising. Make the drawback the advantage Andy.
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Old 11-23-14, 11:22 AM
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Originally Posted by sickz
imo the buldge on cf bars was to prevent crush failures from overtorquing a clamp to prevent inherent bar slippage. thus increasing the surface area to clamp too, increasing static friction. nowadays its prolly evolved to combat associated nuances.
lt's clear up the first misconception. Friction isn't dependent on surface area, it's related to the clamping force. There is a benefit in terms of slippage by increasing the torque at the slipping surface, but not enough to justify the effort.

If we go back in history, the real reason for a bulged center becomes obvious. It's so the bar can be slipped through the stem freely and only be a close fit at the center. In this way, the bulge on bars is like the raised crown sear on fork steerers.

The second reason is to increase bending moment at the fulcrum, where bending stresses are highest.

As far as slippage goes, the remedy is cheaper and simpler than forming the bulges. Simply coat the bar clamping area with traction material similar to the traction strips on stair treads. Many already do this, and it's very effective even at low clamping force.

As I posted earlier, I suspect the ONLY reason for increasing clamp diameter is to have something new to sell.
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Old 11-23-14, 12:54 PM
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Originally Posted by FBinNY
lt's clear up the first misconception. Friction isn't dependent on surface area, it's related to the clamping force. There is a benefit in terms of slippage by increasing the torque at the slipping surface, but not enough to justify the effort.

If we go back in history, the real reason for a bulged center becomes obvious. It's so the bar can be slipped through the stem freely and only be a close fit at the center. In this way, the bulge on bars is like the raised crown sear on fork steerers.

The second reason is to increase bending moment at the fulcrum, where bending stresses are highest.

As far as slippage goes, the remedy is cheaper and simpler than forming the bulges. Simply coat the bar clamping area with traction material similar to the traction strips on stair treads. Many already do this, and it's very effective even at low clamping force.

As I posted earlier, I suspect the ONLY reason for increasing clamp diameter is to have something new to sell.
ahh.. i learn something new everyday. makes sense when i think about it from that perspective. would explain the odd size handlebar clamps (26.0mm) and the resulting tube diameters of most bars. (.940"). either or being sized to facilitate a 1" clamp.

"The second reason is to increase bending moment at the fulcrum, where bending stresses are highest. " i agree with this. although i think this was more of a beneficial result that they ran w/ rather than design specifications.

the larger diameter could have result to facilitate sliding the stem over bars with non circular cross sections full on airfoils, etc.
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Old 11-23-14, 07:21 PM
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Originally Posted by FBinNY
lt's clear up the first misconception. Friction isn't dependent on surface area, it's related to the clamping force. There is a benefit in terms of slippage by increasing the torque at the slipping surface, but not enough to justify the effort.

If we go back in history, the real reason for a bulged center becomes obvious. It's so the bar can be slipped through the stem freely and only be a close fit at the center. In this way, the bulge on bars is like the raised crown sear on fork steerers..
The current nearly universal removable face plate stem design has made the need for slipping a convoluted bar through the stem clamp a non-issue and these stems are about all that's made for the 31.8 center bulge bars.

I will also note that the two and four bolt removable face plates have made bar slippage nearly a thing of the past. I recall going through all sorts of trials to keep the bars from slipping in the older circular clamp stems including using rubber cement, sandpaper and Loctite and torquing the bolt until I was sure it would snap. Nothing worked for long. The removable faceplate stem was the salvation and didn't need to be gorilla tight either.
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Old 11-23-14, 08:05 PM
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I have read somewhere that a split clamp (with two slots so to speak) will have a greater clamping pressure then one with only one slot. But this flies in the face of the concerns often stated that carbon bars have a max clamping pressure allowed. So increasing the contact surface seems to make sense. Andy
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Old 11-24-14, 09:28 AM
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FB is correct that in a pure friction sense, surface contact area isn't a factor, only clamping pressure. However, in the "real world", most surfaces have irregularities so the resistance to slippage is a combination of pure friction plus mechanical interlocking of the irregularities. So, in this instance more surface allows more interlocks and the bigger clamp area is an advantage.
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Old 11-24-14, 12:19 PM
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Originally Posted by FBinNY
Ti spindles disappeared for two reasons. The first is an unacceptably higher failure rate that pretty much said they were unfit for general consumption. The second was the advent of external bearings and large iameter spindles which pretty much eliminated the weight advantage.

