I'll agree with you that 2x hearkens back to the days of 10 speed bikes and is generally inferior.

However, 1x is magical in its own way. Simplicity is a big part of it. One derailleur. Upshift or down. No thinking required. Fewer parts. Narrow-wide chainrings are also a great idea but only work in 1x systems.

Oops. Thanks. Duplicate post deleted.

This comment was posted in the video you suggest; does it make tooooooooooo much sense?....

Instead of using high volume tires at low pressures, would it not be more optimal to use some form of actual, real suspension (maybe even tunable) plus lower volume tires at higher pressures to prevent flats? Formula 1 cars use suspension to go faster on the smoothest tracks in the world, so why don't racing bikes use suspension, especially on roads like these? Air-filled tires seems like a VERY PRIMITIVE form of suspension, which has the downsides highlighted by this race. I know suspension has been used previously in Paris-Roubaix, so why are high volume tires now seen as a better solution?

Tires are a critical component of the suspension of F1 cars. In fact, once they enter parc ferme, it is the only way to change suspension settings. Also, cars are not bicycles.

ok. then the way to go forward with this thing is some kind of suspension, which is the point of the quote i posted.

Paris- Roubaix has been run 123 times. This entire thread has been based on cherry picking. If you don't know about the feats of Peter Post or Marcel Kint you really don't know much. Peter Post averaged 45.2kph in 1964 and Kint 41.49 in 1943.

Most of the posts here are based on the same small group of factoids presented in a handful of videos. And those vids are basically commercial speech. Advertisements. They want you to buy a new bike. That's fine. I think you should buy a new bike too. On a regular basis. Support the industry. But maybe learn something about the sport instead of parroting adverts.

One thing Post and Kint have in common is they were both absolutely beautiful on a bike. I will say van Der Poel and Pogacar do look pretty good in a pack of potatoes.

I know next to nothing about F1 cars, but I think I know what you are missing here: those cars generate tremendous forces when cornering, and suspension is needed to, among other things, keep all four tires in contact with the track surface. This is a non-issue with a bicycle.

I will leave it to the thousands of professionals whose sole career objective is to optimize bicycle performance. All indications are a pneumatic tire is an excellent form of suspension.

How can this be considered “Cherry Picking Data” when I have provided charts and data not only for the past 50 years for the Paris Roubaix showing a clear and undeniable trend. I also provided a chart for the average speed of the top 10 classics races combined for the past 50 years showing the same trend and acceleration of the average speeds the past few years with the abandonment of tubulars adoption of disc brakes and carbon.

The two examples you noted are the ultimate “Cherry Pick” and can not be compared to the current race in a major important way. The cobble sectors were substantially reduced and much smoother than current sectors approx 30 km to today’s 55 km. The 1943 example is laughable because of the wartime route was very asphalt focused and the remaining cobbles were filled with crushed stone to make them smoother for wartime mobility. The 1964 route also have substantially reduced cobbles when compared the modern versions of the race. Both examples you listed were outliers and known to have very strong tail winds and speeds dropped dramatically again the following years.

You also mention parroting comments how would you determine the riders you mentioned are beautiful on the bicycle? I highly doubt there’s very much footage to analyze from either racers but especially the 1943 edition, if any beliefs can be considered parroted it would be this kind of bike shop small talk imprinted in the 70’s. Calling current riders potatoes on the bicycle is absolutely laughable.

The video is just advertising aimed at selling trendy new stuff to dentists. The reason for the fast speeds again is Van der Poel, Van Aert, and Pog all pulling out all of the stops in a generational contest of wills. So the pro teams assembled and sacrificed their best riders to drive the pace, and unlike almost all previous contest, the teams did not sandbag for the first 100 or 200km, but went full-gas right out of the start.

Plus it was dry and not as dusty as usual.

Please explain the trend? Not just in the PR but virtually all races and women as well speeds are up year over year the past 6 years especially so. Your premise speeds should have dropped precipitously with the adoption of current tech. I graphed the top 10 classics races combined over 50 years and the trend is clear and from what my research shows not one dentist was involved.

Personally I feel anything higher than 18 gear inches will get a bit iffy when riding 10%+ grades. Most people would agree ;)

Got any data for that claim?

Firstly: Do you dislike comfort?
Synthetic fibers are great for some things but I would never consider wearing just synthetics for lounging about in hot weather (most touring happens in the summer). I suppose you could pack linen chinos as well, since those are lighter and work better in heat. I'd consider it a bare minimum to have some sort of natural fiber outfit on tour since constantly wearing nylon, polyester or other synthetics gets nasty after a while.

