On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

First I saw it on the UCI list of approved frames for June , then I saw a teaser video posted to the Trek website , and then this uncredited photo was posted to the Weight Weenies forum: My that looks fast. Maybe it's the color, but it reminds me of the Canyon Aerooad. The Canyon has done rather well in the tunnel, not in the class of the Cervélo S5, but fairly good. See for example Tour magazine data here . So I expect the Trek will be at least this good. But then there's weight. The Madone 7 was quite light with the vapor coat -- under 800 grams. But then the Emonda came out, pushing that lower, but there's only so far you can go below that. So the Madone was a bike of compromise. Now they want you to buy two bikes: the lightweight Emonda and the "aero" Madone. So the pressure's off on weight. But I wonder how they did. Nothing on this one looks particularly heavy. From what I see I really like it. The days of bad-riding aero frames are over...

Upon returning from a trip from KAUST in Saudi Arabia last week I connected through Frankfurt Airport. I was a bit grumpy because security had just confiscated my package of delicious Jeddah figs claiming they were a liquid hazard. It wasn't just that I was to be denied of the chance to share what I'd been finding so delicious during my 6 days at KAUST, but just as equally it seemed wrong for such fantastic fruit to go to waste, all over a ridiculous policy bourne of international paranoia. But my mood was slightly lifted when I spotted in a newsstand across from my gate the golden apple of German journalism: Tour Magazine. Depite a painfully long and even more painfully slow line at the stand, I risked being late to my boarding to buy it. And I wasn't disappointed. Edition 2015.03 of Tour had a quantitative review of 3 of the lightest frames you can buy: Trek Emonda: The Trek Emonda line is actually relatively heavy. Only the top-of-the-line SLX with the pricey vap...

Here's a comparison of Tour magazine tested mass data for medium-to-large frames taken from three articles: steel bikes, Aug 2013, on-line summary "sub-800 gram" carbon bikes, Dec 2013, on-line summary titanium bikes, Sept 2014, purchased today in print version This sample is biased in favor of the carbon since the carbon frames selected are the lightest, most expensive available, while in steel, for example, a custom builder like Rob English, emphasizing weight, can get lower than most stock steel frames, which have less emphasis on weight. But I think the Crema represents this quite well: only 1512 g for the frame. Forks are heavier on the steel and Ti bikes, in general, but I am focusing on frames, since forks can be selected, especially with custom steel, which is still a lot cheaper than those carbon bikes. Result: best carbon is 704, best Ti is 1350, and best steel is 1512. So the cost of Ti is around 646 grams, and the cost of steel around 808 grams, relat...

Previously I reported on the Tour Magazine test of "frames under 800 grams" published in the December 2013 edition of the magazine, and summarized on-line. In the article, they weighed the frame, fork, and bearings from a series of light & expensive bikes. They also bent them, measuring the stiffness characteristics. They then calculate a rating based on these and some other minor factors (warranty, quality of finish). But it's interesting to compare these weights to what is claimed by the manufacturer. Those aren't listed in the article. The focus of Tour isn't to investigate the dishonesty of bike companies. Rather it's to determine the truth. Claimed weight is a tricky business. Only Cervelo is totally clear in the matter, publishing a lot minimum, average, and maximum for each size of the RCa frame in their White Paper on the bike. Obviously bigger frames tend to weigh more. If I'm buying a 56-cm frame, I don't care about the mas...

Tour Magazine did a web feature from an article in the Dec 2013 printed magazine " Lieichte Rahmen unter 800 Gramm ." This featured 8 bikes, all exceptionally priced, which presumably get under the challenging 800 gram mark for a bike frame. Now 800 grams is hardly new. For example, Ruegamer showed a custom frame under 700 grams at the National Handbuilt Bike Show 6 years ago, and that frame is still ridden a ton by weight weenie legend Don Becker of Berkeley. Spin, a company in Germany, was also around the same mass at that time. But production bikes tend to be overbuilt due to the need for mass production margins and since sometimes the fattest riders buy the lightest bikes, irrationally. It's not a good thing if a 100 kg rider snaps his 51 cm frame after hitting a pothole on his 3 mile bike commute. Additionally, 1500 watt sprinters may perceive an extra few mm of flex in a super-light frame, causing irrational fear that precious watts are being squandered. So ...

