And the advantage is?

They can add things like Power Taps and SRMs and still keep the bike
right at the UCI weight limit (as he points out in the interview). I'm
sure they'll lower the weight limit eventually anyway.

Quoted message said:

CyclingNews interviews BMC chief engineer Rolf Singenberger about
carbon fiber advances reducing the weight of Floyd Landis's TT bike:

CN: You say that you have saved almost 300 grams on the frame; what
weight then does that give you then?

RS: It is 960 grams for the medium sized frame.

CN: And how about the complete bike?

RS: Well, last year at the Tour, we had four riders using the new
bike. Perhaps you saw it, it was completely black with white stickers.
We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight to it. Our
light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos. Then, for example, Floyd used the Cycle
Ops [PowerTap] hub for the whole tour, which added another 300 grams
to the bike. He also used alloy cranks and stuff like that to bring it
up.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/tour06/tech/?id=/tech/2006/features/singenberger1
or
http://tinyurl.com/gkuy6

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same after
enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made of,
right?

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

CyclingNews interviews BMC chief engineer Rolf Singenberger about
carbon fiber advances reducing the weight of Floyd Landis's TT bike:

CN: You say that you have saved almost 300 grams on the frame; what
weight then does that give you then?

RS: It is 960 grams for the medium sized frame.

CN: And how about the complete bike?

RS: Well, last year at the Tour, we had four riders using the new
bike. Perhaps you saw it, it was completely black with white stickers.
We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight to it. Our
light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos. Then, for example, Floyd used the Cycle
Ops [PowerTap] hub for the whole tour, which added another 300 grams
to the bike. He also used alloy cranks and stuff like that to bring it
up.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/tour06/tech/?id=/tech/2006/features/singenberger1
or
http://tinyurl.com/gkuy6

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same after
enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made of,
right?

Carl Fogel

correct. i guess in theory, it means you can concentrate on reliability
where it matters, like formula 1, but maybe there will at some point be
a revision of the uci limit.

pushing the boundaries of technological limitation good - let it never
be forgotten that this /is/ what's driven the cycling industry from day one.

jim beam said:

Quoted message said:

CyclingNews interviews BMC chief engineer Rolf Singenberger about
carbon fiber advances reducing the weight of Floyd Landis's TT bike:

CN: You say that you have saved almost 300 grams on the frame; what
weight then does that give you then?

RS: It is 960 grams for the medium sized frame.

CN: And how about the complete bike?

RS: Well, last year at the Tour, we had four riders using the new
bike. Perhaps you saw it, it was completely black with white stickers.
We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight to it. Our
light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos. Then, for example, Floyd used the Cycle
Ops [PowerTap] hub for the whole tour, which added another 300 grams
to the bike. He also used alloy cranks and stuff like that to bring it
up.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/tour06/tech/?id=/tech/2006/features/singenberger1
or
http://tinyurl.com/gkuy6

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same after
enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made of,
right?

Carl Fogel

correct. i guess in theory, it means you can concentrate on reliability
where it matters, like formula 1, but maybe there will at some point be
a revision of the uci limit.

pushing the boundaries of technological limitation good - let it never
be forgotten that this /is/ what's driven the cycling industry from day one.

Hey, "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday!"

In article <[email hidden]>,

jim beam said:

Quoted message said:

CyclingNews interviews BMC chief engineer Rolf Singenberger about
carbon fiber advances reducing the weight of Floyd Landis's TT
bike:

CN: You say that you have saved almost 300 grams on the frame; what
weight then does that give you then?

RS: It is 960 grams for the medium sized frame.

CN: And how about the complete bike?

RS: Well, last year at the Tour, we had four riders using the new
bike. Perhaps you saw it, it was completely black with white
stickers. We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight
to it. Our light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos. Then, for example, Floyd
used the Cycle Ops [PowerTap] hub for the whole tour, which added
another 300 grams to the bike. He also used alloy cranks and stuff
like that to bring it up.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/tour06/tech/?id=/tech/2006/feat
ures/sin genberger1 or http://tinyurl.com/gkuy6

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same
after enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made
of, right?

Goofy as heck, ain't it?

Quoted message said:

correct. i guess in theory, it means you can concentrate on
reliability where it matters, like formula 1, but maybe there will at
some point be a revision of the uci limit.

The UCI weight limit is, as far as I can tell, totally arbitrary. It'll
probably be revised eventually.

Quoted message said:

pushing the boundaries of technological limitation good - let it
never be forgotten that this /is/ what's driven the cycling industry
from day one.

