Techs-Mechs: Random Thoughts on Rest Day
by Mr Van P on Jul 21, 2010 9:49 PM EDT
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PrintToday is the rest day in the Pyrenees but not for the team mechanics (not that they ever rest during the race) but it's also a good day for recapping some of the highlights from a tech side. I have been following the Tour pretty regularly since 1994 and I remember then being fascinated with all the beautiful bikes of the era. Team Polti's Coppi's, Gewiss' Bianchi's, ONCE's alloy-lugged-carbon-maintube Look's, Carrera's, Motorola's Merckx (which I believe were rebadged and painted Litespeed ti frames), Chris Boardman's Lotus, Mapei Clas' Colnago's and my favorite of them all, the Pinarello Banesto ridden by champ Miguel Indurain. In 1994 we started seeing more tig welded frames, some oversized shaped tubes and titanium. We saw some some deep dish alloy rims, but still lots of standard box rim wheels. Stems were works of art (Cinelli XA for one), headsets glimmered as did everything else. Glory days for us old timers.
There really weren't a whole lot of tech stories other than photo's of JaJa's frame broken in three or four places after an epic stage 1 crash involving a gendarme with a camera. Road bikes of that era were heavy(ish), built for punishment and the drive trains were 8 speed Record or Dura Ace. Stuff just worked and other than the TT rigs the bikes (with a couple exceptions) looked like they could have been from 1984. I believe riders of that day were just comfortable on classic steel frames and the welders used it as an opportunity to show off their skills. (sniff..)
Fast forward to 2010 and all bikes of the Tour are carbon, but that's been the standard now for about 5 years but we are seeing much different components starting to push the envelope for better or for worse. We got to see Paris-Roubaix bikes that have been stowed away since April make a short appearance, but now we're back to the climbing bikes.
One trend I'm noticing is more modular bikes with tapered steerers, seatmasts and integrated cranksets/bb's. Shimano Di2 is here to stay for a while and frames are now being built specifically for that gruppo with batter pack compartments and internal cables. The Berner-design SRAM Red rear derailleur is gaining some attention too, but perhaps not in a positive way. Of course chains have been falling off bikes as long as they've existed, but I have never seen it happen at such an inopportune time for one of the favorites. Perhaps we are reaching the limits of how light and quick a shifting system should be with 11 speed drivetrains and 5.5mm wide chains. When does reliability trump hi tech?
My point is, bike companies seem to be in a constant race for a technological supremacy which is a fact of life. The trickle down effect (besides sky rocketing prices) to us weekend warriors makes it fun too as bikes get lighter, more aero and with plenty of snap, but in 1994 the racers really just needed something they could rely on for 3 weeks. How much of the state-of-the-art design today is more about marketing than actual..you know...speed? I'm not naive just sentimental and maybe a tad cheap.
Anyhow, it's been a fun Tour so far and tomorrow and Saturday should be epic.
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actually, most of the leader's bikes were pegorettis
under different labels.
For steel bikes (and a few carbon ones, like the Parlee that Tyler Hamilton had badged as a look, and the Cyfacs that get built to look like other bikes), the default assumption is that a pro’s bike (especially for a leader) was not built by the manufacturer decaled on the bike.
I think there is less of that these days
true
there was some speculation that Cipo’s and Boonen’s specialized bikes weren’t built for Sinyard’s company, but it looks like the vast majority of frames under pros these days are what the labels say they are. (although, there are sure to be exceptions).
Cipo’s frames were likely not out of the mass production line, and Boonen’s alloy frame he had to use for a season was a special one off, but his carbon frames are all outta’ the Big ‘S’ supply chain.
The switch to carbon frames has drastically reduced the re-badged pro bikes you used to see years ago.
Do or can the top riders get a custom engineered/handmade layup?
Odd geometry, stronger chainstays or built in motors ;-) for instance?
Avavtar in honour of #13, Fabian "I'm not superstitious" Cancellara
Typically, it moves in a slightly different way.
Back when composite frames were mainly produced in a Tube/Lug Fashion this was done a lot.
Time, Colnago, and many others would always make special composite frames to fit their riders, but now that the construction methods have, along with the shapes, become so optimized as well as complex it is now very costly to do this.
Yeah, sprinters may get an extra layer of carbon in some areas to stiffen up the bike, but that is actually less common then you would think.
Typically, Top Riders will still often request many special things for the bikes they ride, and they tend to get them too!
The main difference is that this feedback is directly added into the evolution of the product and the feedback of the Pro is used as ‘Bleeding Edge’ development which is goes into the new designs the customer can usually then purchase.
You see it all the time now where a rider is on some bike that seems a bit hopped up which then gets named BlaBla ‘SL’, Or ‘Team Issue’ or whatever.
There are always stories of some guy wanting bla bla bla, but it is just not nearly as much as it used to be on Frames.
I really feel the performance of the bikes has elevated so much since the 80’s that most riders are actually pretty happy with their bikes.
I could see maybe some Fork Rake modifications here and there to create the desired responsiveness a rider may want, but overall the number rebadged bike have gone way down.
Funny, because...
I set my bike up like that from the get go and just recently changed them to be more upright.
They were set up like that because I thought/think that the drops of the handlebars should be level with the ground and the bottom of the shifter lever should just the top of the level held flat against the bottom of the drops.
Result? When I am riding in the drop, it is harder for me to to reach my brake levers!
Racing for Victory and Free Beer!
Today's more ergo bars
make for a relatively flat transition from the bends to the lever, so my Ritchey Pro Logic II bar transitions quite nicely to my Campy levers. No awkward humps where my hands spend 90% of the time. I agree though that breaking from the drops isn’t ideal.
