Redemption ride - finishing unfinished business / Old school vs New

[Fixed]

Great shots thanks for sharing
Cheers

[Louis]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Oof, zero comparison. The carbon modern bike is better in every single category than the yesteryear steel bike. Dont get me wrong, the Merckx is a great, comfortable versatile bike, and rides great in it's own regard, but there is no question the modern carbon bike excels in every single respect. Just an observation having ridden basically the same route back to back.

Just out of curiosity, what would you say were the most noticeable differences?

(other than the inability of the CF bike to change gears at the end)

[buddybikes]

The Merckk sent newbie bad vibes and help cause that little issue to walk. Don't you know these old studs have a soul? Shouldn't have told him that it is his turn to go out for a ride later...

[NHAero]

Don't have a carbon wunderbike but my Firefly is pretty light and has high end wheels and 9100, it's about 17 pounds. I prefer its ride over the thirty year old Casati slightly. The Casati is 10s Record/Chorus. Total average times on both are really close, but the fastest rides are definitely the FF. Yesterday the stars aligned (it was warm, modest wind, just 112 miles in the previous six days) and I broke my best time on my 32 mile route by 12 minutes on the FF, first time over 17 mph average. So I do think modern bikes can be faster. I also think that Rob English could make a steel bike that would be indistinguishable in speed and ride from a carbon bike.

Nick, you didn't tell us how the RD blew up, I'd love to know.

[happycampyer]

The stone structure in the OP reminds me of the stone gazebos at Mohonk Mountain House:




I hadn't picked up on this thread until it hit 4 pages. For the last several days, I've been thinking about starting a similar thread, or posting in the "Where does a classic road bike fit in your cycling life?" thread.

Over the last several weeks, I have been riding different bikes over the same loop, sometimes back-to-back on the same day. The loop isn't very long, and conditions can vary from day to day, so it's no controlled experiment. The results are probably more inconclusive than anything.

The three bikes in particular that I have been rotating through are a Cervelo R3, a Firefly road disc and a Serotta CSi. The Cervelo has Athena EPS, Zipp 303s and Veloflex Arenbergs, the Firefly has Dura-Ace Di2, Enve 3.4s and 28mm Schwalbe G-Ones, and the CSi has Super Record, first-gen Hyperons and Veloflex Carbons.

On a back-to-back ride with the Firefly, the Cervelo felt faster, but the total elapsed times of the two rides were literally seconds apart. Interestingly, on a short, steep downhill section, I hit 34.1 mph on the Cervelo, and 37.3 mph on the Firefly. On the next outing, I hit 36.9 mph on the CSi. The total elapsed time on the loop on the CSi was also faster than on the Cervelo or Firefly. My average and high heart rates on each of the rides are within a couple of beats of each other, so it's not like I was riding harder on one bike than another.

I'm going to do a few more loops to see if the results are consistent or a fluke. As noted above, the whole exercise (no pun intended) is entirely unscientific, but it's was eye-opening to me that the Cervelo wasn't faster given that it is the lightest, and probably the most aero, of the three bikes.

[NHAero]

Great to have your heart rate data as well as the speeds.
Does this have anything to do with speed? I tend to wonder if I am slow enough that aero benefits are slight.

Originally Posted by happycampyer;2801771 snip
Over the last several weeks, I have been riding different bikes over the same loop, sometimes back-to-back on the same day. The loop isn't very long, and conditions can vary from day to day, so it's no controlled experiment. The results are probably more inconclusive than anything.

The three bikes in particular that I have been rotating through are a Cervelo R3, a Firefly road disc and a Serotta CSi. The Cervelo has Athena EPS, Zipp 303s and Veloflex Arenbergs, the Firefly has Dura-Ace Di2, Enve 3.4s and 28mm Schwalbe G-Ones, and the CSi has Super Record, first-gen Hyperons and Veloflex Carbons.

On a back-to-back ride with the Firefly, the Cervelo [i

felt[/i] faster, but the total elapsed times of the two rides were literally seconds apart. Interestingly, on a short, steep downhill section, I hit 34.1 mph on the Cervelo, and 37.3 mph on the Firefly. On the next outing, I hit 36.9 mph on the CSi. The total elapsed time on the loop on the CSi was also faster than on the Cervelo or Firefly. My average and high heart rates on each of the rides are within a couple of beats of each other, so it's not like I was riding harder on one bike than another.

I'm going to do a few more loops to see if the results are consistent or a fluke. As noted above, the whole exercise (no pun intended) is entirely unscientific, but it's was eye-opening to me that the Cervelo wasn't faster given that it is the lightest, and probably the most aero, of the three bikes.

[mhespenheide]

Originally Posted by happycampyer

On a back-to-back ride with the Firefly, the Cervelo felt faster, but the total elapsed times of the two rides were literally seconds apart.

//snip//

I'm going to do a few more loops to see if the results are consistent or a fluke. As noted above, the whole exercise (no pun intended) is entirely unscientific, but it's was eye-opening to me that the Cervelo wasn't faster given that it is the lightest, and probably the most aero, of the three bikes.

I love scientific (or scientific-ish) testing, but the feelings while riding are an important part, too...

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by mhespenheide

I love scientific (or scientific-ish) testing, but the feelings while riding are an important part, too...

So true, if the bike I'm on feels good then I do seem to ride faster. Finally got in a 19 mph Avg yesterday for the first time since coming off the knee problems. It was on the 90's Davidson Impulse. The bike just felt so good yesterday and despite the usual head winds on the later 10 miles of the 30 mile ride I was able to keep this one on a face pace.

Out of curiousity I looked at my logs back until Jul 2019. Pretty much everything I carried a better than 19 mph avg was newer than 1990. The only 80's bike to make the cut was the 1985 Eddy Martens built racer. Otherwise it was both of my C.F. Y-Foils, the 1990ish Lemond Maillot Jaune, the 90s Paletti, the 90's Davidson, the 1991/1992 Schwinn PDG Paramount, and the 1999 (?) custom Lemond. Oh and the mid 90's aluminun Vitus Argal. A little surprised none of the other 80's made the cut but maybe I just need to go back farther in the logs.