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

[choke]

Originally Posted by flying

Simple test
You can stand on the side of a bike hold bar with one hand & with pedal/crank at 6 o'clock put a foot on pedal & push towards the crank. This shows how much BB lateral flex that bike has.

I grew up with that 'test'. But it really doesn't tell you anything..... almost all of the flex that you see comes from the tires and wheels.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

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.

My favorite succinct summary of this whole issue came from a luthier addressing that whole question amongst guitarists about "does [this material] make a difference in sound?" which is kinda the equivalent of bicycle debates about Does [Carbon, or Steel, or Titanium, etc.] Affect The Ride?

He said "Everything makes a difference. The question is...can you hear the difference?"

Change "hear" to "feel" and that's bicycles.

[vincenz]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

Your right, comfort is about more than just vertical compliance. But I think we can agree that it starts there - sitting on anything that perfectly rigid won't be very comfortable. And since there is so little vertical compliance in the frame, it might as well be perfectly rigid, and therefore it contributes essentially nothing to comfort.

A bike does not only flex up and down. How do you ride your bikes? Do you "ride" them by stripping them down to the frame and stand in one plane on the top tube and exert force perfectly vertically? The truss analogy is flawed, which the entire video is based on.

If comfort includes vertical compliance, it also doesn't end there. Let me make a shirt of rubber with the same stretchiness as cotton and say it's as comfortable as cotton.

[colker]

Comfort on the bike comes from getting used to effort and suffering. Long rides, sustained efforts, spin, hammer and it becomes comfortable.
A bike that feels good is a bit different than comfortable. A bike that feels like it´s working w/ you or an extension of your body.. all these dscriptions seem flawed but you get the picture.. That feeling comes from frame and wheels; not the seatpost, saddle or bar tape. A high end steel frame feels better than lower grade steel. A high end steel, aluminium or titanium frame built or designed by an inspired pro feels better and that´s no placebo.
A touring bike, a mountain bike, a gravel bike are not a racing bike. The video shows a lot of touring and gravel bikes w/ fat tires. I wouldn´t judge those bikes together w/ a racing bike and 700x25 tires on light stiff wheels.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by 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.

Exactly. The double diamond frame by its design can't flex in a vertical plane.

And for decades people used steel forks without complaint that they were too harsh. They absorbed bumps as best as they could without being wimpy.

Like bostondrunk said; rider position, tire width, and pressure a contribute to ride comfort.

[weisan]

Originally Posted by Peter P.

Like bostondrunk said; rider position, tire width, and pressure a contribute to ride comfort.

I would add - good riding habits/techniques like...

1) standing up slightly out of the saddle, with your legs bent, hands relaxed, to absorb impact/vibrations when going through bumps, rairoad tracks and rough sections of the road

2) consciously relaxing your fingers, hands, shoulders, no death grips, changing your hand positions around the handlebar, alternate between holding on the hoods, tops, drops, every so often during the ride

3) occasionally stand up and stretch your back

4) good breathing techniques

5) don't just fixate your eyes in front, look around, turn your heads, roll your neck

6) good fit on your shoes, cleat positions, well ventilated, not strapped too tight, restrict blood flow

7) good comfortable bibs, jerseys, use chamois cream if desired, layer up or down appropriately for the weather

All these you can do, as a rider, to improve your overall ride comfort.

[vincenz]

Originally Posted by colker

A touring bike, a mountain bike, a gravel bike are not a racing bike. The video shows a lot of touring and gravel bikes w/ fat tires. I wouldn´t judge those bikes together w/ a racing bike and 700x25 tires on light stiff wheels.

Exactly. If you’re putting 50mm tires on a bike with touring geo, it’s not going to matter what material your frame is made of. All of the nuance will be lost in the tires followed by the upright geo.

The title of the video makes a blanket statement and isn’t applicable to all bikes and all riding styles.

[Clancy]

Originally Posted by Peter P.

