Garth or Bianca wrote, with my comments interjected:
I intuitively believe
(WARNING!!!!)
that it's primarily the components (ie brifters, 10 cog rears, aero rims) that make these modern bikes marginally faster. Whatever the difference four pounds less weight
(HOW MUCH?!?!?!)
of frame would make for a professional racer going all out in competition, I am quite sure that the gain in average speed that would separate the steelies from the plastic bikes would not be as big as the difference that separates the Tour de France champs from the mid level riders. In other words, if you took an Armstrong or a Cantador and forced him to ride steel with brifters he would still win and still beat the others by a good margin. This is unfortunately
(How so?)
a scenario we will never get to see. Trek wouldn't make the bikes out of steel even if they were faster.
(SAYS WHO?)
A carbon fiber miracle bike might be a little faster but what is fastest about them is how quickly they can be duplicated, literally flung from the gloomy depths of the slave labor factories of Asia
OR WISCONSIN!!!!!!!
each one a perfect clone of the one before....
A PROBLEM IN A MASSED PRODUCED ITEM?
each gleaming example of modernism ready for a year or two of hard service before making the ultimate ride to the garbage dumpster.
A superlight race bike that lasts for 2 years? Sign me up! Seriously. But, how many broken OCLVs, or other CF bikes from the last few years, have you seen with your own eyes? I thought so. And let's just imagine for a silly second that you are right, and that Trek could make a steel frame that was "faster" than CF, just how durable does your extensive material science background tell you that this 2 pound steel bike would be?
Thanks, Garth, you get the "What if Napoleon had had a Piper Cub at the Battle of Waterloo" prize for the day! The performace difference between a CF bike and steel bike that is 4 pounds heavier is equal to the difference in ability betwen the very best and the also rans? Where do you come up with this idle, arbitrary, unfounded and irrelevant speculation? And what exactly do you think the implications of your point would be for the THREE riders who finished the 2008 Tour within half a minute of one another?
Please, try to start your arguments with actual facts, or your personal opinions, and spare us this made up fact-i-ness that is nothing but random speculation and prejudice.
Tom Dalton Bethlehem, PA USA
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