Component friction testing

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madcow
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by madcow

ticou wrote:Oh dear,he wants high coinage for his facts....Is this in the spirit of this site? Methinks not.


I thought $10 was a small price to pay for the amount of time that someone has invested, I purchased it and can say I don't feel ripped off.

prendrefeu wrote:Before someone forks over money for this (oh, wait...) - I did not see any list of components on his/her website.

My honest question is this: How is this of any authority when the sample size is small?

For example: did he/she test Yaban Chains? What about KMC's top offerings? What about pulley wheels - did he/she cover all manufacturers? (I doubt he/she did. Spend a week on this forum and I'm sure you'll be familiar with more brands and models of chainrings than may have been tested. That's just chainrings.) In the "lubes" testing - what about lubes that are not available in the tester's market? There are lubes that are sold in Europe but not in North America, for example. Were those tested?

EDIT: further reading, found that tester did test multiple components per manufacturer-model combos, however I still believe that the offerings are still limited.


You're right it is a small sample group and a small range, but everything has to start somewhere. When you purchase the report he goes on to explain that the report is hopefully going to fund the testing. So the more people that buy the report and don't repost it somewhere the more it increases his ability to do more testing. I'd even be willing to purchase it again when there are more updates just to support the project.

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WMW
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by WMW

madcow wrote:I thought $10 was a small price to pay for the amount of time that someone has invested, I purchased it and can say I don't feel ripped off.


Seemed worth it to me also... but I was put off by the need to create an account and give all my personal info, for something that I can pay for via paypal and have sent to my email. Why do they even need to know who I am... let alone get my address and phone #?

EDIT: BTW, if anyone cares, it will work fine if you put an x in all the fields except for email and password if you are using paypal.
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by CBRE

Very good info for sure, I will try a DA chain vs the 1091r, I do clean and swap chains every other ride or so, lot a work but its not bad when you have the other chain clean and ready.
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Tinea Pedis
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by Tinea Pedis

ticou wrote:Where does he put Chorus and Super Record?

So you're not willing to pay $10, slate him for charging "high coinage", yet ask for the results anyway?

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mellowJohnny
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by mellowJohnny

I think he's on to some useful testing which we could all benefit from. But I do think this is something maybe more suited to an organization with deeper pockets and proven methodologies, such as a University sports medicine dept or a bike mag.

Gotta think the Pro teams have done this already?

dkwperth
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by dkwperth

madcow wrote:You're right it is a small sample group and a small range, but everything has to start somewhere.


spot on. Huzzah for someone who's at least put some numbers out there... it can now be refined, expanded, confirmed, denied, and debated by all and sundry, probably for years to come. Maybe some of those mobs with deeper pockets who do have data might be prompted to share it.

ticou
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by ticou

Tinea Pedis wrote:
ticou wrote:Where does he put Chorus and Super Record?

So you're not willing to pay $10, slate him for charging "high coinage", yet ask for the results anyway?


That's a little unfair Tinea, I take some time and trouble making my longer post's interesting, and I give my views accurately, and I base it as far as possible on experience. I would never charge anyone for my views or research.

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WMW
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by WMW

mellowJohnny wrote:But I do think this is something maybe more suited to an organization with deeper pockets and proven methodologies, such as a University sports medicine dept or a bike mag. Gotta think the Pro teams have done this already?


Sports depts and mags aren't doing it. Do they have $50k+ to spend on equipment and a bunch of time... and the expertise to do it correctly?

Pro teams may if they are very tech oriented. But they are often constrained by sponsor deals, and besides that... they would never tell us. No point in doing research to gain an edge, and then telling everyone about it.

And then there are test labs that manufacturers send their stuff (tires for instance) to for testing, but those numbers are confidential. So we don't get that info either.

I think what Jason Smith is doing here is awesome. I can imagine him doing specific tests for magazines in the future... should be a lot cheaper for them to pay him than try to do it themselves.
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WMW
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by WMW

ticou wrote:I would never charge anyone for my views or research.


I hope that was a joke.

If not, I doubt you spent $50k on equipment and hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours doing testing that no one else has ever made public, and then put the results into a package for presentation.
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by bikedoc

does anyone really worry about how much energy a jockey wheel is costing them??

heres the answer not enough to worry about or make any noticable difference to your speed

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by Bridgeman

From what I can see this data may be substantially incomplete. Bearing friction can increase significantly when you include all the non perpendicular loads that are part of the real world function. Some bearings are more efficient than others when subjected to non perpendicular loads.

While I applaud the person/s for their effort in assembling this data, there needs to be an acknowledgement that there will be further refinement of the measuring system. One that also includes time and environment, where the loss of efficiency is taken into account. Again, the rate of change depending on the bearing/s can be rapid.

Bottom line; you could come away thinking one thing and the real world could be completely different. Bearing life and efficiency is a complicated subject. A proper data acquisition for this application is going to be expensive and time intensive. I hope they can acquire the funds and support to enable this to materialize.

ticou
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by ticou

WMW wrote:
ticou wrote:I would never charge anyone for my views or research.


I hope that was a joke.

If not, I doubt you spent $50k on equipment and hundreds (maybe thousands?) of hours doing testing that no one else has ever made public, and then put the results into a package for presentation.


Not really. I applaud the man's efforts,I really do, but everything on this site has been given freely, including links to much research like this immense load. I salute the research and the man but I'm not paying for it. I've tried an Ultegra RD, I know my SR cults are smoother. I know a DA drivetrain runs louder than my Chorus, on one occasion. I don't need to pay to learn a bit more. I pay for my internet connection, I pay for goods not information.

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prendrefeu
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by prendrefeu

bikedoc wrote:does anyone really worry about how much energy a jockey wheel is costing them??


Actually, yes. Resistance is one more thing that decreases efficiency. Cumulative resistance can be detrimental to efficiency.

By your same method, doc, you can argue that someone should never clean their chain or re-lube it, or lube their bearings - because why would anyone worry about what it does to your mechanical efficiency of energy, right? I mean, why should anyone worry about those things? :roll:

bikedoc wrote:heres the answer not enough to worry about or make any noticable difference to your speed


:lol: :lol: :lol: Right. :roll:

Component friction and loss of mechanical efficiency may, at times, have more of an effect on speed than aero qualities over the course of a long varied route. Air movement may change, wind may go in all sorts of directions, the route may be downhill it may be uphill, the weather can change - but the efficiency of your drivetrain to minimize the loss of power is far more controllable.
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WMW
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by WMW

ticou wrote:I pay for goods not information.


This sort of information is important for deciding what goods to buy. And it's relatively cheap information. And it cost a lot of money and time to obtain.

If you feel that all information should be free, then that means you are fine with being limited to information that costs little or nothing to obtain, or some other party profits from dispensing... ie they have an ulterior motive for making it available, and it is usually tied to advertising. That isn't a very good way of finding out the truth.
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by Weenie


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by NGMN

Not to mention that you can't seperate "goods" and "information." Often, the best goods are built with the best information. Saying you pay for one and not the other is completely ignoring the fact that Zipps and Enves cost more than Gigantex because the former hire engineers, run CFD and take prototypes to the windtunnel. All that "information" is really expensive, but potentially worth it.

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