Unnecessary spending? If someone wants to buy a new bike and has the cash and asks for advice on here, then who are we to decide if it's necessary or not?
Is it really 95% the Rider and 5% the Bike...
- Thread starter bpsmith
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Citius
Guest
P5 better than £300 MTB in TdF prologue time trial. Hold the front page.....
Andrew_P
In between here and there
Because you make the clear assumption that peope buy more expensive bike to make them go faster, or be better in some way.
"Or you can be a better rider without spending money."
winjim
Smash the cistern
£300 MTB would probably have been quite handy on the first stage of this year's Vuelta.
Hip Priest
Veteran
Again, what relevance does all this have? The thread is about going fast. The two riders could've just bimbled to the cafe otherwise, instead of racing up a hill.
Andrew_P
In between here and there
You really are a loon, a car is deemed to be more fuel efficient if it does 50mpg rather than 20mpg in the real world not the Citrus version.That's a measure of cost-effectiveness - not 'efficiency'.
Nice of you to belatedly impose your own parameters on an argument, in order to avoid losing it..
Tin Pot
Guru
The thread is challenging the common refrain that the vast majority of a riders performance is down to his/her ability and not the bike.
Hence the title.
Citius
Guest
Good to see the childish name-calling has started already, and we're only on page three. Keep moving those goal-posts...
Hip Priest
Veteran
Tin Pot
Guru
Yes, who dares to challenge the media advertising complex with simple facts and reality?
<sigh>
uphillstruggler
Guru
- Location
- Half way there
well this slid into a childish argument pretty quickly.
'a fun and friendly online cycling community'
'a fun and friendly online cycling community'
Tin Pot
Guru
Quite right, it was a bit of fun and IMO entertaining. I liked it.
Citius
Guest
Hang on - are we saying it wasn't a controlled experiment conducted in lab conditions? The OP said it was 'proof'....
OMG I'm confused! Just sat and read the whole thread and it seems like everyone agrees but is somehow still having an argument about it?
It looks like everyone agrees there are two ways of improving, either the rider (training/diet etc) or the bike (upgrades/lighter parts etc). This of course doesn't mean you have to choose one, you can change both. If for whatever reason you don't want to/no time/inclination etc to train or calorie count then you may just work on the bike side - a decision which costs you money, but as it is YOUR money it is no one else business to say if you're right or wrong in doing so. Similarly if you are happy where you are and aren't constantly trying to improve/strava etc - there's not many of us on here who are in serious training, I understand we are large hobby/commuter cyclist and whilst it might matter to us there's no real world effect of us being 1mph faster or slower than anyone else. Obviously if you do want to improve and have the time and money to attack the problem from both ends, e.g. improve rider and improve bike then your results will be better than those who do one or none.
Surely it is pretty obvious that if you put the same rider on a heavy unsuitable bike and a light suitable one he would be quicker on the lighter 'better' bike. Similarly if you put an average rider and a pro rider on the same bike the pro would be better. If we take both of these, the winning bike and the winning rider, we get the obvious answer.
I can't believe people are arguing and name calling about this. Have I completely missed the point somewhere?
It looks like everyone agrees there are two ways of improving, either the rider (training/diet etc) or the bike (upgrades/lighter parts etc). This of course doesn't mean you have to choose one, you can change both. If for whatever reason you don't want to/no time/inclination etc to train or calorie count then you may just work on the bike side - a decision which costs you money, but as it is YOUR money it is no one else business to say if you're right or wrong in doing so. Similarly if you are happy where you are and aren't constantly trying to improve/strava etc - there's not many of us on here who are in serious training, I understand we are large hobby/commuter cyclist and whilst it might matter to us there's no real world effect of us being 1mph faster or slower than anyone else. Obviously if you do want to improve and have the time and money to attack the problem from both ends, e.g. improve rider and improve bike then your results will be better than those who do one or none.
Surely it is pretty obvious that if you put the same rider on a heavy unsuitable bike and a light suitable one he would be quicker on the lighter 'better' bike. Similarly if you put an average rider and a pro rider on the same bike the pro would be better. If we take both of these, the winning bike and the winning rider, we get the obvious answer.
I can't believe people are arguing and name calling about this. Have I completely missed the point somewhere?
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