Clifton CC

A letter in today's Times led me to this:

http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c6801.full

Sheesh, this chap should stick to gassing people IMHO!
Grim reading indeed for all us self confessed carbon tarts!
I obviously think that his conclusions must be somehow fundamentally flawed but actually I haven't yet found anything too awry in his analysis. I think he's wrong to state that "drag" increases in proportion to the cube of speed. If he's referring to aerodynamic drag then this increases with the square of speed, power required increasing with the cube. I freely admit though that this won't make any meaningful difference to his conclusion...

Just popping next door now to see if Kevin will exchange
his Colnago Master for my Trek Madone...

The conclusions are essentially sound - in this context for this guy! It's true that for most people more significant gains can be made by getting fitter (and losing weight) than by purchasing a 'better' and lighter bike.
The main limitation of the study must be that n=1. There's only one participant!
So don't exchange your Colnago for the Trek but do your own research using both bikes. You could even then use both your results and this guy's results in a meta-analysis using the same statistical procedures ... or maybe just use your free time to go out and do more riding!
David

In a small sample size one or 2 results will skew the overall. Of the 5 slowest rides, 4 occurred on the carbon bike. Assuming these relate to weather and/or traffic rather than bike-related issues then IMO these rides should be excluded. Once these are excluded, the carbon bike will be faster - albeit by a smallish margin.

Once I get the BMJ this week I may make this point therein!

This seems a fun guy! A welcome piece of self-analysis.
We now need a psychiatric appraisal to explore the subjective relationships between this rider and his bikes. Was one intuitively protected? Afterall you don't trash your newest treasure, esp when it's cost you nearly 1000 quid. Or do you. Was 'the old faithful' given extra stick? What role love and affection? The human psyche is a dark and murky place, as road riding bikies are well aware!

I think these psychological components could have been isolated by 'blinding' the trial. It's not easy to see how you could keep a rider ignorant of the bike s/he's riding ( although I'm sure the club can provide some stories along the lines of "it was only as I hit the railings that I realised I was on my fixed bike, which has no brakes" ). But perhaps if you fitted a bottle carrier to the lighter bike, and got someone else to clip in either an empty or heavily weighted bottle before you set off, you could achieve the necessary effect. That would control for different rider positions, gear set-ups etc as well...

Reassuringly, the article makes it clear that the study was entirely self-funded.

Didn't know the BMJ was so entertaining (or so easy to get published in for that matter). I might subscribe.