Bike Spotting

I like it. Thanks for posting. The fore and aft seatpost dampening is pretty cool.

But call me a curmudgeon, I have yet to see a compelling reason for disc brakes on a road bike. Even when wet, I can lock a wheel with traditional calipers. And maybe I’m not a princess, but I can’t feel any different modulation capabilities with disc over traditional. This bike seems to be going into convulsions trying to make a disc aero when Taurus had internal routing (with rod brakes no less) and “aero” calipers (rear is tucked under chain stay) since 1919.

I tend to agree. My experience has been that discs require less frequent cleaning and adjustment than rim brakes, but I know people who’ve had the opposite experience. Overall, I think the marketing point of stopping power is pretty bogus. The real weak point (if you want to call it that) in bicycle braking is the interface between the tire and the road, not the frame and the wheel. You can skid with a rim brake pretty easily. I guess for folks with carbon rims, discs might be nice for reducing brake fade and wear on an already not-great braking situation.

There’s also the notion that the braking surface on your $2000+ wheelset could wear out with a season or two of hard use, whereas replacing a rotor and pads is a standard operation that will allow you to keep your fancy hoops. Agreed on the contact patch between 25c tire and asphalt being the weak link though. I have $100K of surgery to confirm that. :frowning:



I think that the thing that is often missed in the discussions (but not by 1ab) re: discs is modulation. I’m not aware of anyone in the industry touting increased power- it’s discs’ modulation and consistency that are the key draws, driven in part to the often terrifying braking performance of carbon fiber rims in the wet. As cable routing has become more convoluted (for aesthetic and aerodynamic reasons), cable drag becomes more and more of a factor- and it’s something that sneaks up on you.

While I’ve never had trouble with decent quality rim brakes pulled by fresh, good-quality cables/housing against aluminum rims in reasonable conditions, start to mess with any one of those conditions and things can degrade slowly (cable & housing contamination) or less so (carbon in the rain). Faster? Maybe. More confident? Absolutely. And the thinking among many in the industry is that the wider tires they allow (~30c for a road bike) can be faster than the high-pressure 23s we’ve all been riding for ages.

I’m no fanboy -given the choice between wide tubeless tires at low pressures with rim brakes or 23c tires at 120psi and disc brakes I’d choose the former every time- but having ridden with discs for nearly fifteen years off road and on the road for about one, I appreciate the consistency and control that they provide. While they’re no reason to pasture a favorite bike, I see little reason to buy a new road bike without discs.

I really can’t comment on off-road riding and brake needs, I am 95% road and 5% gravel roads, but I can lock up my carbon rims in the wet. I have never been terrified with a dual-pivot caliper.

Now I do have a a bike from 1933 with long-reach single-pivot calipers with cork pads on wood rims. I recently did a challenge ride on it, 1000 ft of climbing (and descents) for every 10km. It was raining that day. On that day I certainly was concerned. :slight_smile:

And I’ll take 27mm tires at 75-85psi over 23s at 100-110 any day and in any condition.

A quite lovely Commencal DH bike prepped for this weekend’s world championship race. George Brannigan, from (guess where)…

Black decals on polished aluminum, understated, classy, and just racey enough.

Here’s another crazy looking tri bike. The interesting thing for me about this is that their design process started at the wheels. There’s a video somewhere of the designer talking about how the best way to keep the wheels aero is to fill the space between them, and that’s how the frame design evolved. Like most of these other “innovations” I don’t know if I fully buy it, but I think it’s a novel approach.
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Its kind of what Cervelo’s original claim to fame was - how you could barely slip a playing card between the rear tire and the concave seat tube. In this case I’d be more concerned about the bike’s performance in a cross wind, and the instability from the center of pressure being so far forward. I hadn’t heard of the designer before (Kevin Quan Studio in Toronto) but he seems to do nice work judging from the other bikes he’s worked on.

In my experience wind tunnel testing for bicycle design has been done for validation toward the end of a project, once the main design is already done. It is also helpful for athletes to get on the bike in the low speed tunnels to tweak their riding position since that will have a larger effect on drag. Specialized is the only major manufacturer that I know has their own tunnel so their ability to design with the aero factors should result in the best performing bikes (Venge, Shiv). DB is not a large manufacturer and tunnel time is expensive.

