Spa Steel Touring frame

[honesty]

.........or cantis, or mini-vees......

Well yes, but they're just not on trend.

[horizon]

However if I was picking a bike just for Audax use mine would have 57mm dual pivots and 28mm would be the largest I wanted to fit it with.

And this is my point!

I don't see why (and I think Colin is making the same point) I can't just load up my tourer parts onto an Audax frame and then mix and match as and when I see fit. Something happens: suddenly you hit a brick wall and it's mainly AFAICS to do with STIs/brakes/clearance. You have a very different bike with very specific constraints.

This is what i have been banging on about: there is a distinct boundary over which you cannot go. I think Colin thought that I thought (sorry about that!) that an Audax bike is defined by narrower wheels and tyres etc. No, it's simply what I see.

I'm imaging now that the same isn't true for tourers and cross bikes: you can mess about with new parts (narrower wheels for example) and get something close to an Audax bike. But you are still on this side of the fence.

Obviously all bikes have limitations - that goes without saying. But Colin (AFAICS) is saying that in the case of Audax/tourer it is an unnecessary and artificial limitation due to the incompatibility of STIs.

[reohn2]

.......... I want the same bike, just with larger clearances for bigger tyres..........

^^^^^THIS...This is why its lunacy to use a FAULT of road STIs and dual pivot sidepulls to define an "audax" bike......Poor clearance is a FAULT........unless somebody can demonstrate that its a benefit.....and that is a challenge.
Why not have a bike where you can fit 35mm tyres if you want to?....you don't have to, you can use 23s in a bike with room for 35s.....but you can't do it the other way round!

Spot on.

[meic]

However if I was picking a bike just for Audax use mine would have 57mm dual pivots and 28mm would be the largest I wanted to fit it with.

And this is my point!

I don't see why (and I think Colin is making the same point) I can't just load up my tourer parts onto an Audax frame and then mix and match as and when I see fit. Something happens: suddenly you hit a brick wall and it's mainly AFAICS to do with STIs/brakes/clearance. You have a very different bike with very specific constraints.

This is what i have been banging on about: there is a distinct boundary over which you cannot go. I think Colin thought that I thought (sorry about that!) that an Audax bike is defined by narrower wheels and tyres etc. No, it's simply what I see.

I'm imaging now that the same isn't true for tourers and cross bikes: you can mess about with new parts (narrower wheels for example) and get something close to an Audax bike. But you are still on this side of the fence.

Obviously all bikes have limitations - that goes without saying. But Colin (AFAICS) is saying that in the case of Audax/tourer it is an unnecessary and artificial limitation due to the incompatibility of STIs.

I agree with most of your post except the red bit. It is a chosen preference for an Audax bike and rider to have the best set-up for a particular use, it isnt unnecessary or artificial limitation, it is a preference. The job is getting a rider and minimal luggage long distances, efficiently, 28mm tyres are considered by most to be as big as you want want to go.
You can if you wish consider it to be called an Audax bike because nobody else would choose it.
I do have STI's on my light tourer and I can run disks, cantis and miniV's, it is only full size V's that need a small additional pulley. I prefer the dualpivot 57mm calipers for simplicity and compactness but they will not fit the frame. I would argue that from this Audaxer's point of view the advantage of an Audax frame is it allows you to use such brakes!

[meic]

.......... I want the same bike, just with larger clearances for bigger tyres..........

^^^^^THIS...This is why its lunacy to use a FAULT of road STIs and dual pivot sidepulls to define an "audax" bike......Poor clearance is a FAULT........unless somebody can demonstrate that its a benefit.....and that is a challenge.
Why not have a bike where you can fit 35mm tyres if you want to?....you don't have to, you can use 23s in a bike with room for 35s.....but you can't do it the other way round!

Spot on.

Yet look at the selection of bikes at the finish of an Audax ride and see what the people doing this on a regular basis have settled on through individual and group experience as the ideal.
There is an increasingly large fraction of us on light-tourers and faux-cross bikes with greater clearance but few of them are filling that space with fatter tyres.
The restriction to 28mm isnt a fault or a problem when you have absolutely no intention to use anything bigger.

