Lance Armstrong rides aged tubulars - Page 4

On 30 Jun 2005 08:54:46 -0700, "juicemouse"
<johncawthorne.6@gmail.com> wrote:

>I watched the show you all are talking about. The mechanic had what
>looked like thousands of tires, literally hundreds from each year
>dating back at least 7 years or so. He didn't say a whole lot about
>why he did it, because the segment was kinda short. I believe what he
>did say was that it made them softer, more compliant. He pulled an
>"old" tire that Lance will have at his disposal, and showed it to the
>host of that segment. He then pulled a much newer tire that had only
>been aging for a year or so, and asked him to feel the difference. The
>implication was that the older tire was softer. I didn't hear anything
>about glue.

Dear JM,

That's darned interesting rubber if it softens with age
instead of hardening.

And even more interesting rubber if the difference can
actually be felt with a finger instead of prompted by
suggestion.

Carl Fogel

juicemouse wrote:
> I watched the show you all are talking about. The mechanic had what
> looked like thousands of tires, literally hundreds from each year
> dating back at least 7 years or so. He didn't say a whole lot about
> why he did it, because the segment was kinda short. I believe what he
> did say was that it made them softer, more compliant. He pulled an
> "old" tire that Lance will have at his disposal, and showed it to the
> host of that segment. He then pulled a much newer tire that had only
> been aging for a year or so, and asked him to feel the difference. The
> implication was that the older tire was softer. I didn't hear anything
> about glue.

I began this thread because I found the it interesting that a
documentary which focused the "scientific" aspects of Lance's
performance attempted to promote a notion that is usually disspelled
here, that is that "aging" rubber tires somehow improves them, like
fine wine. I did not post the mechanic's specific assertion that aging
the tire made the rubber softer, because it made such little sense to
me when I heard it that I thought I had misinterpreted what he said.
But, the same Belgian mechanic, name of DeVriese, is also mentioned in
the book, "Lance Armstrong's War," by Daniel Coyle, and the same point
is made. It says aging the tires in his basement at least two years
adds to their suppleness and strength. Now, I'm wondering which is it?
How can the tire magically become more supple and stronger at the same
time? Which leads to an even more interesting question, does Lance
Armstrong put his trust in a charlatan?

SocSecTrainWreck@earthlink.net wrote:
> carlfogel@comcast.net wrote:

>> If there's any data showing that 7-year-cicadas--er, tires
>> have a lower rolling resistance, that would be interesting,
>> but it's unlikely that the difference would amount to 10
>> seconds in a stage.
>
> There have been breakaways that were either caught <10 seconds before
> the finish or whose finishing margin after being away for half the
> stage was <10 seconds.

Whatever else you may try to teach Carl about racing, it's clearly not going
to be enough.

Example : "I (laughs) won *each* stage by 10 seconds. Yeller Joizy !!!"

Carl's math and abacul calculation : "That means you only gained 200 seconds
in 3 weeks of riding your bike."

Carl has yet to cross his own finish line, kharma-like, the accountant of
life's littlest moments, bookkeeping a life that is doomed to terminate just
more than three minutes early.
--
Sandy
Verneuil-sur-Seine
*******

La vie, c'est comme une bicyclette,
il faut avancer pour ne pas perdre l'équilibre.
-- Einstein, A.

carlfogel@comcast.net wrote:

> So is the idea that a 7-year-old tire averages 3 or 4 fewer
> flats per Tour?
>
> It's fascinating that this thread seems to claim no specific
> "performance characteristic" for ancient tires--maybe the
> mechanic explained it in the program, but browsing this
> thread suggests that we're mostly trying to imagine possible
> improvements gained by tires made in the previous century
> that have been sitting around in the dark.

You might want to re-browse the thread.

I was not so much trying to simply imagine improvements as I was trying
to show that small improvements that are imagineable could be decisive
in the Tour, since you said that you thought that neither traction nor
durability would be important in the race.

But what you suggest this thread is doing (or not doing, to be more
precise) is no different from reading Jobst's debunking of "Tubular
Fables", which has not a single reference to any sort of testing to
support his claim that tires do not improve by aging them. So, Jobst
may be right; what he says makes sense. But this mechanic has a lot of
experience with a whole lot of tires, and I am not ready yet to
discount his experience. If someone wants to try to design a test of
the characteristics that are supposed to be improved by aging, and
report the results, then we can look at it to see if it gives us a more
definitive answer. In the meantime, those of us to whom it is important
will have to weigh the _opinions_ of Jobst and the mechanic and decide
for ourselves.