Is Schleck using the the modified rear derailleur?
With the longer cage and the odd sized pulleys?
Racing for Victory and Free Beer!
I saw a review early on in cn
that showed the bikes for the Schlecks and Fabian with the Berner-pulleys. But I’m not sure if that was just Fabian’s bike or if all three were using it.
The Motorola Merckx
was different according to season. In the spring they rode the MX Leader, which was steel all the way, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed to titanium for the Ardennes races. I can’t remember when the titanium models came in: earlier in the 90s they’d have been Corsa model bikes with SL/SLX tubing. The titanium models were an actual Merckx model (ulike Pegoretti’s Pinarellos): they sold them as Merckx bikes with a sticker that told you they were built by Litespeed; I think they had the standard Merckx geometry.
Yes, Litespeed was actually the supplier for ti Frames for Merckx back then and they had their own special geometry and fork rake.
I seem to recall the next season
when Motorola was on Caloi frames, that the sticker said Merckx by Litespeed. Caloi is a major brand in Brazil founded by an Italian Luigi Caloi in 1898 (Wiki is a wonderful thing..).
I think they are the equivalent today of any chain store brand like Huffy (ridden by La Vie Claire in 1985).
I seem to recall there weren't actually a lot of guys making ti.
I remember Merlin and Litespeed and (don’t quote me) but did Ron Kellog leave Litespeed to form Merlin or was it the other way around.
Electric shifting is just wrong somehow
The mechanical parts of a bicycle should be all mechanical. I get the power meters and such but have reservations there too. Personally I think they should have generators or mechanical speedometers – all power on the bike should come from the rider.
Location monitors are fine – that isn’t rider related and all should have the same thing.
Eddy Merckx never needed a computer, heart rate monitor, GPS, and all that other crap to win . . . .
Yeah I was ok with it at first
but looking at the Euski Orbea’s with the special cable routing for Di2 it just seemed wrong to me.
Any thoughts on the chainset and stem on the Look 695?
The chainset may be equvalent to the 11 cog cassette, but a)they may as well make the spindle as large as possible, and b) It’s more nicely done than e.g. Specialized’s own chainset. But, c) it’s yet another BB standard.
The stem
looks like a variation of their old Ergo stem which weighed about 500 grams and was adjustable in all direction. Why would you want a shim to change the bar reach? Also why would you want to adjust the stem height with extra hardware in the stem. It looks prone to coming loose at the wrong time, and besides isn’t that what headset spacers are for?
The crank is sorta cool, but I would never choose it over the 7900 crankset, which is my favorite crank out there (and I’m a Campy guy, but like the older alloy ones more than the carbon ones).
The stem is neater than the Ergostem but less fonctional,
a bit pointless really. Not as if you change your stem length/angle from day to day. The crank, yes it just looks cool, tht’s the appeal for me. It might actually be one-piece, which is also cool, and teh spindle diameter has crept up a little with the BB30 chainsets, if you can, may as well preempt the next increase by pulling the stop out and making it 50mm wide.
My next custom frame will have an Ashtabula BB Shell
Then I can just install whatever bearing/spacer set-up the industry is into at the moment.
It seems to be moving all over the place with eveyone trying to optimize things down there.
Interesting thing about that crank is that it looks to handle both 110 and 130 bcd.
Otherwise I can’t see the point of that second set of holes offset a bit from the first.
you're correct
also, the pedal threads are drilled into a triangular insert at an offset so that by rotating the insert, you can achieve 165, 170, or 175 mm crank length (i think those numbers are right, it could be 170, 172.5, and 175) basically one mold makes six different crank possibilities.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
I actually like the idea of a crank drilled for 130 or 110 BCD.
I would find that quite useful. I don’t love the idea of adjustable crank arm lengths though. When woul you really need to change that, and it’s just another thing that can go wrong.
The crank arm length is not about the customer at all, but rather the entire supply chain getting to the customer.
Shops can hold less inventory.
Distributors can level inventory and easily produce quarterly ‘turns’
Look can order in quantities substantial enough to gain competitive pricing
The Manufacture can better optimize the life cycle of the tooling
. . . ect . . . .
Agreed, but as a consumer
I wouldn’t want something adjustable if I can buy it one-piece in my size. It’s like buying skis with rental binding plates which gives you a huge range in boot size fitting. I buy them for my still-growing sons, but for me it would just be extra weight and slop. Having seen bushings work loose in carbon cranks, I’m already slightly jaded.
BUT i totally see your point. Example, I like Cannondale’s and would eventually like to order a frame with the SI cranks. I’m a perfect 58cm by Cannondale’s sizing (I own a 58cm CAAD8), but if you were to buy a module the 58cm comes with a 175mm crankset. I ride a 172.5 so it would need to be a special order. The Look crank would solve that problem.
The biggest change I've seen over the last twenty years is in the cockpit.
Ergo bartops, flat ramp to hood transition, lever/shifters all seem to me a fantastic improvement in arm/wrist comfort and relaxation.
The legs still have to pedal circles and the pain is still there.
Jens! Specialized broke into 4 pieces the other day. WTF?
Avavtar in honour of #13, Fabian "I'm not superstitious" Cancellara
no frame can hold Jens!
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
Carbon Fiber Composites constructed in the manner most common in Bicycle Frames, Forks, Bars, Seatpost, Rims, Cranks, ect . . . really do not like impacts.
If you want to crash on your bike, dust off and keep going, then I’d suggest you stick with something with a material property which has a greater ability to take a hit.
it's all about ti.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
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