[gloomyandy]

Yes but is everyone using 28mm tyres because well everyone is using 28mm tyres. Let me expand into a slightly different area. I ride time trials in the UK and despite preferring wider tyres on my road bike and on my touring bike I have 22mm tyres on my tt bike. Why? Well, everyone else rides pretty narrow tyres and the forum experts all say that narrow is the way to go because they are more aero and blah, blah blah. Now I could buck this trend and find out for myself, but in reality that will cost me money (for a wider tyre, and will I need to try more than one width/type) and in time. The time issue is I think similar to what will happen for Audax riders, I'd really need to test things in an actual event (I'm not going to go and ride up and down a dual carriageway on my TT bike all on my own) and I only ride a limited number of events a year, so I'd have to be prepared to get potentially less good results to test things out and I don't really want to do that, so I go with the flow, after all if all of these experienced riders use narrow tyres it must be right, right? So instead I buy an even pointier hat and ridiculous socks...

[reohn2]

However if I was picking a bike just for Audax use mine would have 57mm dual pivots and 28mm would be the largest I wanted to fit it with.

And this is my point!

The point is if you don't want absolute specifics,for whatever reason,a tourer with clearances for 38mm actual size tyres can be fitted with a pair of lightweight wheels and tyres for Audax riding,and be almost(as in very nearly) as good as a dedicated machine.
The heavier wheelset and large volume tyres,will cope with general purpose and touring duties.

[531colin]

............ What I wouldn’t do, which is what I have ended up with, is have two bikes with so much overlap that the choice of which to use on most rides has little to do with their capabilities and I am pointlessly building differences into them for no real reason.
Oh dear, I think I've just talked myself into selling a bike...

Or, for a different point of view.........

So there are three of us here who would choose to have a bike with a bit more flexibility in its tyre range and would happily ride it on an Audax instead of a standard Audax bike. I would call that an Audax+ bike.

However if I was picking a bike just for Audax use mine would have 57mm dual pivots and 28mm would be the largest I wanted to fit it with.........

[fastpedaller]

That's an interesting observation re 'go with the flow'. I suspect that most of the flow is borne out of experience of the type of event. Incidentally do you use wire-ons for TT's or tubulars? - From my experience (although the difference is less than it was) tubs are far superior for Time Trialing.
Now I'll put the cat amongst the pigeons and say why has nobody suggested a specific bike for SPORTIVES
(feel free to ignore my comment if it's too far off topic)

[reohn2]

Yet look at the selection of bikes at the finish of an Audax ride and see what the people doing this on a regular basis have settled on through individual and group experience as the ideal.
There is an increasingly large fraction of us on light-tourers and faux-cross bikes with greater clearance but few of them are filling that space with fatter tyres.
The restriction to 28mm isnt a fault or a problem when you have absolutely no intention to use anything bigger.

It's affluence that allows such specialist machines to flourish,and I've nothing against that.But are such machines streets ahead of a less dedicated one?
I suspect not,I also suspect such events can be psuedo races/time trials for the fast lads.But for comfort and distance,lightweight wheels bigger than 28's tyres ie;35mm actual size Hypers,in a touring frame with the right kit nailed on it,will be better IMHO,YVMV

[531colin]

Yes but is everyone using 28mm tyres because well everyone is using 28mm tyres. Let me expand into a slightly different area. I ride time trials in the UK and despite preferring wider tyres on my road bike and on my touring bike I have 22mm tyres on my tt bike. Why? Well, everyone else rides pretty narrow tyres and the forum experts all say that narrow is the way to go because they are more aero and blah, blah blah. Now I could buck this trend and find out for myself, but in reality that will cost me money (for a wider tyre, and will I need to try more than one width/type) and in time. The time issue is I think similar to what will happen for Audax riders, I'd really need to test things in an actual event (I'm not going to go and ride up and down a dual carriageway on my TT bike all on my own) and I only ride a limited number of events a year, so I'd have to be prepared to get potentially less good results to test things out and I don't really want to do that, so I go with the flow, after all if all of these experienced riders use narrow tyres it must be right, right? So instead I buy an even pointier hat and ridiculous socks...

