If you want to ride a vintage steel bike get some tubular wheels and use Tufo tires and if you are light enough, find a light gauge frame. Really if you are in premium shape with low body fat that will do the most for your overall speed. You might want to look into a high tech performance based recumbent with a TI frame or one made of CF (gads!) perhaps a low racer in the low 20 pound range. Getting more aerodynamic will improve your cruising speeds over rolling terrain and some of the newer uber lightweight designs allow decent climbing capabilities. Other than that, there really isn't much gain between one bike and another in my opinion. I own everything from a 21 pound vintage race bike to a 30+ pound touring bike including a recumbent and I can say that the recumbent is hands down much faster over flat and rolling terrain but it lacks in climbing so its really a wash overall. The race bike I own is faster in a sprint and I can climb in a slightly higher gear than my other heavier bikes but really, my fat gut has more to do with performance than any bike design. I think when you get down to it the gains between similar bikes are very marginal and hard to pinpoint unless you are talking extremes and even then there isn't much of a difference.
On Apr 17, 10:19 pm, usuk2007 <[email protected]> wrote: > I love my Ram and I take my Atlantis out on tracjs regularly, but I'm > now in the market for some speed too. So I'm looking for a nice fast > bike with room for some long reach brakes. Where should I go? Mercian, > Independant fabrications............? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
