Is Retro faster?

[FluffyChicken]

Re:

Well I passed every modern bike* on a busy bank holiday at Sherwood Pines on their red run. My bike was from 1991 so yes it was faster than modern bikes and I'm certainly not uber fit.

There you go argument settled.
Scientifically tested as in hair shampoo and wrinkle cream science

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

If it's getting harder to source/maintain old canti brakes/parts, and that disc brakes are generally the way forward as they perform better and reliably so, should I commit a heinous act of retro heresy and have disc brake fixings brazed onto my 25 year old Clockwork?

 

[ultrazenith]

For XC, which my own particular breed of retrogrouch calls the proper mountain-biking, I'd be surprised if disc brakes made a rider noticeably faster than cantis. For XC, I wouldn't be surprised if the extra weight of discs might even counterbalance the split seconds gained due to marginally later braking.

So, what sort of XC is it that you do? Bimblecore?

The benefit in discs is NOT the ultimate power, its the repeatability, everytime you hit the levers, the caliper does the same thing, rain and mud makes so little difference (effectively none at all) that you only have to worry about traction, which as pointed out up there ^^^^^ somewhere, is noticeably better today than 15 years ago. Chances of buckling a disc enough to make a difference to the repeatability is pretty low. With rim brakes, you have rain, mud (fairly often), buckling (once or twice a race season?), wearing out of the pads, i have on occasion gone through a set of canti or v-brake pads in a single race before. Braking performance changes with pad wear, enough to be worrying. Bedded in disc pads work the same, until they wear out (Which takes far far longer than rubber/plastic pads). Unless you glaze or cook them........

TBH, the modulation on the latest and greatest disc brakes is right up there with the best cantis, if not better. So in XC terms, you are likely to do less damage, as you can pile on the braking loads without locking up. (On hardpack anyway, grassland will be a different matter altogether!)

I'd be very surprised if the weight difference is even noticeable anymore, now that frames/forks/wheels have had all v-brake/canti compatibility designed out. Skinny stays, no inserts in the forks, no hangers, no need for a braking surface on the rim.

One telling thing is that until about 5 years ago a couple of the older, front running WC XC riders were still using V-Brakes, now the courses are a bit more "spectator friendly" i.e. shorter and more technical, everyone is on discs.

I'd like to reply to many people, but since there is no easy way to quote multiple posts in a single reply (if there I haven't found it :facepalm: ), I'll settle for quoting this latest post. The replies from people who ride both modern and retro have been very very illuminating, and thanks to everyone who has been patient with my partial ignorance of modern MTBs :xmas-cool:

I have no doubt at all that a decent modern bike will be more efficient, and functionally better than retro in just about every way. I am, to a certain extent, playing devil's advocate because I enjoy questioning widely held beliefs, at least insofar as it helps to better understand what is hype and what is real, what makes a significant difference and what doesn't, etc.

The discussion of brakes, I think it's also fair to say the easier application of braking (i.e., one finger, light action disc levers) will save some energy for a rider, to be better used on pedaling. Another factor that is often overlooked is that thinking burns energy, so if you have to think more as you ride, there is a bit less energy for pedaling.

The argument that goes "the pro's all use it so it must be faster" is a simple, but nevertheless good argument. The pro's, one can argue, are operating at the hard limits defined by human physiology. They have little room to train harder, but they will happily accept any (legal) technologies that they think will give them a chance to ride XC faster than the competition. In their shoes, I'd happily accept a 29er dripping with XTR and other goodies, from my sponsor

The point about some pro's still using V brakes until about 5 years ago is quite interesting. Are those same riders still racing the XC circuit? It'd be interesting to ask them why they stayed with V's so late.

However, the situation with ordinary riders is probably rather different.

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Good point about the thinking. Any part of the bike that needs constant tlc or careful thought worrying about how old components are operated whilst riding, distracts from full attention to the trail ahead and just getting on with riding or racing. This can be inefficient, frustrating or potentially risking a stack somewhere. With a well set up/maintained bike, you can concentrate on keeping the momentum flowing and enjoying the ride.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Re: Re:

Good point about the thinking. Any part of the bike that needs constant tlc or careful thought worrying about how old components are operated whilst riding, distracts from full attention to the trail ahead and just getting on with riding or racing. This can be inefficient, frustrating or potentially risking a stack somewhere. With a well set up/maintained bike, you can concentrate on keeping the momentum flowing and enjoying the ride.

And that of course depends on what you want out of a ride.

 

[Raging_Bulls]

Re: Re:

Any part of the bike that needs constant tlc or careful thought worrying about how old components are operated whilst riding, distracts from full attention to the trail ahead and just getting on with riding or racing. This can be inefficient, frustrating or potentially risking a stack somewhere.

I consider those things "character". Having to keep the bike's age and unique characteristics in mind makes retro riding special. Sure, my modern will do just about everything the old bike does without any of the drama, but that makes it all a bit dull.

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Hey, with my retro ride, every day is special guys I'm keepin' the faith, takin' it to the streets of ol' smokey London on my commute with the spirit of retro. It may well be mostly nearly 25 yrs old and needs occasional tlc, but my retro ride can mix it up good with the modern stuff out there and give it a whupping. As the guy on the fancy Specialized roadie asked in jest today (once he'd caught me up at the lights) "how many horse power have you got there man?" Well there's a 50t ring, 32/11 8speed, with full original dx shifters and derailleurs. If I need to stop, the Dia Compe SS7s and 986 cantis do the business. These old parts have plenty of character with the patina of battle. There's plenty of nice modern bikes out there for sure, but I've seen no need to ditch the old thing. It will probably out live my ability to ride.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Crikey! What a pile of simmering juice all this is. At the end of the day you can go out and buy a bike that is superlight and super compliant now that will murder anything you could get back in 'the day'.

But pound for pound, financially, epic bikes of yesterday can compete pound for pound, gravitationally speaking, with the majority of today's metal.

What will make the real difference is the application.

 

[konatime]

Re:

A group of modern bouncy/disc kids chatted me pal up for a sprint-out up Chew reser, perhaps because he is just shy of fifty and was armed with a banana yellow Kili. He asked them what the record time was, proudly they told him and his face nearly fell off, so dumbstruck was he...he'd ran up it faster a fortnight earlier. A comfy free-rolling retro rigid aint a problem to stay on knocking out 100 miles of hills if you've wrote the day-off, not sure if a modern would be faster cause i've not stumbled across any that want to know, perhaps thier lungs are correlated to the length of a xc course.

Had a worker going home on a no-name clickety retro, he pulled up alonside us at 25 mph attempting to biuld a rollie and having a real good gorp at our bikes, the speed never dropped for 5 miles, neither did he till his fag was done and he'd seen enuf..then he straight lined us, dog in the fog. Made me laff, it was like a silent comedy.

 

[silver_rocco]

I am not the fastest downhiller in the world but would bet on beating a club bunch that i go out with, using any bike i reckon i would beat most of them up hill or down!
some spend ages setting up front and rear suspension on mega buck machines.
I used my hardtail because my full sus and quite heavy giant was broken that day.
was quite a blast apart from using v brakes.
having ridden since the 80's also no how to ride.
I was second down a massive hill out of about 20 riders much to there discust