The more I think of the stiff frame thing, the more I reckon all them thousands of pros can't be wrong.
I reckon it's more than traditional wisdom & the power of suggestion (and marketing), therefore, if thousands of pros over the years have believed that stiff frames are faster, then there must be somethink to it
I reckon it's more than traditional wisdom & the power of suggestion (and marketing), therefore, if thousands of pros over the years have believed that stiff frames are faster, then there must be somethink to it
Hell yeah.classic1 said:
A soft and fleshy
purplish
root vegetable.
Or maybe one of those knotted heavy walking sticks to tolchock malchickiwicks wiv.
ah well, fark! How many of them have been wrong over the years then? A quarter ? Half? A majority? They can't all have been wrong.Thylacine said:
I just reckons if a few thousand pros over last 50 years have decided that stiffer frames accelerate quicker, there's gotta be at leastsomething to it.
I can't see any other reason they liked OS Columbus Max frames in the old days.
They didn't ride then for their feathery weight. I once weighed a 56cm Paconi OS, and it was about 2150g, totally bare, without a fork!! 
Nobody rode Max. What frames of the 70's-80's did the pro's ride that were Max?531Aussie said:ah well, fark! How many of them have been wrong over the years then? A quarter ? Half? A majority? They can't all have been wrong.
I just reckons if a few thousand pros over last 50 years have decided that stiffer frames accelerate quicker, there's gotta be at leastsomething to it.
I can't see any other reason they liked OS Columbus Max frames in the old days.
Possibly in the late 80's and definitely in the early 90's they did. Merckx built pro bikes with MAX (normally with Mini Max top tubes IIRC). I pretty sure some of the Basso sponsored teams used MAX and Multishape tubing as well. Zullo sponsored teams (TVM - Phil Anderson) rode MAX tubing.Thylacine said:
Can't say I've ever seen photos of any of them nor seen any on ebay, nor seen any stiffness comparrisons, nor seen any empirical data putting a wattage loss figure on frame stiffness. Which is my point.
Whether a pro likes or dislikes something, or gives an opinion about something without any substantiation make little difference to me. Their experience is largely of a small range of essentially the same frames with different stickers on them, year in, year out. To most of them, a bike is a tool provided by a boss to do a job, which primarily is to sell bikes and advertising to sponsors. They're not sitting there day in day out experimenting with frame materials or geometry or tubing shapes or diameters or anything like that.
It's a myth that they're amazing bastions of R&D. Yes, they provide valuable feedback, but they're not being experimented on. 99% of the work is done by the time top echelon pros get something, for the very simple reason that they're payed to win bike races, so if there is the chance of something going haywire, they'd loose a valuable asset through injury which is a waste of money.
And I won't even touch on the fact that 99.999% of us aren't Pro racers so their world, values, input, oppinions etc. simply don't apply to us.
Okay that was a rant, but thats' just the kind of mood I'm in so yer lumped with it
Still, I've always assertained, none of us need anything more than a 19lb lugged steel frame and forks with chorus, so anything more has pretty much nothing to do with anything except fun and vanity.
Whether a pro likes or dislikes something, or gives an opinion about something without any substantiation make little difference to me. Their experience is largely of a small range of essentially the same frames with different stickers on them, year in, year out. To most of them, a bike is a tool provided by a boss to do a job, which primarily is to sell bikes and advertising to sponsors. They're not sitting there day in day out experimenting with frame materials or geometry or tubing shapes or diameters or anything like that.
It's a myth that they're amazing bastions of R&D. Yes, they provide valuable feedback, but they're not being experimented on. 99% of the work is done by the time top echelon pros get something, for the very simple reason that they're payed to win bike races, so if there is the chance of something going haywire, they'd loose a valuable asset through injury which is a waste of money.
And I won't even touch on the fact that 99.999% of us aren't Pro racers so their world, values, input, oppinions etc. simply don't apply to us.
Okay that was a rant, but thats' just the kind of mood I'm in so yer lumped with it
Still, I've always assertained, none of us need anything more than a 19lb lugged steel frame and forks with chorus, so anything more has pretty much nothing to do with anything except fun and vanity.
You probably remember this, but there was some story about Anderson on TV a couple of years ago, and he showed us some of his old bikes hanging up in his garage -- one of them was a Zullo.....cool!!classic1 said:
I was at Bicycle Recycle a while ago when some guy brought in a Zullo, and it was pretty sexy: dark blue, SLX and 8sp Dura-Ace
Wow!! Some of these 'average' weights for Columbus frames are frightening!!
Aelle: 2345g
Gara: 2300g
SPX: 2325g
SP: 2215g
http://home.comcast.net/~bobequus/images/bikepictures/Columbus-tubes.jpg
Or er! EL: 1670g. Nice
Aelle: 2345g
Gara: 2300g
SPX: 2325g
SP: 2215g
http://home.comcast.net/~bobequus/images/bikepictures/Columbus-tubes.jpg
Or er! EL: 1670g. Nice
Yeah, Max.531Aussie said:
Weights add up very quickly. You'd get a sloping 56cm in at circa 1600g using Life, but we're looking down the barrel of 1400g for this new Columbus XCR at 58cm. Apparently there are some S3 frames in the raw state hovering around the 1000g mark, although you wouldn't catch me dead on the things.
Those weight averages are a bit misleading considering many of those tubesets you mention were about way before TIG welding was popular. In fact, the first TIG'd steel frame I ever saw in the magazines I think was a Slim Chance which was TIG'd TSX(?)
Or the Cervelo R3 SL at around 900 grams. Or the more aero Cervelo SLC SL at 950 g. Mmmm.... Bike candy.531Aussie said:
The biggest problem with Max was that monster boat hull BB lug they had for it which weighed a ton. TIGed it'd be a great tubeset. Not available any more though right Thylo?Thylacine said:
Yep, it's all still available, so you can either lug it or TIG it.bbp said:
Here's a heavily reworked lugged one :
And here's a TIG mtb version :
You have to get creative with the top tube as you can see.
TIG'd I reckon it'd be the ultimate ****-off track frame.
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