Would Pogacar win the Tour de France on a cheaper bike? Mid-range road bike vs superbike speed tested

You may not have noticed the push to supply hookless rims purely because they are much more simple to manufacture, despite multiple reports of blown tyres under road riding pressures. the hook on a carbon clincher is incredibly difficult to produce, the mould is complicated and you have to ensure you have fibres filling the hook somehow. Wheel suppliers don't want to have to make two different systems for double the cost, hence the one they can sell is given to the teams.

The technology is indeed inferior, for pro racing specifically, for the reasons I've stated. It's better for the average joe who doesn't have the luxury of a support car or the ability nor inclination to support themselves on a rainy morning in a layby near Stoke

Nick T wrote:

The technology is indeed inferior, for pro racing specifically, for the reasons I've stated.

And yet, as stated below, records are being shattered left right and centre both on the road and on the track by people using this technology, beating the records of people who used the technology you claim is superior, how do you account for that?

Why do I have to account for that? Why don't you prove to me that records wouldn't be tumbling otherwise? 
 

Nick T wrote:

Why do I have to account for that? Why don't you prove to me that records wouldn't be tumbling otherwise?

Because you have claimed that the pro peleton has switched to inferior, slower technology and therefore logically times should have slowed, and yet they have got faster, so if you can't provide an explanation for that we are left with the obvious conclusion that the technology to which they have switched is in fact faster.

Nick T wrote:

The public doesn't buy tubulars because of those donwsides though, and manufacturers quite understandably want to sell their products, hence teams are using technology that is inferior as most sponsors have stopped producing new tubular rims.

So, let's imagine Pog, Jonas and Remco had all been within five seconds of each other before the start on Sunday. You genuinely think that even though technology was available to save, say, a minute over their rivals, not one of them would have said right, I'm using tubs and we can black out the maker's name if necessary? Seriously?

I'm afraid your comments show a fundamental misapprehension of the purpose of sponsorship. The manufacturers aren't that interested in persuading us to buy the actual products on show, because very few of us are going to want to, or be able to, shell out £15,000+ for exactly the same bike a GC rider uses. What they want is for their name to be associated with the best quality winning products so we buy their lower-end gear, which is where the profit lies. It doesn't matter to Bora or Specialized or Shimano if a rider is using tubs or tubeless clinchers, or even if they are, as has sometimes been the case, using another brand or bespoke wheels rebadged, what's important is that their name is prominently displayed on the rim. Preferably on the winner's bike, so the suggestion that they would force a rider to use something that gives them less chance of winning is quite clearly nonsense.

If you favour tubs, that's fine, if you believe they make you faster and are more comfortable, great. But when speed records for average speeds over stage races, individual climbs, classics, even the world hour record on the track for goodness' sake*, are being broken time and again by riders using wider tubeless tyres, taking the records from riders who were using tubs, and when scientific testing has conclusively demonstrated that tubs are no longer the fastest option, to keep on insisting that just about everyone else, including all the best riders in the world, is wrong and you are right looks a bit daft.

*When Ganna took the record he used wheels that had been custom built from the ground up to fit his frame by Princeton Carbonworks, so no question of manufacturers trying to foist their favoured product on him. He could have chosen any wheel type he wanted and he and his team spent over a year researching and designing the fastest options; he chose 25mm clinchers and, as we know, smashed the record by over a kilometre (a record that was also set on clinchers by Dan Bigham, which in turn smashed the record of the last man to take the record on tubs, Victor Campanaerts, by 459 metres).

Rendel Harris wrote:

So, let's imagine Pog, Jonas and Remco had all been within five seconds of each other before the start on Sunday. You genuinely think that even though technology was available to save, say, a minute over their rivals, not one of them would have said right, I'm using tubs and we can black out the maker's name if necessary?

Your general point is probably sound, but I suspect Pog would have said "Whatever, I'll just take 2 minutes out of you all whatever you give me".

Fair point, "Hey I feel like a bit of a challenge today, I'll take the Brompton..."

Nick T wrote:

Tubulars are more comfortable and compliant than clinchers/tubeless as the entire chamber is flexible under load. Having tried riding larger clinchers my rides are measurably faster on narrower tubulars and I prefer the feel 

Can you show any actual science for that?