Well, pushing the technology in the form of planned obsolescence has
been present from the beginning. That was progress driven by the need
for marketing and sales volume. Come to think of it, the computer
industry has often been driven by the same factors, hasn't it? But
"good enough" technology like plungers and sponges and toothpicks
doesn't undergo the same push for improvement. Maybe it is more
prevalent with status items like bikes and computers and cars and iPods
and the like.

The Technical Trials in France and Belgium pushed bike technology for
touring and cyclosportif bikes rapidly ahead in terms of materials,
frame geometry and design and also componentry. That progress trickled
up eventually to racing bikes and down to production bikes. The Trials
focused on specific issues in different years- derailleurs, weight,
durability, load handling, etc.

But racing bikes were behind the best bikes available to the public for
decades, that situation finally changing with the end of the Henri
Desgrange era and the subsequent embracing of derailleurs in racing and
the Tour. At that point, then racing bike technology became a driving
force, perhaps the dominant driving force in high quality bikes, until
some guys started bombing down hills in Marin County.

Quoted message said:

RS: Well, last year at the Tour, we had four riders using the new
bike. Perhaps you saw it, it was completely black with white stickers.
We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight to it. Our
light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos.

I remember in the mid-1970's when a company came out advertising an
"all-plastic" bicycle that would weigh only 14 pounds. They had a
prototype that was injection molded, but never showed anyone riding on
the bicycle - just the bike parked with its kickstand holding it up.
The bike was going to cost $150.

I think it was a scam.

I also remember the Bicycling! magazine cartoon in about 1975 or 1976
where the guy was joking about his 27-speed gear system, and there was
the world's most humongous rear freewheel on his bike and he must have
had 185 mm spacing. We all got a good laugh out of that one !!

Nobody is laughing now ...

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

I believe that the next step will be to introduce component testing,
any weight is acceptable as long as you pass certain failure limits.
The weight limit has probably lead to some innovation, in the past
superlight was for superlights sake and you wouldn't want to ride the
superlight in all conditions.

Some sensibiltiy has come in (apart from some of the showboating with
adding weights) with more focus on the rideability as well as weight.
Not sure that durability is fully in the equation as yet (apart from
the rapid abandonment of repeatadly failing equipment because it will
loose you races), hence some type of agreed fatigue and overload
standard testing would be a good addition. In addition starting to see
tools like SRM becoming part of the standard tools, much better than
adding weight and hopefully bring the cost down from the stratospheric.

Maybe we need formula one type regulations that say one frame for the
whole season...

PiledHigher

On 6 Jul 2006 21:15:53 -0700, "PiledHIgher" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I believe that the next step will be to introduce component testing,
any weight is acceptable as long as you pass certain failure limits.

No way. A scale is a simple, low-tech test that race officials can
easily do. Testing components is another matter altogether - far more
time consuming.

Quoted message said:

Maybe we need formula one type regulations that say one frame for the
whole season...

Do you race in events under UCI rules?

And how is that going to be managed? Race organizers and officials are
busy enough w/o having to keep track of bikes.

JT

****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
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In article <[email hidden]>,

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

On 6 Jul 2006 21:15:53 -0700, "PiledHIgher" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I believe that the next step will be to introduce component testing,
any weight is acceptable as long as you pass certain failure limits.

No way. A scale is a simple, low-tech test that race officials can
easily do. Testing components is another matter altogether - far
more time consuming.

Good point. The UCI is concerned with controlling the image of cycling,
and keeping a lid on technology is one part of that. The public has to
relate to cyclists for the sport to be marketable. If Lance's bike
looks pretty much like my bike, I feel I can understand what he's doing.
If Lance's bike looks space age and unlike my own, that creates some
distance that might adversely impact the popularity of the sport.

Of course, the doping issue is likely to have a negative impact on the
image of cycling. That's why most sports just sweep it under the rug...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Maybe we need formula one type regulations that say one frame for
the whole season...

Do you race in events under UCI rules?

Not if they race USAC races in the US (as of course JFT already knows,
since he is a racer in the US). The USAC has decided to ignore the UCI
regulations on bicycles, for exactly the reason JFT points out below:

Quoted message said:

And how is that going to be managed? Race organizers and officials
are busy enough w/o having to keep track of bikes.

Quoted message said:

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same after
enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made of,
right?

Yes.

The fact that the mandated weight is higher than the lowest easily
possible weight means that the builders and/or riders can choose where
to shave grams, and where to go for strength or features at the
expense of some mass increase, based on their own preferences. I
suspect that it would be possible to build a UCI-legal-minimum-mass
roadie using the current Schwinn Varsity frame, but I lack the budget
to try.

--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

On 6 Jul 2006 21:15:53 -0700, "PiledHIgher" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I believe that the next step will be to introduce component testing,
any weight is acceptable as long as you pass certain failure limits.

