#31
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Mad Skillz! |
#32
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As for history, there are plenty of broken 1" aluminum stems from the pro peloton. Even farther back, there were all sorts of failures with steel forks. The type of failure that comes to mind is the separation of the head tube at the fork crown. This caused a lot of racers to jam broom handles in the bottom of the steerer tube and cut them off. Every now and then a vintage bike shows up with a "cornuellet" (sp?) which is the broom handle in the steerer. Last edited by tctyres; 09-17-2019 at 08:47 AM. |
#33
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If the whole bike was steel and had a vintage steel weight maybe that would make a difference on a hilly/mountainous course. Carbon fork with steel steerer I am having a hard time believing would have kept him from placing. |
#34
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Production steel frames gained weight over the years to meet more-stringent standards for strength as carbon frames and forks got ever lighter. I remember the day that someone brought me a (Tange Prestige-tubed) Soma frameset to be built up, and how shocked that I was by it's heft when it was handed to me. Custom builders are free to build precisely to the customer's weight, so can create a much lighter steel frameset. It seems fortunate to me that 1" quill stems can still be made to modern standards (and at low cost) in both steel and aluminum! |
#35
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As for a carbon fork with a steel steerer, you're probably right. I doubt that Bianchi would offer that to their teams, though. |
#36
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I've witnessed it happen. In the New England District Championship road race one year I was at the feed zone, supporting a rider on my team. As the 1/2 race came by, a child ran out into the road (I think he was trying to give a water bottle hand up to his father). One rider had to slam on his brakes to avoid running into the child. As the rider braked, his steel fork steerer snapped (at the crown), dropping the rider to the ground. Fortunately, the feed zone was on an uphill, so the riders weren't going very fast, and the crashed rider escaped serious injury.
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#37
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It was also common to throw a pinch of salt over your shoulder for luck. Both were equally effective.
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#38
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#39
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If the rider misses out on getting a good draft or gets in bad positions or sits up on the bar tops when they shouldn't that stuff is all way way more significant than these little things the bike companies tell us mean everything. I don't know how you measure this stuff... Watt*Seconds or something? Sure a fork that has 1W more drag has that for the whole race. But missing a draft for a minute or two here or there as the race goes on would add up to many thousands of these Watt*Seconds. There's no reason if you're in the race not to take advantage of some of this stuff but it doesn't mean if a team didn't that it would be a make or break difference. |
#40
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Acknowledging it wouldn't have done much for a steel steerer, in this case it would've saved the guy some skin.
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#41
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#42
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Also, some of today's stems are closed off at the top, so there's no option to add any spacer(s) above the stem. |
#43
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A big problem with steerer failure is lack of support from the inside. I only supply really long expander plugs. The short ones like the ones from Hope, Enve, KCNC and numerous others, they don't go past the stress point. This fork failed right below the stem. No spacers below it. If he had a longer plug in it would've supported the load. The plug would've gone below the stem and into the top plate of the headset. Some companies are giving longer plugs like Colnago. Luescher Teknik has been pushing this for a few years now. I've only offered longer plugs of 50-60mm long or longer if someone wants them. Deda and Columbus are offering them now as well cause of this problem.
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#44
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^^^ Excellent! Haven't seen that before, but is a great idea.
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#45
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Anecdotally, the last death in the pro peloton was Bjorn Lambrecht a month or two ago. The youtube video shows him raising his hand as if he had a mechanical. Then he steers into a deep irrigation ditch and probably cracked a vertebrae going over the handlebars --- very sad. Again, this does not appear to have anything to do with the weight of the bike. |
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