Steel Bike or Carbon Bike-Which More Pleasing?

Retro Bike Or Modern Bike? How Have Bikes Changed? from Global Cycling Network (YouTube channel)

I found the above video on VeloNews - I found it interesting because in some respects it reflects many of the differences between the two different bikes I use for commuting to and from work. I have a 1982 Bridgestone road bike and a 2006 Scattante CFR. The difference in the age of the two bikes I have and the bikes discussed in the video is roughly the same, but obviously a 2014 road bike has some technical advantages over my 2006.


1982 Bridgestone Sirius road bike frame and fork

This is not a "period correct" 1982 road bike - the frame and the fork are original 1982 Japanese steel but the rest of it varies by period. The stem and handlebars are from around 1982 but the drive train and brakes are from the late 1980s - I wanted something more advanced, particularly for the brakes. The wheels, seat post, and saddle are new. I added fenders to make it a good bike to ride in rainy weather.

(I have blogged about this bike before - anyway, I find it pleasing because I bought the frame for less than 100 dollars on eBay and it has a number of rather amazing features, including the Tange headset, fork and crown, and Tange lugs. The doublebutted tubes are from Bridgestone. But this Bridgestone precedes Grant Petersen's association with Bridgestone road bike design, alas.)


2006 Scattante CFR road bike (from Performance)

There is nothing special about this frame as such except that at the time I bought it, it was the entry level all carbon fiber frame from Performance Bike - the bike came with mostly Ultegra or other reasonably good components and no Performance house brand junk.

My carbon fiber bike with pedals weighs around 20 pounds while the Bridgestone weighs about 25-26. (On the video they also talk about a five pound or two kilo difference, but I think they are talking about 15-16 pounds for the carbon fiber bike and around 20-21 for the steel bike.) I sense that the weight matters mostly when trying to climb hills, but that isn't generally a problem with the rides I do around here. The video describes the introduction of integrated brake lever-shifters as of almost as much significance as the introduction of derailleurs, but that seems a little crazy. If you ride bikes with downtube shifters (like the older one has) regularly enough it isn't that big a deal - the downtube shifters are located right along an arc that your hand travels down in that direction so I never have to look. Even when braking, mostly one is braking with the left hand and shifting down with the right hand - no problem. And I find the maintenance for a road bike that is used for commuting is much less with the downtube shifters than with the brifters, which can be annoying to maintain and expensive to replace (and generally not easily repaired) if something goes wrong inside of one.

I think it is interesting that he the guy on the older bike says that the leather soled shoes give up "80 watts every revolution" but that the clip-in pedals otherwise are not better than using toe-straps. It isn't even that clear that having your feet secured to the pedals (however it is done) increases overall efficiency in pedaling.

I am certain that I am able to average a higher speed when riding the carbon fiber bike, but I think it is largely because it has an 11-25 set of ten rings in back while the steel road bike has only 7 rings, running from 28 to 11. My optimum cadence is apparently narrow because it isn't that unusual that I find on the steel bike that I am not challenged by a particular gear but am uncomfortable with the next one up - this is rarely a problem with the bike with 10 rings.

There are likely a variety of small inefficient aspects to the steel bike compared to the carbon fiber bike that also add up, favoring the carbon fiber one. For example, the steel bike has a very basic inexpensive square taper bottom bracket that I bought to replace the original one that came with it (that froze up after about three months of riding). The carbon fiber bike has some Ultegra grade modern (for 2006) bottom bracket that surely must be better. And the fenders on the steel bike clearly capture a fair amount of air on windy days - not so much head on, but coming from angles from the front.

Some of the modern differences don't affect their relative performance as far as I can see. I understand that the modern threadless headset is intrinsically stronger than the threaded headset in the steel bike (that is original, from 1982) but it isn't obvious to me that it matters in every day riding. One comment the rider on the older bike in the video makes is that the small steel tubing looks less strong to him compared to the oversized carbon fiber tubing - this is amazing to me since I get my sense of the strength of the materials from pinging the tubes with a finger - the carbon fiber feels like nothing, while the steel tubing feels like (duh) steel!

At some point the fellow on the steel bike comments on the smoothness of the ride, apparently attributing that to the steel frame. I guess I am somewhat doubtful - I understand that aluminum frames transmitted road roughness a lot, but my impression is that my carbon fiber and my steel bike are mostly differentiated in how they smooth the road by how much air I put in the tires, and the size of the tires. I have 25 mm tires on the steel bike - if I take them up over 100 pounds per square inch, the ride is pretty stiff and picks up everything. The 23 mm tires on the carbon fiber bike can go much higher, but anywhere over 110 pounds per square inch and the ride just picks up too much road noise to be pleasant. Apparently frame stiffness is a fairly complicated issue but I think both my steel bike and carbon fiber bike flex enough. But not too much.


This relatively new 2008 steel bike annoyingly combines the worst of several worlds

I don't have the desire right now to complain about this bike that I also own (but it now in an unusable state), which I am suspicious suffers from an overly stiff tube design. And is too complicated in a number of ways. Ugh.

The Christmas Bicycle - Washington DC Example

Christmas of 1930. Norma Horydczak on bicycle in front of Christmas tree, wide view

This photograph comes from the The Horydczak Collection at the Library of Congress and is of the photographer's daughter at collection - few of the photographs digitized are personal ones as this is. Most of his photographs do not feature bicycles, but there are nine that do.


A DC scene with bicycles from Horydczak, exact year unknown

Kids & Bikes in 1917 DC News Photo

Dewey funeral photo, from the Bain News Collection (Library of Congress)

Admiral George Dewey's funeral procession - Saturday January 20, 1917. Looks like a street such as East Capitol, on Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.