No way. A scale is a simple, low-tech test that race officials can
easily do. Testing components is another matter altogether - far
more time consuming.

Good point. The UCI is concerned with controlling the image of cycling,
and keeping a lid on technology is one part of that. The public has to
relate to cyclists for the sport to be marketable. If Lance's bike
looks pretty much like my bike, I feel I can understand what he's doing.
If Lance's bike looks space age and unlike my own, that creates some
distance that might adversely impact the popularity of the sport.

I'll suggest it has more to do with the dynamics of the sport than anything
else. Much like NASCAR, strategies have evolved around a particular set of
technologies and any change in the technology changes the game. Allow fairings
or recumbents and suddenly everything we know about bike racing changes. And
honest, if it should happen that racing bikes stop resembling road bikes, Trek,
et alia would be real quick to give you the option of correcting that issue.

Quoted message said:

Of course, the doping issue is likely to have a negative impact on the
image of cycling. That's why most sports just sweep it under the rug...

Or at least manage it without publicly abusing themselves.

Ron

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Maybe we need formula one type regulations that say one frame for
the whole season...

Do you race in events under UCI rules?

Not if they race USAC races in the US (as of course JFT already knows,
since he is a racer in the US). The USAC has decided to ignore the UCI
regulations on bicycles, for exactly the reason JFT points out below:

Quoted message said:

And how is that going to be managed? Race organizers and officials
are busy enough w/o having to keep track of bikes.

Werehatrack said:

Quoted message said:

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same after
enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made of,
right?

Yes.

The fact that the mandated weight is higher than the lowest easily
possible weight means that the builders and/or riders can choose where
to shave grams, and where to go for strength or features at the
expense of some mass increase, based on their own preferences. I
suspect that it would be possible to build a UCI-legal-minimum-mass
roadie using the current Schwinn Varsity frame, but I lack the budget
to try.

Dear Werehatrack,

You'd probably take a more sensible approach than spending enormous
amounts of money to make a frame so light that you had to hang
cheaper, heavier cranks on the bike to bring it back up to the minimum
weight:

"We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight to it. Our
light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos. Then, for example, Floyd used the Cycle
Ops [PowerTap] hub for the whole tour, which added another 300 grams
to the bike. He also used alloy cranks and stuff like that to bring it
up."

I can see making a wonderful part that's strong and light and then
using the weight savings to beef up something that's breaking, but
this looks more like a mindless anorexic strategy that leads to an an
amazingly expensive frame that has to be dressed with random Fury
RoadMaster parts in order to fill out its 6.8 kg party gown.

Hmmm . . . do these cranks make me look fat enough for the Tour?

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

Werehatrack said:

Quoted message said:

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same after
enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made of,
right?

Yes.

The fact that the mandated weight is higher than the lowest easily
possible weight means that the builders and/or riders can choose where
to shave grams, and where to go for strength or features at the
expense of some mass increase, based on their own preferences. I
suspect that it would be possible to build a UCI-legal-minimum-mass
roadie using the current Schwinn Varsity frame, but I lack the budget
to try.

Dear Werehatrack,

You'd probably take a more sensible approach than spending enormous
amounts of money to make a frame so light that you had to hang
cheaper, heavier cranks on the bike to bring it back up to the minimum
weight:

"We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight to it. Our
light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos. Then, for example, Floyd used the Cycle
Ops [PowerTap] hub for the whole tour, which added another 300 grams
to the bike. He also used alloy cranks and stuff like that to bring it
up."

I can see making a wonderful part that's strong and light and then
using the weight savings to beef up something that's breaking, but
this looks more like a mindless anorexic strategy that leads to an an
amazingly expensive frame that has to be dressed with random Fury
RoadMaster parts in order to fill out its 6.8 kg party gown.

If you think about it a really light frame, that makes the bike *below*
the UCI limit, is actually very good marketing. Think about it, we make
our frames so light that we have to ADD weight to meet the UCI limit. I
can see all the waanabees screaming to be the first on their block to
get one. Its the "Hey, I'm not in the UCI, so I can buy one of these
frames and put on superlight parts to get it even LOWER than the UCI
limit! Whoo Hoo!"

Quoted message said:

Hmmm . . . do these cranks make me look fat enough for the Tour?

Not with that butt!

Quoted message said:

They can add things like Power Taps and SRMs and still keep the bike
right at the UCI weight limit (as he points out in the interview). I'm
sure they'll lower the weight limit eventually anyway.

The first thing they need to do is make the bike weight proportional to
the rider's weight. It's ridiculous that the little climbers have to
push the same bike up the hills as the big guys. It takes away some of
their former competitiveness in races with significant climbing.

