Chuck Schmidt wrote:
> Being able to feel the difference or not feel
> the difference in ride or handling doesn't
> mean there isn't a difference in ride or handling
Yes, good to remember. The example I always use is, what if one bike was a little more comfortable, defined as you are fresher and less beat-up at the end of a long ride. And lets imagine we can assign a numerical score to this and you are exactly 10% fresher at the end of a 100 miler. I claim that it's very unlikely you'd be able to feel such a small difference in the ride quality at any point in the ride. I also doubt you'd be able to attribute feeling fresher to the bike -- you might think it was tailwinds or eating and drinking right or any of a hundred variables. But you still got the benefit of the extra comfort whether you knew it or not.
The same logic can be applied to cornering, durability, efficiency, aero drag - just about any criterion we judge bikes by. (I suppose even aesthetic appeal and historical importance, though the argument gets a bit more fuzzy there...) Just because you couldn't detect the difference doesn't mean it wasn't there.
Then again, Chuck may have been saying something else entirely -- but that's what I think.
Mark Bulgier
Seattle WA USA