You havent said "why" though. Or produced evidence.

I have explained why ad nauseum and copious evidence are the bikes that are raced by the best racers in the world which evolved to their current state by incessant testing born out of will to win, racing and trial and error. Same way the Kitty Hawk piloted by the Wright Brothers ultimately begat jet airplanes. Same reason endurance geometries are raced with much higher frequency in the Classics like the Paris Roubaix than the tour. They are proven to be faster on that track which punishes a rider's body and higher tire pressure due to vertical deflection slows momentum. News flash...it wasn't divine intervention...lol.

You have not explained why stiffer frames = faster speeds. You've said that stronger riders flex frames more. Not the same thing.

Also, the fact modern riders ride stiffer frames is not evidence they are faster.

Decades ago, if I'm not mistaken, riders chose MORE flexible frames relative to the average available. Shall I use that as evidence to say flexible frames are faster? Of course not. Both anecdotes are irrelevant. What matters is which is faster, not who rides what. It's not a popularity contest. I want numbers in standardized tests.

Abe,
Not my job to convince you and I have stayed a bit too long in this thread as it is.
Best you engage others to reach whatever conclusions you may.

PS: can't resist a parting comment tho. Decades ago 19c wide tires were not uncommon in pro racing which are now extinct. Just like flexible frames or even heavier frames were witnessed in decades past, you won't see a return. Why? Because through decades of racing and testing, it has been determined that like stiffer frames for all the reasons I delineated, wider tires are faster. Ride safe.

What exactly did Schwinn get wrong, in terms of frame dimensions, that forced them out of business? Thats the first time ive heard or read that Schwinn's demise was due to how a change in a bike frame affecting other parts of the bike led to the company going out of business.

You have sort of inadvertently made my point for me, perhaps better than I did myself. Wider tires have NOT been adopted through racing. Lab testing, yes, but not racing. Throughout history, the rider has ALWAYS claimed that the skinnier tire was the faster tire, against all empirical evidence to the contrary, due to the increased vibration frequency the skinnier tire delivers, altering the riders perception of speed.

If left purely to the racers decision, they would still be on skinny tires. The lab tests are what counts. Not who rides what, or what racers say. Being fast on a bike doesn't mean one knows squat about physics.

And again...in this thread, I haven't even been saying necessarily that you are wrong 100%. just that you don't know. Hell, I don't either. But, IMO, it's a very interesting, and as of yet, unanswered question.

edit: interesting, though in the end, totally inconclusive and anecdotal reading: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2011/...ame-stiffness/ and: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2011/...ame-stiffness/

I don't think those articles really answer any questions, but they do outline the question fairly well.

Aliens built the pyramids! No, I don't have any evidence, google it if you don't believe me. Those rocks were heavy, how else could they do it?

I'd always assumed the ancient Egyptians were giants. I hadn't considered aliens...I feel foolish now

There's a Malcolm Gladwell book that talks about this. He takes one of the world's best tennis players, asks the guy how he does a specific thing, the guy describes it, then he films it, plays it back in slow motion, and it's nothing like the guy described. The guy was incredibly good at it, but didn't consciously know what he was doing or how. The lesson, if there is one, is don't conflate these two kinds of knowledge.

Another, more mundane example: I used to know a guy who could listen to a song, then play the guitar part flawlessly 15 minutes later. He couldn't teach anyone else how to play guitar, though. His idea of instruction was "it's easy, just do this."

Well, it's not your job to prove this to me.

In all seriousness, the reason I like a stiff bike is that it handles predictably.

Close call

I'm not sure I am, or ever will be fast enough to truly care about how predictably a bike handles. And it's not like we have hills around here, so descents aren't an issue. 10 years ago...I might have contemplated the idea of racing crits...but if I'm being honest, the prospect of cracking my head open in a pileup is too much of a deterrence now that I've got a 3 yr old.

I still really don't know what I want

I think I'm leaning towards race geometry...but even that I'm not settled on. Room for 28mm tires on wide-ish rims is a must. I'm leaning towards an aero frame...but I really need to spend more time on bikes to see if a comfort difference is going to bother me. Rim brake vs disc is not really a concern. And I will probably agonize over aluminum vs carbon up to, and years after, I buy the bike lol.