Detail from photo shows two boys with their bicycles

While children's bicycles were certainly produced during this period, like many photographs one sees of children with bikes, these boys have bicycles intended for adults that are by the usual sizing guidance much too large. Apparently once one was ten years old or so, an adult bike was considered close enough in size to work.

Will Bradley Poster - Three Women on Bicycles

This is a digitized version of a color slide reproducing the original item

Title: Victor bicycles, Overman Wheel Company, Boston, New York, ... / [by] Will H. Bradley
Date Created/Published: 1895.
Medium: 1 print (poster) : color.
Summary: Three women on bicycles.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-1760 (color film copy slide) LC-USZ62-14990 (b&w film copy neg.) LC-USZ62-28424 (b&w film copy neg.)
Rights Advisory: Rights status not evaluated. For general information see "Copyright and Other Restrictions..." (http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/195_copr.html).
Call Number: POS - US .B732, no. 25 (B size) [P&P]
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Notes:
* Lithograph printed by Harper & Brothers, New York.
* Reverse: cover by M. Parrish for Harper's Weekly, Christmas, 1895 [can't see since encapsulated with backing sheet].
* Promotional goal: US. D41. 1895; US. K22. 1895.
* This record contains unverified, old data from caption card.
Collections: Posters: Artist Posters
Bookmark This Record: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002721219/

For some reason this item has not been "evaluated" for its "right status" so the higher resolution images are not generally available for download off site. However obviously 1895 is before 1923.

Columbia Bicycle Posters of 1896

Exhibition of Columbia bicycle art poster designs (1896) - published in support of an exhibition at which hundreds of posters were displayed, some from leading artists of the time.

PRIZE COMPETITION FOR ART POSTERS TO ADVERTISE COLUMBIA BICYCLES

Our aim is to hold Columbia Bicycle advertising, like Columbia Bicycles themselves, in the foremost position. To this end we have uniformly employed leading artists and designers in the preparation of our advertising matter.

For the coming year we need posters, the better to bring to the attention of the people the delight of riding Columbia Bicycles, and therefore invite designs for these, offering prizes of such value as to stimulate best effort.

The prizes are as follows:

* First prize: One Columbia Bicycle ($100) and $250 in cash
* Second prize: One Columbia Bicycle ($100) and $100 in cash
* Third prize: One Columbia Bicycle ($100) and $50 in cash
* Fourth prize: One Columbia Bicycle ($100)

Maxfield Parrish won first prize - he won 250 dollars "in cash" and he got a free Columbia bicycle (valued at another 100 dollars).


Maxfield Parrish's first prize winning poster

COMMENTS FROM THE BOSTON PRESS

"The result is surprising." — Boston Transcript.

"The finest display of posters that has ever been exhibited." — Boston Journal.

"The finest exhibition from an artistic standpoint. It is a beautiful exhibit, and one that in the study by itself of cycling costumes for women will well repay careful examination." — Boston Globe.

Second prize winner



Honorable mention ~

More 1921 Free Bikes for DC Youth

I did a blog post the other day on this subject - the District of Columbia newspaper The Washington Times in 1921-1922 gave children bicycles if they sold a certain number of newspaper subscriptions. As far as I can tell, they sold the subscriptions but did not then deliver the papers. The Library of Congress later received these glass plate negatives as a gift collection. The Washington Times would occasionally publish photographs of subjects like this with captions to encourage others to emulate their sales efforts.


Another digitized photo of a young woman who received such a bike

Although targeted at children, some of those who received such bikes were a bit older.


This photograph as published in the Washington Times of July 18 1921


This digitized photo shows a rather younger boy - he looks a little doubtful for some reason

I have not found this particular one in the online version of the Washington Times in chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

Washington Times - Bikes for Subscription Sales

A "Times Girl" with her new bicycle in 1921

The newspaper The Washington Times in 1921-1922 gave children bicycles if they sold a certain number of newspaper subscriptions. As far as I can tell, they sold the subscriptions but did not then deliver the papers. The Library of Congress later received these glass plate negatives as part of a gift collection.

The Washington Times would occasionally publish photographs of subjects like this with captions to encourage others to emulate their sales efforts. I have not found this particular one in the online version of the Washington Times in chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

This bike seems a little large for her but she looks very determined. I have cropped the image as presented on the LC website to provide more detail.

For a bicycle earned by selling newspaper subscriptions, this looks like a reasonably nice bike - it has a battery powered headlight and what seems like a horn (?) on the front handlebars. Since this is a ladies model, it has some screening (or what look like more spokes) to keep skirts out of the rear wheel as well as a full chain guard. I think there is a tire pump running up the left side of the seat tube, too.


A "Times Boy" (and friend, or brother) and new bike, also in 1921

Certain aspects of this photograph as presented on the LC website as a medium size JPEG caused me to think there was some artifacting (degradation of the image) in the conversion from the high resolution TIFF image produced from the glass plate negative. I downloaded the TIFF and produced my own JPEG and it has the same issues but the bicycle itself is shown better. I also cropped the photograph in somewhat to emphasize the bicycle.

Quite the handlebars! A "Ranger" - apparently that was the manufacturer and not the model.



Full page ad for this promotion in 1922

Your youngsters are longing for a bicycle now, and they can get one free, the very finest kind that money can buy. The Times is offering your boy or girl a wonderful opportunity to earn a $55 Ranger Bicycle at no cost. They collect no money, pay no money. No Red Tape, bicycle delivered promptly by The Hecht Co., Washington representatives, promptly when 15 new 6 months' subscriptions to The Washington Times are secured and verified.

The Washington Times newspaper was published until the late 1930s and has absolutely no connection with the present-day Washington Times. The bicycles were provided by The Hecht Company, a local department store chain that was acquired by whatever chain owns Macy's - the last stores carrying the Hecht Co. name disappeared in the last ten years.