Boonen wins again on Alum. Spec

[AgilisMerlin]

50th E3 Prijs Vlaanderen - 1.HC, Belgium, March 31, 2007

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2007/mar07/E3prijs07/SPO-E307-001.jpg
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2007/mar07/E3prijs07/SPO-E307-002.jpg

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007/mar07/E3prijs07/?id=results

[AgilisMerlin]

Specialized now advertising the alum. bike/problem/victories:

http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCWhatsNewDetail.jsp?article=5919&refp=TeamRoad

[SponsorsWanted]

I like the "quotes" Tom provided.

[wooly]

Nice spin. And I don't mean the wheels.

[max_powers]

yep, if they had him on a stock 58cm Tarmac, I feel his pain. I'm also 6'3" and the 58 tarmac is a bit of a pain, yet responsive.

[David Kirk]

Some kind of "silk purse - sows ear" deal.

Cool that he found something that works though.


Dave

[andy mac]

it's nearly like skill and fitness could be more important than the bike...

:beer:

aem iv.

[David Kirk]

it's nearly that skill and fitness could be more important than the bike...

:beer:

aem iv.

Sacrilege! I thought we all agreed that if you spend enough on Ti bottle bolts that you'll win everything!

Dave

[Erik.Lazdins]

I may be wrong but...

Boonen seems to me to be the real deal. No-excuses-no-refer-to-thyself-in-the 3rd-person seems to be in a good space and now 2 for 2 on the new steed.

Warning shot across the bow for his rivals with the April Classics peaking over the next fortnight!

[atmo]

atmo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwSCVmCWTeI)

[swoop]

poor paolo and his exploding rear mech. and how about fabian c looking mighty strong too?

[3chordwonder]

If his rear derailleur broke, Bettini must have switched to Durace or something for the event. It couldn't have been a near new Record component. My 2007 Campagnolo catalog clearly states that the Record rear derailleur 'communicates an unarrestable competitive charge', so if he'd been using Record, he'd have won.

[Ginger]

Alrighty then...my stupid bike racing question (that I've wondered about after a few years of watching race footage...)

Do the camera/official/support motorcycles accompanying the race slow the racers down on a somewhat regular basis?

Just curious...I've seen some very close footage of some fairly disgusted looking racers over the years.

[pdxmech13]

poor paolo and his exploding rear mech. and how about fabian c looking mighty strong too?

stinkin replaceable hangers.
do more bad for these 10speed bikes than good.

[stevep]

watch the cyclocross worlds and see what the tv camera did to bart and sven. took away the gold and silver.
yes, they do get in the way sometimes.
yes, the coverage is worth it.
thats bike racing.
the motorcycles also crash from time to time..its chaos out there...like a real life video game.

Alrighty then...my stupid bike racing question (that I've wondered about after a few years of watching race footage...)

Do the camera/official/support motorcycles accompanying the race slow the racers down on a somewhat regular basis?

Just curious...I've seen some very close footage of some fairly disgusted looking racers over the years.

[atmo]

watch the cyclocross worlds and see what the tv camera did to bart and sven. took away the gold and silver.

stevep gets it atmo.

[Kevan]

see what the tv camera did to bart and sven. took away the gold and silver.

some peaches needed taking too.

[yeehawfactor]

fwiw depends on who you ask
http://images.google.com/url?q=http://www.velo101.net/imagesactu/06042005_1gf.jpg&usg=__rj4Gp-pHKhfheGBTTj8uHeDC8Hw=
Alrighty then...my stupid bike racing question (that I've wondered about after a few years of watching race footage...)

Do the camera/official/support motorcycles accompanying the race slow the racers down on a somewhat regular basis?

Just curious...I've seen some very close footage of some fairly disgusted looking racers over the years.

[Grant McLean]

poor paolo and his exploding rear mech. and how about fabian c looking mighty strong too?

I felt bad for Bettini, that was a nice attack he made just before his bike
burst into flames. How about Fabian: bridges the gap like he was out
for a saturday afternoon stroll, and then waiting for O'Grady a few
k's later, and helping him make the gap too. That was cool teamwork.
Fabian looked pretty good in the final sprint, for a guy who's the time
trial world champ!

g

[Grant McLean]

Do the camera/official/support motorcycles accompanying the race slow the racers down on a somewhat regular basis?

Just curious...I've seen some very close footage of some fairly disgusted looking racers over the years.

