Can steel bikes still cut it in modern bike racing?

[smontanaro]

In my news feed this morning...

https://www.cyclingnews.com/features...n-bike-racing/

[Peter P.]

Doesn't count if the Pratt Frameworks frames have carbon forks!

OF COURSE steel can still cut it. Weight, aerodynamics, stiffness; it's all irrelevant in a mass start competitive event. All the materials currently used are so close in parameters that it doesn't matter.

Fitness, talent, tactics, position, and some luck all matter much more than the material.

[vespasianus]

All I thought when I read that article was 8.2 kg. My steel gravel bike is 8.45 kg. Not sure whey their bikes are so heavy!

[oldpotatoe]

Geez, of course they can. I had a demo bike on the floor...Waterford made of TrueTemper OS Platinum...SR group, just clincher rims, 32h..and it was just a shade over the UCI limit...

Carbon is everywhere because it's relatively CHEAP to make and the manufacturers want to sell bunches of them...so...'win on sunday, sell on monday'...

Like some goombah said once upon a time....'it's not about the bike'...

[Birch]

As an overweight former cat 2/3 racer, I ran the same course with similar power on my CSi and SystemSix in the same week. Difference in time was about a minute.

[spoonrobot]

Very current year article where the headline turns out to be...less than accurate.

LA Sweat and Max Pratt certainly think so, and they have the results to prove it

They're not really lighting the world on fire with their steel frames.
https://www.road-results.com/team/37302

Why isn't the fork steel? Is is really a "steel bike" when the most important part is just piece of mass produced CF? It's hard to take custom frame builders seriously when they don't make forks.

Steel bikes are cool, steel is a great material for frames and forks - but it's completely outclassed by CF - especially for racing.

[Marvinlungwitz]

.

[mattsbeers]

No. But also why?

[HenryA]

Its the motor.

[Mark McM]

Can steel bikes still cut it in modern bike racing?

The answers are Absolutely no, absolutely yes, and maybe.

Absolutely no: The purpose of modern bike racing is to sell the sponsors products - whether that's SUVs (Ineos Grenadier) or caffeinated shampoo (Alpecin). Among the sponsor are bicycle companies, who would prefer to sell carbon bikes over steel bikes. So top level races will never be won on steel frames, if only because they will never be used..

Absolutely yes: Bikes, and particularly frame materials, are just a small part of the equation of bike racing success. A racer will win if he/she meets or exceeds his/her opponents on all the other parts of the equation, regardless of what material their bike frame is made of. In un-sponsored racing (where the riders aren't limited on the frame materials they use), racers on steel bikes are still seen on the top step of the podium.

Maybe: Carbon does have a marginal advantage over steel in some aspects, such as weight and aerodynamics. In certain specialized events, in which the margin between success and failure are razor thin, steel frames may not cut it. These are events such as the Hour Record.

[nmrt]

it is not whether one can compete or win on a steel bike. it is whether the steel bike racers will be faster yet on carbon bikes.

[Michael D]

“To address the usual criticism that steel is heavy, Max points out that the team's bikes, at 8.2kg, are comparable to an Allez Sprint,”

Ok let’s compare it to one of the heaviest modern aluminum frames (which is also aero). Lmao an $800 cannondale from Craigslist will literally weigh the same or less and almost certainly be stiffer.

Total aerodynamic disadvantage compared to new carbon racing frames

They’re saying it’s stiff but I don’t believe them

All in all I’d be pissed if someone gave me that thing as a team bike as it would put me at a clear disadvantage.

[Michael D]

Originally Posted by Peter P.

Weight, aerodynamics, stiffness; it's all irrelevant in a mass start competitive event.

Hahahahahaha good thing nobody that actually races is taking advice from the Paceline good lord. I swear I feel like I’m being gaslit by some of the posts on here.

[Michael D]

Originally Posted by nmrt

it is not whether one can compete or win on a steel bike. it is whether the steel bike racers will be faster yet on carbon bikes.

This. Even tiny amounts of energy saved over the course of a race add up. Races are won and lost by the thickness of a tire every single day.

[smontanaro]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

Why isn't the fork steel? Is is really a "steel bike" when the most important part is just piece of mass produced CF? It's hard to take custom frame builders seriously when they don't make forks.

I would assume the folks building these bikes have the necessary chops to make steel forks. However, I'm not very familiar with anything other than brazed forks. I've seen (and generally try to forget) unicrown forks. Do the available unicrown blades perhaps not desirable properties for a fork used for racing?

I'm taking Doug Fattic's framebuilding class right now. I didn't think I'd be making the fork. "Oh, you'll be making the fork." Doug had to bail me out a couple times while brazing the blades to the fork crown, but otherwise, everything went fine. Doug did show me a steel fork blade designed to mount a disc brake. It was substantially heavier than mine (which will have direct mount MAFAC RAID calipers when finished). Maybe the necessity of beefing up the blades to accommodate disc brakes contributes to a "dead" fork and is the reason for carbon?