I haven't analyzed "planing" as far as Jason has, but I will add this: some of the fastest (read: "feel fastest" measured by ease -- "feel" -- of turning over a given gear at given cadences in given conditions) bikes I've owned have been far from the lightest, and one of them, besides being heavy (IIRC, 28 to 30 lb: full fenders, custom racks, a dyno system) was built of pretty stout (but normal gauge) tubing, so stout that 2 previous owners passed it on -- so I got a very good deal!
This bike, shod with mediocre tires (32 mm wire bead Paselas? 30 mm IRC Tandems? Forget.) was one of those rare blessings that make you automatically choose a cog 1 tooth smaller in back. (I sold it because I didn't care for the handling; it was low trail, which I find feels vague.) Another bike, all 30 1/2 lb of it, that just feels fast is my 2015 Chauncey Matthews Road Bike for Dirt, aka Matthews 1:1. This is shod with 622 X 61 mm Big Ones -- these tires roll as well as the best extralight RH tires I've used. This too calls for 1 tooth smaller in back. This bike, however, is built of thinwall OS tubing, whatever effect that may have. And as I said, the standard gauge .8 .6 .8 (or is it .8 .4 .8?) 531 tubes on the 2020 Matthews Road Bike for Road ( Matt. 2:1) make it seem easier to pedal than the OS and I daresay thickwall tubing used in my 2003 Riv custom (frame + fork + Ultegra headset = 7 lb, heavy in my book). Until I rode this Matthews I was a planing skeptic but after riding this I began to think that somehow, sometimes, it does apply. Still, the 2 bikes above "seemed to plane" but without standard gauge + thinwall tubing. So, who knows? 170-175, masher in highish gears. On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 11:46 AM Jason Fuller <[email protected]> wrote: > The tubing spec needs to be matched well with the geometry to provide what > Jan calls planing - the flex in the frame needs to match your power output > and rhythm to give you a small but important "springboard" effect with each > pedal stroke, in order to feel fast. It really has little to nothing to do > with the weight of the frame, but about how it is tuned to the rider. > > However, Jan tends to think that this basically requires superlight > tubing, but I don't think that's quite true - I think the "rhythm" can be > found in multiples, like harmonics, but if the stiffness of your bike lands > between these harmonics, then it'll feel like you're trying to bounce on a > trampoline where it's out of sync with your jumps. My wild theory is that > the Rivendells that ride like magic despite being objectively quite > overbuilt for a "fast" bike manage to land in the next stiffer "harmonic" > for the average rider. I think my Sam does this for me and I think the > Roadini could very well end up in this zone too. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfguJY2D_4-B8C6zzgvD_-bBevLez1GcrCkihuNZ6Tp%2B6LA%40mail.gmail.com.