Can you show me science for the opposite? I doubt you can even show me anecdotal evidence

The writer makes a very valid point though, and that is for an above-average rider who sees some local racing, a $5,000 bike is all they really need, in fact, dare I say, a $2,500 bike is all they need!

A typical $1,500 bike will usually come with Shimano 105 and standard cheap wheels but they are made to take the abuse of rough roads, and a bike in the price range is great for the average rider.  The next price-to-benefit curve comes at around the $2,500 price, with that bike you'll find Dura Ace, but again you get cheap but durable wheels, but a lighter frame.  The $5,000 price range still gets you the same DA but upgraded wheels and the frame weight is about the same.  What a person could do is get a $2,500 bike, and find a set of lighter wheels for around $1,500, now you have a $4,000 bike that will equal the $5,000 bike!  You have saved yourself $1,000.  But keep in mind, racing wheels are not intended to be used as everyday training wheels, they won't last as long as cheaper wheels over the long haul...at least typically that is true.

froze wrote:

The next price-to-benefit curve comes at around the $2,500 price, with that bike you'll find Dura Ace, but again you get cheap but durable wheels, but a lighter frame. 

Are you writing from the year 2000? If not could you please provide a link to these £2000 Dura Ace bikes, I think a lot of people here would be in the market at that price!

Glov Zaroff wrote:

They're not 353 NSWs, they're 303 Firecrest, and cost less than half the price of the 353 (but more than the 303S). 

Correct, which is weird because the Ultimate CFR ASX does come with 353 NSWs and none of the build options offers 303 Firecrests.

ETA Mystery explained, from Stu's review of the bike last Sunday: "The Zipp 303 Firecrests our review bike came with are a claimed 1,408g, so they add some liveliness, with their deep-section rims bringing an aero boost once you are up to speed – and the standard build will ship with 353 NSWs, which are even lighter and a touch deeper." Though why Canyon are sending out review bikes with lower-spec wheels than the ones that will be supplied to customers is unexplained.

In the review for the Canyon, it was (eventually) clarified that the bike Road.cc received was not supplied with the standard build. But it would seem to undermine this comparison to some extent. I don't think it would actually change the results noticeably (Jamie's graph seems pretty accurate to me) but if you're going to test a superbike, it probably ought to be the whole package including wheels.

Many pros ride so much they can tell if something's not right by ½mm. Others are less bothered

Agreed. More than good enough in most cases!

I guess quite a lot of road.cc readers do have £4,500 bikes - but I think it would be more fun to add a budget bike into the mix (e.g. the cheapest Boardman, or at least something in the C2W range). Not least as I suspect many people are inspired by the TdF to go out and buy something like that to get into road cycling in the first place.

I reckon the diminishing returns curve flattens out a lot quicker than in the chart above (acknowledging it's about illustrating an idea, rather than being precisely accurate). Those on cheaper rides might be encouraged to discover their entry-level bike is actually 90% as good as the pros'. OTOH, they might be discouraged to realise just how big the gap to the pros in human performance really is - as someone once said, it's not about the bike!

In a totally different sport... my wife and I went to ballroom dancing classes about 30 years ago. At the end of year certificate party, a professional couple were guests. Extremely ordinary people you could barely notice, until they stepped onto the dance floor. Then they seemed to enlarge threefold, to glow and radiate a sort of glory, and they floated just above the floor. Holidaying in Menton, saw some pro riders training... wow! Silent lightening flickering up and down Madone and along sea front

No. The top level stuff does give the elites an edge, both in reality and psychologically. A few years ago, one of the big name bike suppliers made a dog of a TT bike. But, for us normal people, the benefit of high end is the margins the companies make from hedge fund managers buying high end so they can afford to make higher volume low nargin products for us

I assume you're talking about this? Yes - that is his typical position on the bike.

I was talking about the top picture. It looks a bit like how Hinault sat on his bike before he changed his position. He described it as sitting "like a toad".

john_smith wrote:

I was talking about the top picture. It looks a bit like how Hinault sat on his bike before he changed his position. He described as sitting "like a toad".

Poorly Photoshopped pictures of someone supposedly riding a bike that he's never been on in his life may not be reflective of actual riding position...