I don’t think you have to be terribly fast to care how a bike handles, but then I saw some flat ground last weekend and it was kind of pretty to look at because it was so rare and novel. I do 20 minute power tests every now and then, we literally don’t have 20 minutes of flat within city limits. You can build up a lot of speed very quickly around here.

Crits play to my strengths, if I wanted to race, that’s what I should do. But I’m with you, I’d rather die in the mountains than in a race. But good god, there’s nothing like descending as fast as you can through switchbacks. : )

For a while, I used to have two racing road bikes, by the same company, a carbon traditional road bike (R3), and an alu aero frame (Soloist). Rode them both a lot. I was faster on the aero frame, I’d reach higher speeds sprinting and going down hills, the traditional bike handled better (more to my liking) though. I ride a C3 now, I guess it’s a fondo bike, it has room for 32 mm tires, it’s very nimble. I’ve always loved the way Cervelos ride, I knew this one was for me before I left the parking lot.

I want an R5 Disc with Enve 3.4 wheels. Can't have it, but want it.

Stiffer frames transfer power more efficiently from the crank to the rear wheel. Modern aluminum frames are stiff along the drivetrain while simultaneously flexing in other areas to reduce vibration transmitted to the rider. It's pretty cool materials tech that sounds like a bunch of marketing hype until you experience it.

You're not the first person here to say this. But it is not something you can EXPERIENCE. I'm not seeing anyone here say what the difference is, measured in speed. And where they got that info. So lets make the question super, super simple:

If you're riding at 25mph on bike 'A', how fast would you go on an identical bike 'B', where the only difference is lateral stiffness is increased by 50%?

You're starting to remind me of Robert S. McNamara. The reason I say this is because I've been watching the new Ken Burns documentary on the history of the Vietnam war. In episode Two, it showed how McNamara demanded all of this empirical data, statistical reports from his top generals in South Vietnam. Unfortunately, what he failed to grasp were the feelings and experiences of the Vietnamese people, at the time, that could have gone a long ways in helping the US in prosecuting the war effort.

Doesn't pay to minimize people's actual experience--especially with regard to things that most likely you'll never in a million years be able to quantify.

PS: Get thee on a Wilier Zero.6 (or comparable machine) and you will FEEL the difference stiffness makes. ;-)

I understand the comparison you're making, but I don't think it is valid. (I watched the first episode yesterday, BTW...very good).

You can experience and describe accurately the mood of a population. Testing has shown that human perception is NOTORIOUSLY unreliable in the area of sports.

And even if I DO go ride a Willier, and I am measurably faster...that in no way impacts the stiffness discussion. Was I faster because of aero properties of the bike? Tires? Wheels? Or simply being more excited helped me put out more power? Or maybe I unconsciously adopted a more aero position on the bike because I THOUGHT the bike was faster, and adjusted my style to suit the bike. Perhaps I was faster on the Willier, in SPITE OF the stiffness working to slow me down.

Frankly, nobody knows, you, other on the forum, myself, and some much more informed people in the industry included.

I did experience it, therefore I can experience it. And I continue to experience it.

Don't know, don't care.

Do you see how one of those statements directly contradicts the other?

What you experienced was the feeling of a stiffer bottom bracket. You have no idea if that improved power transfer to the rear hub.

No. You're asking for an objective measurement of that I have never measured. That's entirely separate from my subjective experience of increased speed due to increased drivetrain stiffness.

If you don't know and do care, do the work and measure the difference or research someone else who has.

If you don't know and don't care, move on with your life.

I have. The actual evidence suggests that your perception is possibly 100% wrong, and you're actually slower.

The level of certainty about this some of you have is a bit startling, seeing as you have no proof to back up anything you are claiming. If it is so obvious, and utterly decided one way or the other...it shouldn't be that difficult to resolve this with a link or two.

Thank you! I agree completely! Would that this realization serve to put an end to so much useless bloviation on threads such as this. Alas, never seems to be the case.

If ignorant people can't spout off about minutia in anger towards each other, why do we even HAVE the internet, I ask??!

By the way, my chain is sort of mucky. Do you know a good way to maintain it?