It's _not_ important to me, because I will not age tubulars. I'm just
questioning the way one fable here seems to take the place of another
without anymore substance to support the new than there was to support
the original.

>> Peter,
>> Please tell us with FAQ is wrong and why?!
>
> I don't have specifics but some I have seen by some contradict what
> others have seen in the 'real world', Things about the 'top repeated
> subjects', like Delta brakes, tying and soldering, ageing tubulars, for
> a few examples. My point is that an answer for any FAQ is not
> neceesarily written on some stone tablet.

Part of the problem with just about any FAQ is that the contents have are
often watered down so they're more easily understood. A lot of technique &
dirty little secrets don't get included because they're either difficult to
grasp or something that different people feel differently about. In the real
world, we tolerate that everyday, whether it be politics or religion. But in
an FAQ, an attempt is made to restrict the content to such things that few
would disagree with. Yet even then people like myself & Peter will see
things that just leave us scratching our heads, wondering why something is
either given credit or otherwise, contrary to what years of experience might
tell us.

We could look at something as simple as grease on crank axle surfaces, which
I would not allow done in our shop, ever. My experience, from the old days
of BMX, was that greased cranks became loose & failed far more often than
their non-greased cousins. The sample size for this was fairly large, the
accuracy very hight (easy to verify grease vs non-greased) and the amount of
time it happend over fairly small (due to the extremely-abusive conditions
the cranks operated under, any failures or problems would show up quickly).

However, Jobst Brandt, in the FAQ on the subject, states that it shouldn't
matter if the cranks are greased or not. For reference, the FAQ is here-
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/bicycles-faq/part4/; scroll down to "Subject: 8f.11
Installing Cranks" for the details. Jobst has shown that he knows what he's
talking about, and yet I am absolutely in disagreement with the FAQ. But the
world still spins on its axis anyway.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

"Qui si parla Campagnolo" <peter@vecchios.com> wrote in message
news:1120135925.478248.24710@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> bfd wrote:
>> Peter,
>> Please tell us with FAQ is wrong and why?!
>
> I don't have specifics but some I have seen by some contradict what
> others have seen in the 'real world', Things about the 'top repeated
> subjects', like Delta brakes, tying and soldering, ageing tubulars, for
> a few examples. My point is that an answer for any FAQ is not
> neceesarily written on some stone tablet.
>

In case you hadn't seen it, aging tubulars is covered in the FAQ:

http://draco.acs.uci.edu/rbfaq/FAQ/8b.18.html

Summary: rubber products get worse with age, not better.

--
terry morse Palo Alto, CA http://bike.terrymorse.com/

On 30 Jun 2005 12:44:48 -0700,
SocSecTrainWreck@earthlink.net wrote:

>
>
>carlfogel@comcast.net wrote:
>
>> So is the idea that a 7-year-old tire averages 3 or 4 fewer
>> flats per Tour?
>>
>> It's fascinating that this thread seems to claim no specific
>> "performance characteristic" for ancient tires--maybe the
>> mechanic explained it in the program, but browsing this
>> thread suggests that we're mostly trying to imagine possible
>> improvements gained by tires made in the previous century
>> that have been sitting around in the dark.
>
>You might want to re-browse the thread.
>
>I was not so much trying to simply imagine improvements as I was trying
>to show that small improvements that are imagineable could be decisive
>in the Tour, since you said that you thought that neither traction nor
>durability would be important in the race.
>
>But what you suggest this thread is doing (or not doing, to be more
>precise) is no different from reading Jobst's debunking of "Tubular
>Fables", which has not a single reference to any sort of testing to
>support his claim that tires do not improve by aging them. So, Jobst
>may be right; what he says makes sense. But this mechanic has a lot of
>experience with a whole lot of tires, and I am not ready yet to
>discount his experience. If someone wants to try to design a test of
>the characteristics that are supposed to be improved by aging, and
>report the results, then we can look at it to see if it gives us a more
>definitive answer. In the meantime, those of us to whom it is important
>will have to weigh the _opinions_ of Jobst and the mechanic and decide
>for ourselves.
>
>It's _not_ important to me, because I will not age tubulars. I'm just
>questioning the way one fable here seems to take the place of another
>without anymore substance to support the new than there was to support
>the original.

