CobraRGuy said:I would agree. carbon has three qualities that make it an almost ideal
material for use in bike frames, etc. It's very light, very strong, and
is naturally very good at absorbing vibration. Having said that, I will
add that because of the inherent ridgidity of the material, it's really
only good at absorbing high frequency vibrations. To enable carbon
frames to absorb more low and mid frequency vibrations, Specialized has
added their "Zertz" viscoelastic vibration damping material into it's
frames to make them even more comfortable. This material was originally
developed and used by the tennis racket industry and is used in the
handle of rackets so the vibration of the ball hitting the strings does
not travel up the handle to the player's hand. Specialized uses it in
the fork, seat stays, and seat post. All of these are in the path from
the road to the rider. It works. Check out their web site:
http://specialized.com/bc/techlab_zertz.jsp?a=b
Perry
Thanks for the comment!
A couple of points. It would seem that improvements in the fork,seat
stays, and seat post could help dampen vibration regardless of frame
material. So, those improvements - if they are real- should help on any
frame.
But as I say in an earlier post below I'm always a bit perplexed by the
whole comfort discussion. I have about 60,000 miles on steel bikes,
around 40,000 on Ti and now several thousand on a full carbon bike,
They have all been comfortable. Surely there are variances in ride
characteristics but I have logged many miles over time and in single
days on all of them.
So, my own experience leads me to believe that comfort is most closely
achieved by 1) proper bike fit, and 2) by proper conditioning. I think
that the advantages of 1) are obvious. But I also think that overall
fitness (not just cardio) also goes a long way for comfort. So, for
example having god core strength results in being able to support the
body without resting lots of weight on the hands. This results in less
road shock coming up through the hands and thus helps in overall
comfort as well as minimizing all the complaints aobut numb hands,
tired upper body, etc.
So, iI happen to like my current bike for its quick acceleration and
great stability on fast descents. However, the geometry that allows
those characteristics make it turn a bit less quickly than a bike with
a shorter top tupe set up for crits. But I wouldn't describe thoat a
difference in comfort. As I said I've never had a non comfortable bike
and I attribute that to fit and fitness.