Exactly. The double diamond frame by its design can't flex in a vertical plane.

And for decades people used steel forks without complaint that they were too harsh. They absorbed bumps as best as they could without being wimpy.

Like bostondrunk said; rider position, tire width, and pressure a contribute to ride comfort.

If a double diamond frame cannot flex in a vertical plane then why.....

S shaped seatstays/chainstays?
Dropped seatstays?
Ultra small diameter seatstays
Specific shaped chainstays?

I’m very curious.

[fa63]

It is not that a double diamond frame cannot flex (it does). It is that the amount of flex for a given input force is much less than that of the tires and the seatpost. So the frame is the stiffest spring in the system. Adding shaped stays etc. can make it less stiff, but my guess would be that even with those features, the frame would remain the stiffest spring by a good amount.

Originally Posted by Clancy

If a double diamond frame cannot flex in a vertical plane then why.....

S shaped seatstays/chainstays?
Dropped seatstays?
Ultra small diameter seatstays
Specific shaped chainstays?

I’m very curious.

[martl]

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.

Erm, no. If we define comfort in a technical way as "ability to absorb road imperfections" we of course can put numbers on it. This isn't rocket science either. It can be calculated and it can be measured. It's just physics.

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.

The physics are the same ragardless of the parameters you name. Their dimensions vary.

You can feel a difference between the frames of different materials, but you won't feel a difference between the frame materials in terms of what amount of the road profile arrives at the riders butt and hands (contact points) because it needs to "travel" through almost all of the bicycles parts. Several of these are softer/more springy than the frame, some by a factor of 10-20. A handlebar will "flex" under a given load of 80kg in the millimeter range, most seatpost/saddle rails as well. The frame will "flex" between 0.1 and 0.3mm under the same load. It just drowns in the noise.

[Germany_chris]

I have a feeling that my leather saddle and 43mm tires have far more to do with comfort than the frame material they are attached to.

[ergott]

Originally Posted by vincenz

Except comfort cannot be solely defined by vertical compliance, so his entire video is pointless and clickbaity.

I might suggest "comfort" can more easily be defined measuring the bike/fork resonant frequency.

[mcteague]

Originally Posted by Clancy

If a double diamond frame cannot flex in a vertical plane then why.....

S shaped seatstays/chainstays?
Dropped seatstays?
Ultra small diameter seatstays
Specific shaped chainstays?

I’m very curious.

Marketing? I always wondered why makers of curved stays don't attach some sort of strain gauge and compare straight and curved SS of the same diameter tubing. My guess is neither moves any perceptible amount. As it is difficult, but not impossible, to do proper blind riding tests we will always be left with our own prejudices on how we interpret a bike's ride.

Tim

[colker]

Originally Posted by mcteague

Marketing? I always wondered why makers of curved stays don't attach some sort of strain gauge and compare straight and curved SS of the same diameter tubing. My guess is neither moves any perceptible amount. As it is difficult, but not impossible, to do proper blind riding tests we will always be left with our own prejudices on how we interpret a bike's ride.

Tim

Shock absorption, tire clearance, brake efficiency. Not marketing: you can market straight or curved stays the same.

[martl]

Originally Posted by colker

Shock absorption, tire clearance, brake efficiency. Not marketing: you can market straight or curved stays the same.

Definitely marketing. A bike frame is 11 tubes connected. If someone sees a whiff of a chance to do something a tiny bit different than the competition which does 99.9% the exact same product, they will. The bull****ters from marketing will explain the customer why "different" has to be better.
Its a common thing ever since the market changed from "lets sell this person a bike and sell him another one in 20 years from now" to "market sesearch says the average consumer is willing to fork out $$$ for a new item on average every 3 years if we give him enough incentive to lie to himself that theres a noticeable improvement (works in other fields of the hobby/consumer market as well, skis, cars, tv sets, etc. etc...)

Can you explain how any of the variations Clancy mentioned should do anything to "brake efficiency"?