nbf

Itīs easy to make a stiff bike, but not one that is light at the same time. I agree that stiffness is not everything, but the measurements quantify what a lot of people only have hazy opinions about. If someone on the net writes that they think bike x is nice and donīt mention the fact that they weigh in at 50 kg the info wonīt mean much to a 100 kg rider. I think the measurements should be taken for what they are a standardixed quantification of stiffness of the bike, this info you can correlate to your own weight and riding style, itīs far better to me than hearsay and "expert" opinion.

By the way Iīm curious as to your comment on the objectivity of Tour magazine, do you question their integrity when they do the tests? or is it theri point score you disagree with. They are one of the only reviewers who try to make reproducible data in their reviews i this what makes them partial in their reviews? Please elaborate.

ShinyBaldy

That particular publication frequently rates German products as being the best and cheapest when actual users will say it isn't so. It is hard to be objective when you are being sponsored or advertising for a given company. Canyon had a fullpage advertisement in one of their issues with the reviews - kinda difficult to be objective when you advertise. This isn't the consumer reports.

Besides - what these guys publish isn't scientific testing, no sampling, no signficance value provided, the measurements is more like a bunch of folks getting the equipment to measure something, but lacking the proper training or sense to really understand what goes into scientific testing....

nbf

But does anybody do it better, or just try to make any quatification of these parameters. A lot of bike mags just go out on the bike and afterwards comment on them being nice or not so nice, which to me is totally useless. I canīt see whats so strange about the commercial from the company that has had its product tested, you can see that in almost any magazine that does testing.

Smoothie104

My Buddies has the wide Carbon weave, is that new for 2005?

Bruco

You may have a point. I myself have no clue as to framebuilding, physics, etc. But I regularly read Tour (mostly due to the lack of an okay Dutch alternative; but I do like their selection of topics). I think that they do a reasonable job of testing bikes (again, I compare this to what most other mags available in the Netherlands do). First of all, they explain what and how they measure, and how these figures add up to some final verdict. Second, in some instances--e.g. their recent review of cyclocross bikes--they also include riders' impressions as to handling, stiffness, etc.

Like you, I think it's a bit suspicious that more often than not, their loyal advertisers' products get good grades (although in all fairness they do slam an occasional 'German' bike as well). On the other hand, what bugs me often in consumer reviews such as those on RoadBikeReview, is that people do tend to justify the fact that they spent loads of money on a particular product by 'advertising' it to others.

Zouf

Not sure what your definition of "strong" is, but the EFBE test is a fatigue test, not stiffness. The frame could be a noodle and pass flying colors. Not to say it is, btw.

EFBE also suffers from the usual problem plaguing such objective measurements: because they have limited resources, they don't sample, so the statistical meaningfulness of the results is debatable at best, particularly for fatigue testing, where scatter is typically quite wide.