Dear David,

Again, notice that your post gives no clue to what small
improvements are to be gained.

And you dropped the implication that aging tires for 7-years
might reduce 5 flats to 1 or 2 flats.

Any links to older posts in this thread that explained what
the advantages were?

There was one post before our exchange that said that the
mechanic had claimed that it took 7 years for the glue to
stick, but I thought it was just a joke.

After our exchange began, a new post by Diablo Scott
explained that the claimed advantage was an increase in
suppleness that the mechanic claimed could be felt with the
fingers:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...0f0fd550abcb3e

On a technical newsgroup, if someone claims that tires
improve by sitting for seven years in a cellar, we should
probably be discussing the specific improvement and
considering if it makes sense.

Does unused rubber grow softer with age?

Do unused tire casings grow more supple with age?

Or is this mechanic just fooling himself (he may well
believe that the tires improve with age)? James Randi deals
routinely with this effect

"The idiomotor reaction is quite a strong one, and anyone
can fall victim to it, As an example, whilst I was
participating in an interview with **** Smith at his office,
I showed a reporter how strongly a large magnet would
attract a bent iron wire even through a cardboard box, He
held the wire -and noted the strong attraction, until I
pointed out to him that I had secretly removed the magnet
from the box. He had been allowing his expectation to
convince him of the magnetic pull that was not there. His
bent wire dowsing device had been swinging very positively
towards the box, repeatedly, but ceased when he knew the
truth."

http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/divining.htm

When we believe a priori in effects, we can often feel them,
even when they turn out not to exist.

Still, if someone has a test (as opposed to a tv reporter
being prompted to "feel" the difference) that shows that
tires improve measurably in some respect after sitting on a
shelf for 7 years, then we'd have a fascinating topic.

As far as I know, tires get stiffer, harder, and tend to
crack with age.

I don't know of a market for ancient tires, but maybe our
local bike shop dealers will seize the opportunity to unload
old tires at high prices?

Carl Fogel

On 30 Jun 2005 11:43:08 -0700, "Mike Krueger"
<skubanut@aol.com> wrote:

>juicemouse wrote:
>> I watched the show you all are talking about. The mechanic had what
>> looked like thousands of tires, literally hundreds from each year
>> dating back at least 7 years or so. He didn't say a whole lot about
>> why he did it, because the segment was kinda short. I believe what he
>> did say was that it made them softer, more compliant. He pulled an
>> "old" tire that Lance will have at his disposal, and showed it to the
>> host of that segment. He then pulled a much newer tire that had only
>> been aging for a year or so, and asked him to feel the difference. The
>> implication was that the older tire was softer. I didn't hear anything
>> about glue.
>
>I began this thread because I found the it interesting that a
>documentary which focused the "scientific" aspects of Lance's
>performance attempted to promote a notion that is usually disspelled
>here, that is that "aging" rubber tires somehow improves them, like
>fine wine. I did not post the mechanic's specific assertion that aging
>the tire made the rubber softer, because it made such little sense to
>me when I heard it that I thought I had misinterpreted what he said.
>But, the same Belgian mechanic, name of DeVriese, is also mentioned in
>the book, "Lance Armstrong's War," by Daniel Coyle, and the same point
>is made. It says aging the tires in his basement at least two years
>adds to their suppleness and strength. Now, I'm wondering which is it?
>How can the tire magically become more supple and stronger at the same
>time? Which leads to an even more interesting question, does Lance
>Armstrong put his trust in a charlatan?

Dear Mike,

Aha! More supple and stronger, too.

It could be that tires really do improve in that way with
age, but then it could be measured and verified.

Like you, I'm rather skeptical, since rubber and casings are
not known to soften or strengthen with age.

But to be fair, the mechanic could be sincere but mistaken.
An awful lot of strange beliefs are sincerely held.

James Randi always explains that the dowsers who invariably
fail his practical testing are sincere and honest--in all
his years of testing, he's only had one or two dowsers try
to cheat. They really believe that they can detect things
with forked sticks or pendulums and are genuinely puzzled
when tests to which they've agreed fail to show any such
ability:

http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing

If 7-year-old tires are in fact somewhat inferior to new
tires (which is the expectation, based on what rubber
usually does) . . .

And if Armstrong really does race on old, inferior tires (an
we aren't just being fed a line by a sly mechanic) . . .

Then the situation suggests that tires aren't nearly as
critical as the manufacturers would like us to believe.

