Other Links: Ben Proko has begun a new coaching business called "onurleft". Ben is extremely fast and smart when it comes to Long and Short course Triathlon Please check out their new website at www.onurleft.com .
Sometimes change is a good thing and sometimes its not. As many of you have probably noticed, many of the top manufacturers have stopped producing titanium bicycles. We are unfortunately about to join that list. If you are fortunate enough to own one of our Ti machines, hold on to it, it is no less relevant, just less available. I have won my age group in every race I have entered on my Sidewinder Ti this year. The problem is that the company that has produced the seamless hydroformed titanium that we have been so successful with is no longer going to produce it due to a sluggish economy. Other tubes are available but are simply not stiff enough to put the RMS name on. With all this in mind about 6 months ago I began a new engineering project, the Sidewinder Carbon.
I began with 3 high end Carbon frames to see what I liked and disliked. .There are many of major manufacturers out for you bike business. There are plenty of gimmicks out there to attract you, some good, some really bad. Years ago the 3 Stooges did a film about 3 inventors. As most of us know, the Stooges were funny but not exactly genius(my wife still cringes every time I watch). In this particular episode they invent a pen that writes under whip creme, because everyone needs a pen that writes under whip creme. It all sounds pretty silly, but many of today's carbon bikes come equipped with pens that write under whip creme!
Announcing the new Sidewinder Carbon.
When looking for a mold to build our new frame from it had to be stiff, aero, and usable. By usable I mean simple, no race day issues and a minimum of proprietary parts. All the wheelsets had to fit, no seat post collars to strip or crack, no crazy brakes set ups that offer no real speed advantage and are nearly impossible to work on and even harder to replace. I view the following"innovations" as pens that write under whip creme.
- Integrated brakes- No real aero advantage, tough to service, even harder to replace as regular brakes won't fit, many will not open wide enough to accept faster wheelsets.
- Horizontal drop outs- These purportedly allow you to get your real wheel closer to the frame to make it more aero. There is little or no gain here and they make it much more difficult to put a rear wheel in. They also require set screws to make sure that the wheel is square with the frame. These are at best really hard to get right and if you are in a hurry you have about a 10% chance of not having a brake rub. Changing a rear to a different one is usually a problem as dish between wheels is typically different so the set screws need adjusting. Think about that if your race has neutral support and they hand you a wheel. A properly engineered frame gets the wheel in the right place in the first place, no worries.
- Seat post collars- Great on alloy bikes, not wonderful on carbon. Most people don't use a torque wrench and overtighten the collar. It either cracks the frame or strips the fasteners ruining the frameset.
- Overly complex wiring schemes- to many turns equates to poor shifting and braking.
- Frames that are to tight in rear end- These make the rear wheels rub and you cannot take advantage of the faster 23mm wheels that are available.
- Cheap Carbon cloth- Leads to flex especially in the rear end. Many mass produced frames flex as much as 3/8" with rider aboard.
Sidewinder Carbon Eliminates All Of This!
Click on the Sidewinder Carbon Page to read all the details on our new bike and the image page for a better view.
