DiTBho wrote: ↑4 Aug 2024, 3:34pm
Orbit531C wrote: ↑2 Aug 2024, 9:20am
The specific type of steel alloy used will be imperceptible. The frame designers choice of the shape & diameter of the tubes makes the detectable difference, rather than any change in the steel alloying composition.
The yellow Bianchi Veloce is not mine, while the blue Moser Forma is mine.
Rode both for 400km, yesterday I returned the yellow one to my friend, telling him very openly that, although his frame is more modern and advanced both in terms of steel alloy and welding process (mine is brazed, his is tig), different fork material (carbon vs steel) I don't feel comfortable with his bicycle. I don't like his fork, and I don't know, even if its frame is made of steel, it is much more rigid to me, to the point that, using the same wheels, borrowed from my bike, I seemed to feel all the irregularities of the road much more.
Much more reactive bike, but the point is the difference in weight!
I disassembled them both, and I weighed only the bare frame, without fork, without bottom bracket, without rear brake, I left only the headset but they both weigh in the order of 100g.
The bare frame of my Moser Forma weighs 2200g
The bare frame of his Bianchi veloce weighs 1700g
The weight of my steel fork is 900g (one in NivaCrom is 650g, and it's the best you have have)
The weight of his carbon fork is 350g
In the end the difference in total weight when you assemble the whole bicycle: 500g of difference just for the frame!!!
That is an interesting contribution, comparing your experience of riding two similar but different bikes, which is helpful in unpacking the real differences between them - and not the marketing descriptions - and what our preferences - for the non racers, non Olympic sprinters - are in whether extra stiffness is beneficial to ordinary folk who are riding long distances, for pleasure. You might find this thread interesting - an earlier discussion on the matter started off by Brucey - proposed 'Ride Stiffness Scale'
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=105465&hilit=frame+ ... compliance
I am interested in evaluating the same issues, and have been riding a variety of frames to find out what contributes to my riding pleasure, which includes riding comfortably as far as I can unloaded over 130 km. So far the stiffest frames I have are at
not at the top of my list, even when tried with the largest lightweight flexible springy tyres (700c x 33.3 @ 300g ) as the ride stiffness still comes through evidently, unmistakably, unwelcome at the end of a longer ride.
You don't need to have high 'Princess and a Pea' levels of sensitivities, but listening and evaluating your own experience - instead of believing what we've read or been told is key to try and cut through both the marketing hype ("titanium frames are more flexible" - well it is not in my experience with a Van Nicholas 'Yukon' (58 frame size) where the highly oversized diameter frame tubes give it the stiffest ride of all the rides amongst my frames).
Cutting through what we've been led to believe is the case, what we thought in advance we'd feel, is an interesting and worthwhile challenge; something that Chris Juden already identified "But cycling is a highly suggestible activity and if a rider believes that a certain frame or fork behaves in certain way, it certainly will." (see "Correcting a frame mistake."
viewtopic.php?p=555660&hilit=frame+stiffness#p555660).
When our experience suggests something different to the anticipated expectation, (as in your example, and a few others on this forum) the result is very interesting; when it only confirms what was written in a sales pitch, suspicion of "confirmation bias" and being in a "highly suggestible activity" is higher...