Also synthetic fibers haven't really advanced that much in the recent decades. We have some new cool stuff like membrane fiber laminates (eg. cuben fiber) but those are prohibitively expensive still and only offer a fairly modes decrease in weight. And laminates often have their own issues. Travel clothing hasn't really gotten any lighter over the last two decades, but prices have come down for certain items. Nylon is still nylon and polyester is still polyester.

Do you have any examples of what clothing items have gotten significantly lighter?

Care to elaborate how everything becomes more problematic with more weight? With realistic weights? Lets assume you have a pack weight of 10kg for one rider and 20kg for another. How is the heavier weight significantly more problematic and in what situations does this occur?

[QUOTE]Modern gear is more than durable enough for me and other lightweight activities that use the same gear, notably lightweight backpackers. As they say, light, durable, and cheap, pick two, but you can't have all three. Other items, such as replacing maps with digital sources, are huge weight and space savers. Cooking & Sleep systems are very lightweight and compact. But yes, this comes at a cost.

I think you're mistaking gear (that has been available for decades now) for experience. It's well known that more experienced backpackers and tourists do shed gear weight as they gain experience on what they need/want for their trips. But that's not always the case. For example Using a super lightweight cooking stove sans windscreen or with a lightweight windscreen would be a waste of time and fuel in certain places. On the other hand the most reliable cooking solution (trangia) works everywhere in all conditions but you pay for that reliability with weight. Experience will tell you which system to choose. If you always choose the light one regardless of conditions, well...

GPS systems have existed for decades now. Paper maps have been largely obsolete (not to mention difficult to find) as long as I have been touring.

Sleeping systems have only really advanced in terms of pads, but the lightweight ones are very fragile. There's not getting around the fact that lower denier nylons won't stand up to as much as higher denier nylons. Insulation hasn't advanced at all in the last 20 years, since down is still the best around. You won't get anything lighter with a better insulation value.

Some more experienced tourists also actually increase their gear weight when they realize that roughing it actually kinda sucks. I wouldn't be caught dead touring without a decent chair for example (helinox chair one). And some newbies go out with wildly insufficient gear thinking they can manage with near nothing. I've helped a few stranded tourists with mechanicals when they lacked something as simple as a tube, when a patch kit unsurprisingly didn't work in heavy rain.

How exactly is this a good thing?

Again I'm curious where you draw your information from. I live right alongside the most popular touring route in my country (the route goes literally past my house) and I haven't seen such change. Panniers still make up for the vast majority of luggage options. But perhaps it's again US vs EU kind of thing.

It would need to be tested, whether larger tires or suspension were more optimal, but in theory a full suspension bike with narrower tires could make a faster machine than a bike with larger volume tires.

But then there's other factors, such as aerodynamics, weight and stiffness. Making an aerodynamic full sus road bike to rival other aero offerings would be challenging. Suspension components would also bring a lot of additional weight. Not necessarily a problem on a flat course such as PR, but there are other rowdy races as well which are not flat. Making a bike for a single classic wouldn't make much financial sense. And having linkages, stanchions etc. would inevitably bring unwanted wallowiness to the bikes, unless reinforced, which again brings the weight up.

But in reality full suspension road bike would be a difficult sell, because racing is sponsored by companies selling bikes to consumers. Road bikes are simple machines and the additional maintenance of front and rear suspension would make many potential buyers nope at the prospect. I don't even have a full sus MTB, because I just can't be bothered with the rear shock and linkage maintenance.

So no specific reason why it couldn't be done, but it's a big risk. It would be interesting to see though.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...46b5a2dd02.gif

So, your theory is that this Paris-Roubaix was faster than previous races because the riders all rode really fast. As the Brits say …Brilliant!

“The mighty OZ has spoken!”

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5ae61edd4.jpeg
This is the average for 25 years including today’s Liege - Bastogne - Liege. There is a noticeable increase in average speed year over year starting in 2019 which is also the time a majority of teams converted to disc brakes, wider tubeless tires and serious focus of aero gains.

You have been consistent and relentless stressing that these new techs will slow the riders and are a drag on performance. Please explain how speeds are increasing sport wide and not decreasing as you insist should be happening. The video was just a logical starting point why the increase in speed validated by numerous examples I have additionally provided. Other than rhetoric the naysayers have provided nothing.

