Shiny bikes & their advocates

For discussions about bikes and equipment.
Vorpal
Moderator
Posts: 20697
Joined: 19 Jan 2009, 3:34pm
Location: Not there ;)

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by Vorpal »

If you were about to buy your first road bike, $7000 is probably too much to spend, unless you have $7000 (or even just $5000) burning the proverbial hole in your pocket.

I don't think I could justify it, compared to say, sending one of my kids on a trip with the school band, or paying for some work that the house needs. And I say that knowing how much fun it can be to ride a really nice bike.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
thelawnet
Posts: 2736
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by thelawnet »

Brucey wrote:
Audax67 wrote:1. Offered one of these I know which one I'd take, and it wouldn't be the $1000 effort


I'd take the $7000 bike, get a refund plus the $1000 bike and spend the other $6000 on some decent tyres, a bike fit, some training and a bunch of other stuff that would make me go faster, not flim-flam.

99.99% of amateur cyclists are limited by the amount and quality of their training, not by their bike or some VO2max figure that they are born with or not.



I had a look through his channel.

He has been through a few bikes

There is this Diamondback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLEqgLnrmdk

This Felt F1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epI33T61T1Q

He mentions previously owning in that video a https://www.jamisbikes.com/usa/ventura.html (relatively cheap starter bike) Scott CR1 (already pricey at £2500 https://www.cyclingweekly.com/reviews/r ... tt-cr1-pro), and the Felt FC, which seems to be very similar to the F1, but broke and was replaced with the F1 for warranty + cash

So it looks like a new high-end bike about every two years.
Marcus Aurelius
Posts: 1903
Joined: 1 Feb 2018, 10:20am

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by Marcus Aurelius »

Ontherivet77 wrote:
Michael Hutchinson makes a similar point in his book "The Hour", he put it down to the differences in VO2 max etc that we are born with.

GCN did a similar video and found that the 1k bike was 'slower', but not so much it was worth paying the extra.


Which has pretty much been my experience, over many years. I was once supplied with a very shiny high spec, relatively pricey bike ( A Bianchi XR3 with a super record groupy) It was very nice indeed, however, I couldn’t get it to go 7 grands worth of quicker than my 1400 quid Boardman, with its 105 groupy. Sure it felt nice, and looked nice, but meh, I’ll stick with the cheaper ones, they don’t cause so much heart ache if they get trashed / permaborrowed by some lowlife thieving scum bag. I’m also not any sort of racer, Powwwwahhh doesn’t concern me one iota, I couldn’t really care less what my VO2 max, FTP, or anything else is, so it would be like casting pearls before swine anyway.
alexnharvey
Posts: 1922
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:39am

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by alexnharvey »

rfryer wrote:
Marcus Aurelius wrote:If the engine is no good, you can spend as much as you like on a fancy bike, you’ll still get passed by a bloke with board shorts and flip flops, on a 5.99 BSO.

On the other hand, if the engine is average, the fancy bike could well be the difference between enjoying a club run with a bunch of similarly average cyclists, or struggling to keep up.


The question is whether that statement is true or false!
thelawnet
Posts: 2736
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by thelawnet »

alexnharvey wrote:
rfryer wrote:
Marcus Aurelius wrote:If the engine is no good, you can spend as much as you like on a fancy bike, you’ll still get passed by a bloke with board shorts and flip flops, on a 5.99 BSO.

On the other hand, if the engine is average, the fancy bike could well be the difference between enjoying a club run with a bunch of similarly average cyclists, or struggling to keep up.


The question is whether that statement is true or false!


Oh I'm pretty sure it's false. Unless your fancy bike has an engine in it. :idea:

If you're fat, and struggling up the hills - lose weight.

If you're slow down the hills, work on your position.

And if you're slow on the flat, pedal harder. :lol:

Oh and make sure your clothes are skin tight, even if you are a fatty.
User avatar
foxyrider
Posts: 6042
Joined: 29 Aug 2011, 10:25am
Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by foxyrider »

thelawnet wrote:
alexnharvey wrote:
rfryer wrote:On the other hand, if the engine is average, the fancy bike could well be the difference between enjoying a club run with a bunch of similarly average cyclists, or struggling to keep up.