I think that everybody is using 28mm tyres because thats what you are stuck with after you have made the less important choices, that is STIs and dual pivots.
There are some things which never get complained about on these pages......
I can't get my handlebars low enough
I can't get a long enough reach to my handlebars
My gears are too low
I can't fit narrow enough tyres into my bike

[reohn2]

Yes but is everyone using 28mm tyres because well everyone is using 28mm tyres. Let me expand into a slightly different area. I ride time trials in the UK and despite preferring wider tyres on my road bike and on my touring bike I have 22mm tyres on my tt bike. Why? Well, everyone else rides pretty narrow tyres and the forum experts all say that narrow is the way to go because they are more aero and blah, blah blah. Now I could buck this trend and find out for myself, but in reality that will cost me money (for a wider tyre, and will I need to try more than one width/type) and in time. The time issue is I think similar to what will happen for Audax riders, I'd really need to test things in an actual event (I'm not going to go and ride up and down a dual carriageway on my TT bike all on my own) and I only ride a limited number of events a year, so I'd have to be prepared to get potentially less good results to test things out and I don't really want to do that, so I go with the flow, after all if all of these experienced riders use narrow tyres it must be right, right? So instead I buy an even pointier hat and ridiculous socks...

But which is more important to you,going as fast as you can go absolutely,or going as fast as you can on specific tyre that aren't considered de rigeur?

I spend a long time and a quite bit of money seeking comfort at minimum loss of speed.
I found the answer,it wasn't what my preconceived ideas thought,speed loss was minimal(within 1 mph)but the comfort factor sky-rocketed.It was a process that caused me to sell a good comfortable and highly equipped Audax/light touring machine,due to lack of use.

[meic]

Yet look at the selection of bikes at the finish of an Audax ride and see what the people doing this on a regular basis have settled on through individual and group experience as the ideal.
There is an increasingly large fraction of us on light-tourers and faux-cross bikes with greater clearance but few of them are filling that space with fatter tyres.
The restriction to 28mm isnt a fault or a problem when you have absolutely no intention to use anything bigger.

It's affluence that allows such specialist machines to flourish,and I've nothing against that.But are such machines streets ahead of a less dedicated one?
I suspect not,I also suspect such events can be psuedo races/time trials for the fast lads.But for comfort and distance,lightweight wheels bigger than 28's tyres ie;35mm actual size Hypers,in a touring frame with the right kit nailed on it,will be better IMHO,YVMV

If I had to have just one bike to do everything it would be either a light tourer on an Audax. Looking back over the six years since I chose the light-tourer instead of an Audax, I cant say that it made that much difference and I dont think it was a better option than the Audax bike, just a different option.
I bet the affluence of the cycles at a Audax is rather small per mile and in comparison to the costs of petrol and accommodation involved in them being there.

[honesty]

Just did another audax last weekend. Have to say the majority of people were riding sportive bikes. If you have one bike you ride the one the shop sells you when you start out. It probably was skewed by the fact that it was he local road club that organised it but even so. I did see a Spa tourer and a spa audax, but I was the only one riding a Thorn audax out of the 100 people ish riding. Someone was riding a very nice enigma though

[gloomyandy]

But which is more important to you,going as fast as you can go absolutely,or going as fast as you can on specific tyre that aren't considered de rigeur?

I spend a long time and a quite bit of money seeking comfort at minimum loss of speed.
I found the answer,it wasn't what my preconceived ideas thought,speed loss was minimal(within 1 mph)but the comfort factor sky-rocketed.It was a process that caused me to sell a good comfortable and highly equipped Audax/light touring machine,due to lack of use.

Good question. I think that in this case going as fast as possible is my main aim. However the interesting question is that given that (for me at least) riding a tt is not a very comfortable experience, given the position, the narrow high pressure tyres, riding 10/25 miles pushing as hard as you hope you can, would the extra gain in comfort from a wider tyre, counter the possible loss in speed due to any increase in air resistance. After all having a less uncomfortable ride might let me produce a few more watts or at least let me produce the few I do for a little longer! I guess the length of the event may come into this as well. I generally ride 10 and 25 mile events, perhaps on a longer event the balance might be different?

Anyway, getting a little off topic, so back to Audax!