The only way that the sloping compact frame road bike comes anywhere to looking reasonably good is when the saddle is very much higher than the handlebars. It's the only thing that seems to correct for the fact that everything else is totally out of proportion and the front end is so high compared to the rear triangle. Otherwise, the bikes look like they should be going backwards instead of forward. It's an aesthetic mess.
Even with the high saddle, the frame with it's big, odd-shaped "tubes" and stovepipe head tube needs to be camouflaged with fancy graphics. The graphic design works exactly the same way as military camouflage does, by breaking up the ugly lines of the frame so they aren't so obvious to an observer or a photographer. I too think that carbon-fibre frames are probably the way it's going to be, but I have no interest in going that way myself.The vast majority of bike buying public can't resist the siren call of lighter weight, don't know any better because they have never had familiarity with high-quality steel frames, and because it's probably much cheaper to build a good carbon frame in a factory nowadays than it is to build a high-quality steel frame. Pierre --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