To adapt Peter Chisholm's favorite line about Merckx and
bicycles, Lance beat everyone on his tires, and could
probably have beaten them if he'd ridden on their tires.

Carl Fogel

Terry states:

<Summary: rubber products get worse with age, not better. >

This is true. But, the FAQ also states "tubular tires bought in advance
should be sealed tightly in airtight bags and kept in the dark,
optimally in a freezer." I would guess that this GURU pro mechanic's
"wine cellar" is pretty much dark and cold and probably as good as way
as any in storing his tubulars....

carlfogel@comcast.net wrote:
>
> Does unused rubber grow softer with age?
>
> Do unused tire casings grow more supple with age?
>
> Or is this mechanic just fooling himself (he may well
> believe that the tires improve with age)? James Randi deals
> routinely with this effect
>

It would be interesting to see if this same mechanic could even tell the
difference between the two "ages" of tires. If I were the Amazing Randi
I would give the mechanic 20 tires and tell him to sort the 10 aged ones
from the 10 new ones. Or for fun give him 20 new tires and make him
think half of them are aged.

I did get the idea that the mechanic was talking about the casing that
improved and not the rubber - and he did also express a preference for
silks. The storage area he was using looked cold and dark and ozone
-free so rubber degradation was probably quite slow.


--
My bike blog:
http://diabloscott.blogspot.com/

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:21:41 -0600, carlfogel@comcast.net
wrote:

>On 30 Jun 2005 12:44:48 -0700,
>SocSecTrainWreck@earthlink.net wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>carlfogel@comcast.net wrote:
>>
>>> So is the idea that a 7-year-old tire averages 3 or 4 fewer
>>> flats per Tour?
>>>
>>> It's fascinating that this thread seems to claim no specific
>>> "performance characteristic" for ancient tires--maybe the
>>> mechanic explained it in the program, but browsing this
>>> thread suggests that we're mostly trying to imagine possible
>>> improvements gained by tires made in the previous century
>>> that have been sitting around in the dark.
>>
>>You might want to re-browse the thread.
>>
>>I was not so much trying to simply imagine improvements as I was trying
>>to show that small improvements that are imagineable could be decisive
>>in the Tour, since you said that you thought that neither traction nor
>>durability would be important in the race.
>>
>>But what you suggest this thread is doing (or not doing, to be more
>>precise) is no different from reading Jobst's debunking of "Tubular
>>Fables", which has not a single reference to any sort of testing to
>>support his claim that tires do not improve by aging them. So, Jobst
>>may be right; what he says makes sense. But this mechanic has a lot of
>>experience with a whole lot of tires, and I am not ready yet to
>>discount his experience. If someone wants to try to design a test of
>>the characteristics that are supposed to be improved by aging, and
>>report the results, then we can look at it to see if it gives us a more
>>definitive answer. In the meantime, those of us to whom it is important
>>will have to weigh the _opinions_ of Jobst and the mechanic and decide
>>for ourselves.
>>
>>It's _not_ important to me, because I will not age tubulars. I'm just
>>questioning the way one fable here seems to take the place of another
>>without anymore substance to support the new than there was to support
>>the original.
>
>Dear David,
>
>Again, notice that your post gives no clue to what small
>improvements are to be gained.
>
>And you dropped the implication that aging tires for 7-years
>might reduce 5 flats to 1 or 2 flats.
>
>Any links to older posts in this thread that explained what
>the advantages were?
>
>There was one post before our exchange that said that the
>mechanic had claimed that it took 7 years for the glue to
>stick, but I thought it was just a joke.
>
>After our exchange began, a new post by Diablo Scott
>explained that the claimed advantage was an increase in
>suppleness that the mechanic claimed could be felt with the
>fingers:
>
>http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...0f0fd550abcb3e
>
>On a technical newsgroup, if someone claims that tires
>improve by sitting for seven years in a cellar, we should
>probably be discussing the specific improvement and
>considering if it makes sense.
>
>Does unused rubber grow softer with age?
>
>Do unused tire casings grow more supple with age?
>
>Or is this mechanic just fooling himself (he may well
>believe that the tires improve with age)? James Randi deals
>routinely with this effect
>
>"The idiomotor reaction is quite a strong one, and anyone
>can fall victim to it, As an example, whilst I was
>participating in an interview with **** Smith at his office,
>I showed a reporter how strongly a large magnet would
>attract a bent iron wire even through a cardboard box, He
>held the wire -and noted the strong attraction, until I
>pointed out to him that I had secretly removed the magnet
>from the box. He had been allowing his expectation to
>convince him of the magnetic pull that was not there. His
>bent wire dowsing device had been swinging very positively
>towards the box, repeatedly, but ceased when he knew the
>truth."
>
>http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/divining.htm
>
>When we believe a priori in effects, we can often feel them,
>even when they turn out not to exist.
>
>Still, if someone has a test (as opposed to a tv reporter
>being prompted to "feel" the difference) that shows that
>tires improve measurably in some respect after sitting on a
>shelf for 7 years, then we'd have a fascinating topic.
>
>As far as I know, tires get stiffer, harder, and tend to
>crack with age.
>
>I don't know of a market for ancient tires, but maybe our
>local bike shop dealers will seize the opportunity to unload
>old tires at high prices?
>
>Carl Fogel