A few more plots on the Scott Foil comparative windtunnel data... First VeloNews. Both Cervelo S and Felt AR frames were tested by both VeloNews and Scott. VeloNews tested the Masi Competizione, which they claim is similar to a Trek Madone. Scott tested the Trek Madone, so I include the results from these tests as well. VeloNews' tests were with Zipp 404 wheels except for the Masi which was tested with Fulcrums. However, I adjusted the VeloNews data based on the (considerable) improvement the Zipps had on the Ridley and Cervelo in their test, which were each tested with both the Fulcrums and the Zipps. VeloNews tested at positive and negative yaw, while Scott reported only wind from one side of the bike, so I averaged positive and negative data from VeloNews. In each case, both for the North Carolina windtunnel used in the VeloNews test, and in the Mercedes windtunnel used by Scott, I assumed an air density of 1.2 kg/m³ to convert from force (VeloNews) or power (Scott) to...

Scott just released a new bike, the "Foil" , their entry into the "mass-start aero frame" category. This bike has been around in the pro peloton for a year now. Mark Cavendish famously rode it in the first stage of last year's Tour de France, where he had a disappointing result. When he switched back to his previous bike, a beefed-out Scott Addict (the consumer Addict is under 800 grams, Mark's custom bikes are reportedly close to 1200 grams with a Pinarello-like excess of carbon fiber), he started winning races again. But the rest of his HTC Columbia team continued to ride the bike, including Mark Renshaw and the rest of the lead-out train on which Mark relies so heavily for his wins. Interestingly, until this consumer release it has been called the F01. Very clever: the F01 becomes the F01L, or the "FOIL". Scott wins the bike naming game against Specialized with the latter's recently-released Venge. The differentiating factor with ...

Both the VeloNews aero bike test and the Tour aero bike test (my discussion of that test is here ) examined the Cervelo S and the Tour AR. In the case of VeloNews, the bikes were tested "stock" with the exception both used Zipp wheels. Cables were installed and there was no rider. Tour on the other hand used a dummy rider (the only way to get a reasonably consistent position) and Mavic wheels. The Tour article is in German, so the finer details are beyond my comprehension. But they didn't use bar tape, while VeloNews used whatever bar tape the bikes had installed. Same deal with the saddle: the VeloNews bike tested bikes with "stock" saddles, while in the Tour test, the saddle was less important due to the use of a "rider". Despite differences you might think conclusions about which bike was faster would be fairly consistent. But comparing the only two bikes tested by both magazines, this is not the case: I averaged the positive and negati...

Earlier I reported on a Tour magazine windtunnel test of various "aero" mass-start road frames. Here was the plot from that magazine: Tour magazine windtunnel data Soon after, VeloNews , in its April edition, followed up with tests of its own on a set of its own "aero" bikes. You can read the article here , courtesy of Cervelo, which fared best in the VeloNews test. It is curious to compare the two, because the conclusion which are drawn from the two tests are substantially different: Tour used a dummy rider on each bike, using a hinged stem for handlebar placement, while VeloNews tested the bare bike Tour omitted cables, a potential source of variability due to uncertain cutting and/or placement, while VeloNews included cables. Tour omitted handlebar tape, while VeloNews used whatever tape was "stock" with the given bike. Neither test used any waterbottles VeloNews tested bikes with two sets of wheels: stock and Zipp 404s. Tour used a single ...

Many years ago, Kestrel Bicycles came out with the "Talon" road frame which was targeted as spanning the bounds between triathlon and mass-start racing. There were no wind tunnel data, no scientific tests: it was simply designed to look aero, and who knew if it was or not? Kestrel, who was among the early groundbreakers in building and selling carbon frames, was sold by a Japanese group. However, the Talon survives, both with a standard model and a lighter a Talon SL . It got redesigned for 2009 ( see video review ). I've always found the bike attractive, in part because of its Santa Cruz roots. Years later Cervelo, a long time leader in time trial frames, came out with their Soloist aluminum-frame bike. CSC showed the bike to be quite race-worthy at the highest level, notably with Bobby Julich winning the 2005 Paris-Nice . Then they developed the SLC, a carbon version, for that year's Tour de France. An SLC-SL followed in 2006, and for the 2008 Olympics, t...