The question is whether that statement is true or false!


Oh I'm pretty sure it's false. Unless your fancy bike has an engine in it. :idea:

If you're fat, and struggling up the hills - lose weight.

If you're slow down the hills, work on your position.

And if you're slow on the flat, pedal harder. :lol:

Oh and make sure your clothes are skin tight, even if you are a fatty.


Silly sausage!
Convention? what's that then?
Airnimal Chameleon touring, Orbit Pro hack, Orbit Photon audax, Focus Mares AX tour, Peugeot Carbon sportive, Owen Blower vintage race - all running Tulio's finest!
MarcusT
Posts: 443
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 10:33am

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by MarcusT »

Using the $7,000 bike to shave 60 seconds from a 1 hour ride, is like that guy in a car who passes like a jerk because he really needs to get where he is going. Then after micturating everyone off, he gets to his destination maybe 30 seconds earlier.
I wish it were as easy as riding a bike
pwa
Posts: 17357
Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by pwa »

Tyres are so easy to change that I wonder if any worthwhile comparison, as well as having the same body position, should have the same tyres. I appreciate, of course, that the tubeless thing makes this a bit more complicated. But where possible, sticking the same tyres on will mean what is being tested is the rest of the bike, narrowing down the variants and making analysis more likely to be correct.
hamster
Posts: 4128
Joined: 2 Feb 2007, 12:42pm

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by hamster »

True, but as a set of GP5000s adds £80-90 to the price of the bike it's quite a big step.

That should be a seperate article - cheapest speed upgrades! I reckon GP4000s are 1-2 minutes per hour faster than GP4Seasons on the same bike. However they are fragile summer-only tyres where I live.
mig
Posts: 2698
Joined: 19 Oct 2011, 9:39pm

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by mig »

how much enjoyment/satisfaction did he get out of each ride? (i haven't watched the video.)

methinks if a novice rider was given any of the bikes but told that they were $7000 superbikes then they'd come back and say that it was great.

or maybe just not come back :wink:
rfryer
Posts: 809
Joined: 7 Feb 2013, 3:58pm

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by rfryer »

mig wrote:how much enjoyment/satisfaction did he get out of each ride? (i haven't watched the video.

He enjoyed the middle bike almost as much as the expensive one. The cheap bike was awful.
mnichols
Posts: 1465
Joined: 22 Apr 2013, 4:29pm

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by mnichols »

If you know the rolling resistance of the tyres and that he's doing 300w wouldn't it be possible to see how much of the difference was down to the tyres?
mnichols
Posts: 1465
Joined: 22 Apr 2013, 4:29pm

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by mnichols »

If you know the rolling resistance of the tyres (in watts) and that he's doing 300w wouldn't it be possible to see how much of the difference was down to the tyres?

If the difference is only 3.8% I suspect most of it

Difference between puncture resistant tyres and fast rollers is circa 10 to 15w.
User avatar
RickH
Posts: 5832
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by RickH »

hamster wrote:True, but as a set of GP5000s adds £80-90 to the price of the bike it's quite a big step.

That should be a seperate article - cheapest speed upgrades! I reckon GP4000s are 1-2 minutes per hour faster than GP4Seasons on the same bike. However they are fragile summer-only tyres where I live.

I find my hours still always have 60 minutes in them whatever I'm riding. :wink:

Bicycle Rolling Resistance gives a 5-6W difference, is that really enough to make minutes difference to an otherwise identical setup?
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Brucey
Posts: 44455
Joined: 4 Jan 2012, 6:25pm

Re: Shiny bikes & their advocates

Post by Brucey »

RickH wrote:I find my hours still always have 60 minutes in them whatever I'm riding. :wink:

Bicycle Rolling Resistance gives a 5-6W difference, is that really enough to make minutes difference to an otherwise identical setup?


both the speed and the load will be different from the test conditions so the actual losses will be different to those suggested by BRR.

cheers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post Reply