Since you’re into test practices, you might enjoy this guy’s blog… here’s one of his posts regarding using solid aluminum wheel prototypes for wind tunnel testing - rockets2sprockets.com Real sharp aerospace engineer who is also a professional cyclist.

@jcharles00:

There’s some super geek heaven in that site, thanks for the tip!

Breaking my own OP rule but thought I’d add this concept bike from LeEco:

Do I think its overall gadgety stupidity? Yes. However. Having an easily accessed button to snap a photo while riding seems like an easy-to-implement and useful feature.

Turn signals, embedded headlights, fingerprint sensors…stupid.

Is that a ‘Parking’ button?!! I love the headline The Verge used on this: “LeEco’s ‘Super Bike’ has enough gadgets to save your life or kill you — your call”!!

I’ve just bought a new bike that is considerably longer than anything I’ve had before and I’m faster both uphill and down on it, I’ve spent 6 months demoing all sorts before taking the plunge. As soon as I rode it this bike just felt right and better than anything else I demo’d including both longer and shorter travel bikes. I do have a Schwinn protocol at the moment and I can’t fault that to be honest, it’s an awesome bike, just wish I went for 27.5 rather than the 29er. Anyways, it just my opinion you may even go for Nashbar or Diamondback kind of popular models.

a different looking take on rims from zipp - Zipp
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That’s super impressive. At a certain point you have to figure out what the $4000 investment will actually yield in terms of returns, but it’s cool to see Formula 1 logic applied at the subcomponent level. The little dimples are pretty slick.

It’s an idler wheel to compensate for a high pivot rear suspension- in more detail:

"In most suspension systems, as the shock is compressed there is an increase in the distance between the front and rear sprockets as the bike goes through its travel. This leads to what we term “chain growth” on the upper chain line…

A high pivot point with a conventional drivetrain increases pedal kickback as moving the pivot point further away from the front sprocket increases chain growth as suspension compresses.

This is where the idler comes in. Typically high pivot point suspension would have more chain growth without an idler, so the addition of an idler effectively moves the front sprocket to a position which eliminates chain growth and therefore eliminates pedal kickback."
Cool gallery of the history of high pivot suspension- The Resurgence of High Pivot Suspension Design - Pinkbike
Various brands explain why they use high pivots (source of above text) - AASQ #72: High Pivot Witchcraft? Forbidden, Commencal, Deviate, Starling & Actofive dispel myths - Bikerumor

I’ve recently started lusting after mountain bikes… so cool

After a recent bone-cracking crash this summer I am pretty much retired from mountain bikes. Maybe more xc and gravel oriented now, I don’t know. Getting too old for the hospital visits. Still appreciate the fluid lines though. @SHIELDS are you lusting after DH machines? I’ve heard good things about those Forbidden Druids too.

Oh crazy. I’ve just gotten back into mountain bikes this year. Some new trails popped up around my house, and my oldest is big enough to keep up (and now ride faster than me) so I jumped at the chance to grab a Trek Top Fuel this spring. Glad I did because now everything is gone… I just heard there may be shortages on chains, cassettes, and tires soon, too… wonderful!

I think the complete lack of bikes at the LBS is the most interesting thing I’ve seen I the last 2 seasons. Who thinks 2022 will be somewhat “normal”?

Also, are rims brakes officially dead yet? I’m in the market for a new bike, off-road/gravelly type of thing. I’m thinking 650B with cantilevers with some better tires than the FMB tubulars I am using (they flat a bit to easily and on the fires roads of northern Wisconsin, its a long walk without people or phone reception).

I’m glad you’re still in one piece! Fortunately, my local trails are relatively mild. There are so many interesting bikes in every genre.

I’m riding a hardtail in north Texas so-- at least 200 miles and a few thousand dollars from anything downhill! And like Nurb said, everything is backordered for a year haha

Definitely lusting though- the variety is unbelievable. Currently obsessed with rear suspension packaging-