Idle musings on what makes a bike ride 'smooth'

[lorenbike]

Originally Posted by 19wisconsin64

Hi, this is a great topic, and one that resonates with me as I ride on not-perfect roads with my road bicycle. Here's what I've learned / adapted to recently:

-Switching to a high compliant 3D printed saddle.
-Utilizing rims that have an internal width as wide as possible-I'm using a 25 mm internal rim width now, and will go to 32 in the near future.
-Fitting as wide a tire as possible, up to 32 or 35 mm for a road tire.
-Additional padding below the touch points on handlebars, and padded bar tape.
-Comfortable cycling shoes / socks / padded gloves.

I'm sure (the original poster of this thread) is aware of all or most of these things. It's a lot of adjustments to the "touch points" that I've found make my modern bicycle easier to ride on my body than my 1980's steel bicycles with their limitations. Cheers

Interesting with the 3D saddle and comfort. Next year might be the year I finally ditch padded bibs and Lycra even on the road bike. I’ve thought leather saddles are the way to go but maybe the new batch of 3d saddles are worth a try too?

Rim width and tire width is no surprise. Any tire >28mm is just so much more noticeably smooth than other factors.

And shoes I agree too. It’s not acceptable but crocs plus wide platform pedals are so comfy, but I won’t ditch the spds just yet on the road bike.

[slowpoke]

Going back to NHAero's original intent of removing variables: ideally you have the same wheelset and seatpost diameter and that's probably as close as one gets for an experimenet.

And ultimately as thwart mentioned on page 1, rim brake forks should be more compliant than disc forks because they don't need that additional bracing so far down.