For comment: "Why It's Impossible For Steel Frames To Be More Comfortable..."

[RWL2222]

One thing that struck me on returning to cycling was how much old truisms, supposedly rooted in engineering, have been debunked--skinny wheels, 'anatomic' components, clipless pedals, etc. It makes me wonder what else that is commonly assumed now by enthusiasts but may be not true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb4ktAbmr_4 (corrected link)

The title aside, this video (<10minutes) offers up some challenge data on the sources of bike flex and comfort. This is related to, but separate from a post today here on spun weight, which this vid gives some possible insight on as well.

What say others here with deep expertise?

[cgolvin]

Typo in the link, should be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb4ktAbmr_4

[RWL2222]

Thank you. Corrected now
Not sure how that happened.

[bostondrunk]

Didn't watch the video, but I think the days have gone by when folks here on the forum were convinced their carbon seat post was making their ride more comfortable.....(of course their bikes were also still 'stiff yet compliant').

Bike comfort is position, and tire width and pressure. Not frame material.

[NHAero]

We measured this with less sophisticated instruments (weights, and dial indicators) in the MIT Aluminum Bike Frame project in 1974. Nothing new here. Vertically, if you isolate the frame, it's really stiff, especially the rear triangle, which with threwheel axle is a tetrahedron.

[ultraman6970]

Well... just to start you have look at geometries, some geometries are more comfortable than other ones. But if all the frames are exactly the same geometry and you change the material some materials are stiffer than other ones.

You can have a softer seatpost, and softer wheels, actually some rims are softer than other ones, same with tires. So that thing about whats more comfortable it really depends of geometry and what do you have installed in the frame you know.

The other thing is that surprise me that nobody wants to admit that marketing had been feeding us BS for a very long time, and many just bought it big time.

There's an article about same bike geometry but different materials.

ps: tubes in the frame construction can make a big difference aswell.

[colker]

The most important component for comfort is paint. Yellow bikes are significantly more comfortable.. if you are fit and have been riding a lot.

[cinema]

Thanks for the link. I thought the video was extremely well scripted and and explained. It confirmed a lot about what I've noticed over the years, one thing that changed a lot for me was moving from thin lightweight bar tape to thicker cork tape. it's the little things that seem obvious which make the ride a lot better. Thought the whole time it was the stiff carbon fork that was beating me up but the tape changed my tune.

[Elefantino]

Steel planes.

[reuben]

I pump up my tires at 7,000 - 10,000 feet. The lighter air in the tires makes me significantly faster when I ride down.

[Blown Reek]

Originally Posted by colker

The most important component for comfort is paint.

This.

Originally Posted by colker

Yellow bikes are significantly more comfortable.

Not this.

[bicycletricycle]

that guy produces some pretty good content. One thing he doesn't cover is the consequences of the different kind of "suspension" he covers. Vertical frame flex, tire distortion and seat post flex all feel different and have different effects other than just smoothing out bumps.

It is true that trying to get ride comfort from frame flex is the hardest way to do it. However, if you are limited to skinny tires and racing style frames than pursuing improved ride quality through frame design isn't a bad idea. It just turns out that the differences have been exaggerated.

[colker]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

that guy produces some pretty good content. One thing he doesn't cover is the consequences of the different kind of "suspension" he covers. Vertical frame flex, tire distortion and seat post flex all feel different and have different effects other than just smoothing out bumps.

It is true that trying to get ride comfort from frame flex is the hardest way to do it. However, if you are limited to skinny tires and racing style frames than pursuing improved ride quality through frame design isn't a bad idea. It just turns out that the differences have been exaggerated.

There is more to comfort than vertical compliance.

[vincenz]

More clickbait. People will do anything for views won’t they?

Too bad you can’t measure comfort solely by a number. That’s like if you were to quantify the comfort of a shirt by measuring only how stretchy it is. Will that single number really tell you how comfortable any shirt is? There are differences in different materials that cannot be captured by a number.

It’s obvious the guy does not ride race frames. Build up a steel race frame and then an aluminum frame or carbon frame, with the exact same parts, with skinnier tires, then get report back. If you can’t discern any difference at all, then I don’t know what to say.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by vincenz

More clickbait. People will do anything for views won’t they?

Too bad you can’t measure comfort solely by a number. That’s like if you were to quantify the comfort of a shirt by measuring only how stretchy it is. Will that single number really tell you how comfortable any shirt is? There are differences in different materials that cannot be captured by a number.

It’s obvious the guy does not ride race frames. Build up a steel race frame and then an aluminum frame or carbon frame, with the exact same parts, with skinnier tires, then get report back. If you can’t discern any difference at all, then I don’t know what to say.

Why is it obvious that the guy does not ride race frames? It's been found that people who ride race frames (including those who do it for a living) have difficulty in distinguishing "comfort" between frames.

It is true that you can't measure "comfort" directly with a scientific instrument. To determine differences in human sensations, you need humans. But human's are easily influenced by pre-conception and bias. (For example, tests have found that when people see a wine being poured from a fancy bottle, they find it tastes better than the exact same wine when they see it being poured from a less fancy bottle). To get around that, blind (and sometimes double blind) test protocols have been developed. So what happens when you subject riders to blind tests of bicycle frames? That's been done a few times - and when it has been done, the riders weren't very good at distinguishing differences in comfort between frames. In this interview with Josh Poertner (one of the engineers at Zipp who has worked with many racing teams), he describes doing blind tests with industry professionals:

I've participated in numerous blind product studies over the years where we controlled bikes or the wheels (I've done this twice with a bike manufacturer during development work around a pro team, and many times with wheels) with fabric shield tensioned between seat post and stem, flat black rattle can paint on everything, etc. In each of these studies, the entire subject group including pro riders, engineers, and other industry people with LOTS of experience, struggled to find any real differences between any of the bikes, until after the study was de-blinded and everybody (including me) instantly began to try and rationalize it all… This is just human nature, we all do it, and from experience, it is nearly impossible NOT to do it.

One of the major discoveries was that after controlling for seat post (round post shimmed into aero frame so as to not give it away) not a single rider found the aero road bike to be less comfortable, less compliant, etc, than the identically setup 'endurance' or 'roubaix' bike (clearly this leaves room for the aero seat post to be why people feel aero bikes are less compliant..seatposts generally have more effect on bike compliance in the lab than frames do, but that's another story).

So, if pro racers can't feel the difference in comfort between an aero road frame and an endurance road frame, why do you think you can?