Ti bars are gone because CF is both lighter and cheaper, so it's aluminum for rough service or low price, and CF for high end with no place for Ti in the mix. Same applies, but to a lesser extent with Ti seatposts.

Aluminum steerers died because of unacceptably high risk of catastrophic failure. Once CF proved itself it was CF for weight, Steel for durability.

Steel BB RD pulleys are gone, because once quality engineering plastic were available there was absoluteley no reason for steel or aluminum pulleys.

Stuff changes because new materials and manufacturing techniques takes away the raison d'etre. Also consider that we live in a litigious age and than heavier riders are riding bicycles very similar or even identical to race equipment. That means that we can't build for 160# riders and have to maintain high service life standards for all critical components. (or have max rider weight disclaimers which people are going to fudge or ignore anyway.
Huh? Aluminum steerers didn't die at all. Just picking the big 4, Trek Specialized, Giant and Cannondale all spec aluminum steerer tubes on their entry/mid-level road bikes. Some of them like the Claris-spec'd Allez have a full aluminum fork.
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Old 11-24-14, 12:50 PM
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Originally Posted by kv501
Huh? Aluminum steerers didn't die at all. Just picking the big 4, Trek Specialized, Giant and Cannondale all spec aluminum steerer tubes on their entry/mid-level road bikes. Some of them like the Claris-spec'd Allez have a full aluminum fork.
I don't keep up with all latest offerings, but all the aluminum forks I've seen had steel steerers. It seems that some modern 1-1/8" threadless forks have aluminum steerers, but I've never seen one in the flesh. (I have seen steel steerers that looked like aluminum, but weren't).
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Last edited by FBinNY; 11-24-14 at 12:55 PM.
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Old 11-24-14, 01:10 PM
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Originally Posted by FBinNY
It seems that some modern 1-1/8" threadless forks have aluminum steerers, but I've never seen one in the flesh.
If you've ever seen a name brand suspension fork (Rockshox, Fox, Manitou, White Bros, X-Fusion) with a 1 1/8" steerer tube, the chances are very, very good that you've seen a fork with an aluminum steerer tube in the flesh.
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Old 11-24-14, 01:22 PM
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Originally Posted by well biked
If you've ever seen a name brand suspension fork (Rockshox, Fox, Manitou, White Bros, X-Fusion) with a 1 1/8" steerer tube, the chances are very, very good that you've seen a fork with an aluminum steerer tube in the flesh.
Actually, the RockShox forks (and others) I've seen had steel steerers, (many were stainless steel). But as I said, that was a while back. These days I see mainly road bikes, either classic steel bikes, or higher end bikes with full carbon forks (inc. steerer).

Once we moved beyond the 1" restriction, it opened up plenty of opportunities for all sorts of materials which were inadequately strong within the 1" limit. Stuff changes every day, and no material is magically better or worse, they're just used differently.
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Old 11-24-14, 02:19 PM
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Regarding aluminum steerer tubes on suspension-fork-equipped mountain bikes: if a consumer were to purchase a new mountain bike in 2014, with the bike retailing for maybe a little more than a thousand bucks, the bike would very likely have an aluminum steerer tube on the suspension fork. If a consumer were to purchase a new mountain bike in 2014, with the bike retailing for something like $5000, that bike would also very likely have an aluminum steerer tube on the suspension fork. 1 1/8" steel threadless steerer tubes on suspension forks are still common on inexpensive bikes. Carbon fiber is also sometimes used on very expensive, lightweight supsension forks' steerer tubes.

On decent suspension forks, aluminum is by far the most common material used for steerer tubes, and this is absolutely nothing new at all, pretty much covering the entire 1 1/8" threadless era of mountain bike forks. Steel was the material of choice in most cases during the 1" and 1 1/8" threaded era, which was a fairly brief time span in the realm of suspension forks on mountain bikes.

Last edited by well biked; 11-24-14 at 02:24 PM.
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Old 11-24-14, 03:18 PM
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Originally Posted by qclabrat
a lot of innovations by mavic, why did they shut down that part of the company? Even Shimano doesn't have wireless shifters yet...
I miss the Mavic diamond logo, reminds me of the good old boys; Merckx, Hinault, Lemond, Fignon, Moser, list goes on. The current logo just represents this tainted era we're currently stuck at.

Other great manufacturers long gone who made great components are Ofmega, Galli and Ofmega (not considering the Morphos shifters, any body actually buy a set of these from the 2009 batch?)
Di2 shifters anyone? Wireless electronic ones?
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