Sometimes it also seems like the motorcycles allow riders in a breakaway to draft to help them from getting caught.
You can often see the race director in the car yelling at the camera bikes
to move ahead of the riders. It's frustrating for the main field to see that the
break is getting a draft to help keep away from the chasers.

g

[stevep]

what? aid from the locals?
impossible.
somewhere i have a video of fignon losing the final tt to moser in the giro in '84.
a helicopter sat above moser to push him along.

the act was loosely repeated in 89 but sans helicopter... but legit in 89.

[KJMUNC]

Word on the street is that the alum jobber is/was in place just as a stop-gap while a custom carbon version is laid up for him. They tried to make the stock geo tarmac work, but it just didn't suit him so they welded up the black bike with more favorable geo's to fit his needs. It definitely ain't stock, that's fer sure. He should be debuting the new rig shortly......

[mjb266]

How many companies do custom carbon...Colnago, Parlee, Serotta, Look, Time, Calfree....

?Specalized?

Are they really going to try to mock up a Tarmac with a custom geometry for him? What type of tooling up $$$ is that? Perhaps someone in the industry could comment as I think you would have to sell a TON of bikes at a mediocre margin to make up for a $100,000 custom frame job.

[yeehawfactor]

How many companies do custom carbon...Colnago, Parlee, Serotta, Look, Time, Calfree....

?Specalized?

Are they really going to try to mock up a Tarmac with a custom geometry for him? What type of tooling up $$$ is that? Perhaps someone in the industry could comment as I think you would have to sell a TON of bikes at a mediocre margin to make up for a $100,000 custom frame job.
or, you could have something made by someone else and spend ten thousand on the whole deal. rebadging rulez!

[saab2000]

The money they spend on making Tom Boonen a few custom bikes pales in comparison to the value of having him perceived as riding and being happy with one of their bikes. He is a megastar in the sport and worth the investment to make a custom bike which looks like a Specialized.

However, the bad publicity they have also had because of this does not speak well of their product.

Tom Boonen and Levi Leipheimer are not the same type or size of rider, but you never heard of LL having issues. Just an observation.

[stevep]

i wish i had an aluminum specialized so that i could win races like that.

its easy to fabricate a custom carbon frame for this guy.
all the talk of $100k, 35k each for molds is irrelevant.
they will do it and it will look kinda normal in the photos.
not that big a deal.
give nick crumpton $20 k and a photo of the specialized bike, one of his old time frames and boonen would be riding it in 2 weeks...and looking mighty good.

its just not something that they would ever attempt for retail sale.

[AgilisMerlin]

I would find it intriquing if he stayed on alum. for the rest of the season.

He has not been quoted as saying he will go back.

Funny story.

No one can denying the victories.


Paris/Roub on alum. sounds good to me.


why screw with a winning formula.

[William]

watch the cyclocross worlds and see what the tv camera did to bart and sven. took away the gold and silver.
yes, they do get in the way sometimes.
yes, the coverage is worth it.
thats bike racing.
the motorcycles also crash from time to time..its chaos out there...like a real life video game.

http://www.tracksounds.com/images/misc/rollerball_big.jpg

http://www.scifimoviepage.com/images/rollerball.jpg


I hear they're changing the rules for the cobbles of Paris/Robaix, Spiked gloves recommended, but not required. ;)




William

[BdaGhisallo]

I read somewhere that Wilfred Peeters, one of his dsportifs, commented that Spec. were indeed working up new molds based on the geo on the alu bike. The cost he mentioned was about 15K eur if I recall correctly.

[BdaGhisallo]

I read somewhere that Wilfred Peeters, one of his dsportifs, commented that Spec. were indeed working up new molds based on the geo on the alu bike. The cost he mentioned was about 15K eur if I recall correctly.

It would be a shame to see him back on that abomination of a bike, since the alu frame looks so bad*ss!!

[gt6267a]

Production Vs. Prototypes

One thought about the 100k molds … that is a robust mold capable of making thousands of frames in a timely fashion. Do you think there were not prototypes of the Tarmac? i.e. they got it right on the first try? Do you think it costs them 100k every time they want to try a new design? I call BS on that.

Prototyping is an industry / craft within itself. For example, one might make a sample XYZ with a CNC machine and but use a mold / stamping process for the production run to make new type of wrench. There are lots of options here. Speculating on different options, I imagine molds that are good for one frame and are cut away, molds that require 100x the labor to setup but are good for 10 frames, and molds that are ABC and DEF.

There is a big difference between setting up for a production run where mass expense on molds and machinery are justified to save labor Vs a prototype where labor costs are almost irrelevant. I could not tell you what technique Specialized or Trek or Kestrel or blah blah blah use to make prototypes but they do it and it doesn’t cost 100k.