[QUOTE=elcruxio;23734537]Personally I feel anything higher than 18 gear inches will get a bit iffy when riding 10%+ grades. Most people would agree ;)



Got any data for that claim?



Firstly: Do you dislike comfort?
Synthetic fibers are great for some things but I would never consider wearing just synthetics for lounging about in hot weather (most touring happens in the summer). I suppose you could pack linen chinos as well, since those are lighter and work better in heat. I'd consider it a bare minimum to have some sort of natural fiber outfit on tour since constantly wearing nylon, polyester or other synthetics gets nasty after a while.

Also synthetic fibers haven't really advanced that much in the recent decades. We have some new cool stuff like membrane fiber laminates (eg. cuben fiber) but those are prohibitively expensive still and only offer a fairly modes decrease in weight. And laminates often have their own issues. Travel clothing hasn't really gotten any lighter over the last two decades, but prices have come down for certain items. Nylon is still nylon and polyester is still polyester.

Do you have any examples of what clothing items have gotten significantly lighter?



Care to elaborate how everything becomes more problematic with more weight? With realistic weights? Lets assume you have a pack weight of 10kg for one rider and 20kg for another. How is the heavier weight significantly more problematic and in what situations does this occur?

Thank you for the detailed respectful response outlining your perspective. To summarize my position over the past few years technology advances has made it much easier to travel lighter which many would consider advantageous, backpacking has experienced the same trend. However, another trend is E bikes have become prominent with individuals touring, especially in Europe and then alters the discussion completely.

With the extra weight of disc brakes, a rider knows that he'll instantly get dropped if he lets a tiny gap open up in front of him. So, he makes an extra effort to ride on the front of the peloton to avoid this peril. Of course, the other riders have the same idea, and they all try to ride on the front of the peloton. The result is basically a disc-driven form of half-wheeling, where the speed keeps creeping up throughout the race as each rider noses slightly ahead of the other riders. Scientists believe that average race speeds could reach 100 kph if bike weights were increased to 65 kg.

If you've got nothing but empty hype from youtubers that's fine. You can go ahead and admit it. That's better than letting AI hallucinate for you.

So much for respectful response! Go ahead and fixate on dated disproven beliefs while the world moves on. Yes there still a few old codgers out trudging along in their overloaded rigs however the trend is clear, lighter, modern streamlined setups are the choice for newer entrants of long distance overnight rides.

It's not disproven if you have nothing to disprove it with. I'm still curious what has gotten lighter and more streamlined in say, the last 20 years. What new fabrics have been invented that have made travel clothing significantly lighter? What new insulations have been invented that have made sleeping setups significantly lighter and lower volume? What new metals have been invented that have made cooking gear significantly lighter and smaller volume?

My point, which you fail to see in your bubble of streamlined influencers, is that ultralighting and streamlining has always been an option. Yet most people still choose not to do so, because it's needlessly expensive (that money could be spent on actual trips) and on a bike you don't have to since weight doesn't really matter.

Maybe some epic champions competing, maybe some 'new octane', too. Better nutrition, training, bicycles, sure.

But five years in a row of tailwinds gets my bet.

The problem with mechanical chassis suspension, is the moving unspring weight, and on a bike, the moving rear triangle and front lower half of the fork, are higher proportions of the total vehicle mass, than on a car. Thus, their inertia pushes back. Pneumatic tires, while not having the hydraulic damping of the suspension, have much less moving mass (local to the pavement variance), and thus are responsive, and move back down quickly after jounce (upward bump), instead of pushing back up on the bike. The closer you can put your suspension mechanism to the pavement undulations, and the lighter, the better. Cushy tires are really good at both.

Good mechnical suspensions on race cars, to allow lower profile tires, the ride quality is worse, but the benefits are:
- For the same outside diameter of the tire, you can fit bigger brakes.
- Lower sidewall tires have less sidewall flex, especially in cornering, thus a lower slip angle, and this means better handling.

Both of the above are not factors for bicycles.

I don't mind 2X or 3X chainrings, what I minded was the number of duplicate gears with 10T delta in front; 2x7 with 52/42, and 5 or 6 gears were duplicates. I much prefer the 52/36 with 16T delta, and hope for 20T delta (many alread run it) as the low on my 50/34 2X is still not as low as a triple, not because 2X, but because 34T is the smallest I can go on 110mm BCD. I can't run a 3X on my folder due to chainline issues, so wider 2X has been a huge blessing. I could get by with 50/30 rings with sufficient low on 20"/406, but only because I don't need a racer high, if I did, I'd need 30T delta.