Aargh!

Sorry about the wrong name--I somehow confused SS with a
nearby David.

Carl Fogel

datakoll@yahoo.com wrote:
> in a similar vein-
> we now read all riders passed the drug tests.
> this would mean no riders have ingested drugs. is that possible?
> or the drug tests cannot find the new ones
> i say its behind the brick wall.

Urine rare form.

Urine trouble now.

Urine for more abuse.

Urine for a pound; urine for a dollar.

Signed,

Pee-pee LaPew

Diablo Scott <N0SPAMdiabloscott@terra.es> wrote:

>carlfogel@comcast.net wrote:

>> Or is this mechanic just fooling himself (he may well
>> believe that the tires improve with age)? James Randi deals
>> routinely with this effect
>
>It would be interesting to see if this same mechanic could even tell the
>difference between the two "ages" of tires. If I were the Amazing Randi
>I would give the mechanic 20 tires and tell him to sort the 10 aged ones
>from the 10 new ones. Or for fun give him 20 new tires and make him
>think half of them are aged.
>
>I did get the idea that the mechanic was talking about the casing that
>improved and not the rubber - and he did also express a preference for
>silks. The storage area he was using looked cold and dark and ozone
>-free so rubber degradation was probably quite slow.

As I recall, the mechanic was stroking one of the "vintage tubulars"
and commenting on how it was smoother or something similar... anybody
else catch that?

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

juicemouse wrote:

> I watched the show you all are talking about. The mechanic had what
> looked like thousands of tires, literally hundreds from each year
> dating back at least 7 years or so. He didn't say a whole lot about
> why he did it, because the segment was kinda short. I believe what he
> did say was that it made them softer, more compliant. He pulled an
> "old" tire that Lance will have at his disposal, and showed it to the
> host of that segment. He then pulled a much newer tire that had only
> been aging for a year or so, and asked him to feel the difference. The
> implication was that the older tire was softer. I didn't hear anything
> about glue.
>
The theory in the olden days was that aged tires were
harder, hence faster.

With a lot of experience around bicycle tires, I can say
clearly that rubber doesn't get softer over time. It gets
harder.

I'm not advocating this but if you want to start by buying a
large number of tubulars, call me!
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

carlfogel@comcast.net wrote:
> Again, notice that your post gives no clue to what small
> improvements are to be gained.

I posted earlier, "Yet I have on occassion
had a tire that didn't get used for years after I bought it that seemed
to wear better without any discernable degradation in traction."

and

" it could make the tire more resistant to cuts, which seems to be what
I've seen on my accidentally aged tires."

I think that counts as at least a "clue", but I'm sure that you will
pretend it doesn't because it is inconvenient to your argument here.

> And you dropped the implication that aging tires for 7-years
> might reduce 5 flats to 1 or 2 flats.

I'm not sure what you pulled that out of. I said that IF aging tires
reduced flats even slightly it could be decisive in the Tour de France.

> After our exchange began,

But before you said that you had not seen anything in this thread about
it,

> a new post by Diablo Scott
> explained that the claimed advantage was an increase in
> suppleness that the mechanic claimed could be felt with the
> fingers:

Maybe you cross-posted.

> On a technical newsgroup, if someone claims that tires
> improve by sitting for seven years in a cellar, we should
> probably be discussing the specific improvement and
> considering if it makes sense.

Also, if someone claims, contrary to the 40 years of experience of the
chief mechanic of the Tour de France racer who holds the record for most wins,
that aging tires is worthless, then we should probably be discussing
what evidence there is for discounting the mechanic's experience.