Quoted message said:

CyclingNews interviews BMC chief engineer Rolf Singenberger about
carbon fiber advances reducing the weight of Floyd Landis's TT bike:

RS: Well, last year at the Tour, we had four riders using the new
bike. Perhaps you saw it, it was completely black with white stickers.
We were far below the UCI limit, so we had to add weight to it. Our
light bike is 6.2, 6.3 kilos. Then, for example, Floyd used the Cycle
Ops [PowerTap] hub for the whole tour, which added another 300 grams
to the bike. He also used alloy cranks and stuff like that to bring it
up.

So most of the bikes used in the Tour end up weighing the same after
enough parts are swapped around, no matter what they're made of,
right?

Well, I had wondered last night how they knew how much energy one rider
was generating. That kind of answers that question -- they had nothing
better to do with the weight, so they added an otherwise useless gadget
to the bike and telemetered it to LeTour/OLN.

Frankly, I wonder, with so much emphasis on telemetering speed, cadence,
heart rate, temperature, precipitation rate, etc. back to the team car,
and maintaining radio contact between the team manager and each team
member, why the teams don't make the radio and telemetry units part of
the bike? Seems like they're handicapping their riders by making them
drag around a half a pound of batteries and antennas, when that could be
inserted into the (carbon fiber, for RF transparency) seat tube. Just
run a wiring harness down the rider's back from the headset, past the
HRM strap, and plug it into the bottom of the saddle. The weight would
be fixed on the bike, and the bike/rider package could be a bit lighter
that way.

Pat

The lighter initial weight means they can add other things that may or
may not add some advantage to the total package, yet still not weigh
more that the competitor's bikes, most of which are probably at or near
the lower limit as well.

Weight really only matters when the bike is accelerating, at the start,
and out of turns. Technically, once the bike is moving, MORE weight woul
be of advantage, due to Newton's laws of motion.

- -
Comments and opinions compliments of,
"Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"

My web Site:
http://geocities.com/czcorner

To E-mail me:
ChrisZCorner "at" webtv "dot" net

Quoted message said:

The first thing they need to do is make the bike weight proportional to
the rider's weight. It's ridiculous that the little climbers have to
push the same bike up the hills as the big guys.

Only if they're not allowed to adjust the saddle height first! <g>

Quoted message said:

It takes away some of
their former competitiveness in races with significant climbing.

Didn't the little guys' bikes already weigh less than the big guys'
bikes because they (frames) were smaller? Maybe less a factor today
than when frames were steel, of course. --D-y

Chris Z The Wheelman said:

Weight really only matters when the bike is accelerating, at the start,
and out of turns. Technically, once the bike is moving, MORE weight woul
be of advantage, due to Newton's laws of motion.

Not uphill...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The first thing they need to do is make the bike weight proportional to
the rider's weight. It's ridiculous that the little climbers have to
push the same bike up the hills as the big guys.

Quoted message said:

Didn't the little guys' bikes already weigh less than the big guys'
bikes because they (frames) were smaller? Maybe less a factor today
than when frames were steel, of course. --D-y

Theoretically, if you could build a 16lb bike that would be just strong
enough for a 190lb rider, then a 120lb rider could have the same
reliability on a lighter bike... not just a lighter frame, but lighter
everything. But, the current rules limit weight to 16lbs+, so that is
what everyone's climbing bike weighs. The lighter riders are handicaped
because weight of their bike is proportionally greater than it is for
the heavier riders. This makes it more difficult for a lightweight to
win a race like the Tour, since they still have the disadvantage in the
TTs like always (relatively poor P/CdA), and now their climbing
"advantage" (good P/W) has been partially erased.

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

On 6 Jul 2006 21:15:53 -0700, "PiledHIgher" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Maybe we need formula one type regulations that say one frame for the
whole season...

And how is that going to be managed? Race organizers and officials are
busy enough w/o having to keep track of bikes.

While I think it would be very, very difficult to enforce 1 bike per
season, it should be quite easy to enforce, say, 2 frames per event, or
18 frames per team per event--similar to the way they currently handle
water bottles. This would force reliability on frames, but not so much
on other components. So if one wanted to be really draconian, one could
forbid bike changes _except among team members_ during a stage. So if a
rider breaks something that can't be fixed on the road, his choices are
to abandon or get a teammate to abandon while taking his bike.

Then the teams would have to think pretty clearly about the reliability
of the equipment that they are using during the Grand Tours, and it
would also more align their incentives with those of us at home--if I
break a bike, I can't just wait 'til the car behind me brings
another--my wife would get tired of that game _really_ fast. That's why
I ride a 5 lb frame (w/ a 1.5 lb fork).

Matt.