Haven't read all the post regarding this topic, but many of them the one thing I don't believe I have seen, might have missed it, was a given material's ability to absorb shock. Much like a tuning fork does when one strikes it on a hard surface different materials that bikes are made of can lessen shock that is transmitted to the ridder. This led me to conduct my own research tonight. Having consumed just the right amount of wine and with a clear idea of how I was going to conduct this test I headed to the basement . First I put the nearly full wine glass down on the work bench then took the front wheels off five of my bikes that were hanging by the rear wheel. One Fuso Lux with a Look carbon fiber fork, late 70's Rauler with sl tubing, the '83 Rauler with SL tubing, mid '70s Rauler with probably SP tubing (no rifling in the steer tube) with longer (it takes long reach brakes) and slightly thinner fork blades and lastly a '91 Della Santa with oversize Columbus. Looking around for something to strike the fork blades at the dropouts with I found a one inch dowel about 20 inches long that has been used for hitting many metal objects. First I struck every fork at the dropouts trying to hit them evenly while I lightly gripping the top tube of each bike about 4 inches behind the head lug. This led me to another test in which I did pretty much the same thing, but gripping the the handle bar, all the bars are wrapped with Cinelli cork tape to even the playing ground. The bike that had the least viberation was the mid '70's Rauler followed by the Della Santa. The Della felt much different than all the others in that the viberations were in waves that were very short lived. The other two Rauler felt almost identical, most of the hash viberation lasted on a few second then lingered lightly for a very long time in comparision to all the others. The Fuso with the carbon fork felt like the two Rauler, but no lingering viberations. All this testing leds me to belive when you have been drinking late at night with nothing better to do, you will do the strangest things.
Tune in tomorrow night for the testing of a vintage skis slidding test on a 15 degree slope with a light frost. Sorry, wrong list.
Mark Poore With nothing better to do in Slatyfork, WV
---------------------------------
Yahoo! for Good
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.