cpp0 said:
..I'm looking into the design of bike frames, ...Do you guys have any links to sites ranging from explaining basic bike frame designs, both professional and road bikes
Road bikes I understand, but what do you mean by Professional?
Pro basically mean that you're doing whatever it is for a living, so by that definition there are a lot of professional bikes out there. A bike used by workers to get around on a big industrial site would be a professional bike, as would a BMX ridden by a fully sponsored team rider...
cpp0 said:
.....Do you guys have any links to sites... explaining ...road bikes, to maybe more cutting edge frame design...
If you want to build a bike for use in big races it's not enough to build one that works, it also have to comply with the racing regulations. Racing regs can cover anything from minimum allowable weight, wheel types and frame tube cross sections to handlebar arrangements.
According to some, this has put quite a damper on bicycle development. Funnily enough, what the pros are riding isn't that cutting edge all the time.
But if you're looking at a rigid road bike frame, it's really hard to come up with any major improvement. The diamond frame with its front and rear triangle out of tubular material is quite close to the engineering optimum for what a bicycle need. It has to have a point to hang the crank from, a point to mount the saddle to, a point to hinge the fork in and two points to attach the wheels. Do it up as a join-the-dots puzzle and you end up with a very traditional looking bike. Designs outside this range tends to fall short of the racing regs.
The basics of the bike frame is very well known by now, it's been around for ages. The interaction between head tube angle, fork rake ASO is well mapped out, what happens when you move the saddle WRT the bottom bracket doesn't surprise people any more.
The main trends over the last years hvae been in materials development and manufacturing methods. Both CF frames and metal frames are/have been moving away from purely cylindrical tubes to other cross-section arrangements. In theory this can give stronger seams and more controllable stiffness characteristics with the same or a smaller amount of material used.
In suspension frame design the field is still more open, but even there the level of innovation is fading. Used to be that there was one entirely novel way off arranging the rear suspension linkage each year, but nowadays it's more of tuning and tweaking existing designs. It's more of a package deal, gradual improvements of suspension elements and riding technique/style brings about a slower evolution and conformity of bike design.
