this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 155 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Imagine designing a bicycle without triangles. Every joint needs to be overbuilt, because there's no structure from the geometry. But you make sure it still has a top tube, so its just as hard to mount and dismount as a normal bike. Incredible!

[–] [email protected] 90 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

Right? Who would be crazy enough to do that?

Next you're going to tell me someone will make one without a top tube?

[–] [email protected] 99 points 5 months ago

Hey, look here buddy. You can't be your own comment thread and post all the plausible responses yourself like that. You're putting all the trolls out of work.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

doesn't that prove their point? they all look overbuilt, as the original commenter said.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Carbon fiber, aerodynamics...

For this one it's used as suspension (not carbon fiber)

Not that rare in old mountain bikes either, pretty sure my old steel Raleigh was similar

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Carbon fiber has very limited lifetimes when used for something with a lot of hard impacts, so if you're not sticking to smooth surfaces the bike can literally split apart with little warning

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Eh...

Modern mountain bikes? Hell, they make car and motorcycle wheels out of it...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I Googled "motorcycle carbon fiber wheel" and autocomplete immediately suggested adding "failure" and doing that search has endless relevant results

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

And if I do a research for "Toyota Tercel engine failure" I find tons of results as well even though it's one of the most reliable car ever built.

Crazy how search engines show you results for what you're looking for, right?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

https://www.bikeradar.com/features/are-carbon-fiber-clinchers-safe

They have limited tolerance for heat that you can't solve without either improving cooling or reducing hard acceleration / deceleration (using additional material) when used in wheels. When used in frames you need to reduce stress points with very good dampening.

They can certainly be strong, but they have similarities to tempered glass where damage accumulates over time and can't self heal so they have a best before date built in.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

2012 article

Yeah........

People ride carbon mountain bikes with carbon wheels for years without issues and worst case it can be repaired.

I'm done here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-biking/carbon-fiber-bike-accidents-lawsuits/

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/giant-facing-legal-claim-of-over-pound200000-after-bike-collapse-causes-broken-back

What these manufacturers needs to do is to start embedding indicators for stress damage (common in industrial machinery, etc), but so far I haven't heard of anybody at all doing that in this industry. Until they do I don't trust it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

That top one is kinda sexy ngl

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The meme shows only bikes with flat handlebars, like commuter bikes intended for transportation.

Every bike you posted are high performance racing bikes with specialized aerodynamic handlebars.

Different priorities. Triangless bikes with a top bar is not a good idea for commuter bicicles like the ones in the meme.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

I still showed that it's perfectly possible to build a bike without a seat tube, hell I'm sure we can find 90s examples that weren't high performance bikes.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah why not keep the seat tube and delete the top tube?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Compliance but this is a very very extreme example - you'd hit a bump and the top tube would flex, kinda like a diving board, and smooth out the harshness. I'm not even sure this bike exists but that would be the practical purpose of such a design, but most manufacturers tend to go after the seat stays (Salsa Warbird, Bianchi with Counterveil, Moots Routt YBB) or decouple the seat tube from the top tube and allow it to flex due to seat tube angle (Trek Isospeed). Carbon's kinda fickle and engineers are constantly trying to figure out how to finesse it into feeling less jarring and rigid

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This bike does not exist. This is part of a series of theoretical renders from what must be 15 to 20 years ago. When carbon fiber was kind of a new material to the general consumer. The premise was they could not only reduce the weight of the material but because carbon fiber was this space age super material that could melt your tits off if you looked at it sideways, that they could also reduce the need for structural materials like spokes and triangles. Making a featherweight racing bike. Most of the designs had absolutely no way to steer them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I was gonna say, the frame just looks a little too outlandish, totally ignoring the wheels and headset.

Once in a while a bike comes along trying to reinvent the triangle but none are particularly good, often worse than tried and true. Superstrata Classic is a perfect example. Making a 2 triangle frame and adding just a hair of compliance around less-critical spots seems to be the winning formula

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm picturing this being carbon fiber and the top tube snapping at the bend.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

At compressing part of bend. If I remember correctly, carbon fibers are good at handling tensile loads and terrible at compression loads.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Nah, but that tube is a little lowered, enough to make a difference.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

This guy does not engineer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Tube is not a line.