Five cool things coming soon from Ribble, PNW, Wahoo, Rapha and dhb

Isn't this just reverse snobbery? Would you say that someone *shouldn't* get (picking a bike out of hat) a Di2 Synapse as their first road bike 'cos cheaper bikes are available?

Too rich for my blood, certainly, but 275 notes is hardly fin-de-siècle excess.

Wondered how long it'd take.

All the other big brands have shorts as ridiculously expensive (pro spec, innit) yet never get this reverse snobbery.

Their shorts start at £85 RRP, and are pretty good btw.

If it's too expensive for you I understand. Maybe a Rolls Royce is out of your price range too. But please don't sneer at excellence, because it sounds like jealousy.

I own Rapha kit for 3 reasons, quality, comfort but more importantly their free repair service, this really is a seller. I have had a hardshell jacket, classic jersey classic bib shorts 3 times and pro bibs shorts once, all repaired due to accidents, all repaired to a high standard and free. Consider that the next time you are sliding on your arse ripping your bib shorts and jersey. 

One pair of bibs are @ 7 year old and still good.

It all depends on your riding but hear hear to compact corned beefs comments.

Assos also have a repair service, and their top end bibs are a mere £255 for those who consider these Rapha ones to be obscenely priced

I've a pair of dhb bibs that are 6 years old and still good, 60 quid was a bargain

Galibier.cc do a free repair service on all thier products. At a third of the price of Rapha.

There's no "need" for it - or for any triangles in a frame at all, they're not "necessary". The normal reasons given for dropped stays are aerodyanmics (hardly a factor in this sort of bike you'd imagine) and increased compliance in the seat post (which might well be).

If you don't like, fair enough.

It's just fashion, isn't it. You need some sort of incremental improvement to sell new frames, a smaller triangle should in theory be stiffer for the same tube thicknesses but mainly because everyone else has dropped seatstays you have to keep up. We've been here with curved tubing to add compliance, then straight tubes to improve stiffness and responsiveness, thinner seat stays and posts to soften things up again, now dropped stays to stiffen the rear end. Welcome to the bicycle industry, where not just the wheels go round

It seems to be partly fashion, perhaps for a reason, but also you can tweak how the structure reacts which may be useful - and affect things like aerodynamics for those fast enough to take advantage, and professional enough to need to. We can all pretend changing the frame structure doesn't make any difference though, seems popular enough.

There's tons you can do to tweak and tune the feel of a bicycle frame by slightly altering aspects like triangle sizes, tube diameter, wall thicknesses and so forth. Do you think the frame manufacturers are tweaking each frame they make to alter the characteristics for each size they release each season though? Ordering in 1000 each of 6 different tube types instead of 6000 of 1? I'd be very impressed if they did

Of course "there's tons you can do to tweak" the frame characteristics, never said otherwise. Dropping the stays, or adding a pivot like Trek, is just a really gross structural way of adding them that doesn't necessarily need the time or expense of fine tuning and/or butting of individual tubes. Not seeing your logic really - there are other ways of altering frames response so this can't be doing anything ? Let us know what i'm missing (and, no, it's not the fashion aspect - already said that most likely an influence as well).

Some manufacturers also do indeed size the tubing to max the size of frame - something that appears to becoming more popular outside of bespoke frame makers.

Sure, dropped stays will have some sort of effect - doing anything differently will have an effect. What's debatable is whether these effects are tangible to the rider, at least as much as to describe one being "better" than the other. Every year a new frame comes out and it's better, more aero, more compliant, more stiff than anything we've ever seen before - it may well be, but if it looks the same as last years it isn't going to sell. So we see curved top tubes, wobbly stays, compact frames, aero top tubes, dropped stays, straight tubes, squoval tubes, kammtail tubes, each time better than last years in some way - and there's nothing wrong with any of this, if you're buying a bike you want to feel like you're getting something modern and cutting edge even though genuine technological breakthroughs are relatively rare, and dropped stays are a very current look. Give it a few years and there'll be a reason why they aren't as good longer stays, we've already seen the Team GB track frames go, literally, the other way

In the case of the seat-tube pivot, it's been shown to have a measurable effect and also one that seems to be appreciable to the rider (rider perception considered). The dropped stay is supposed to have a similar, but smaller effect (depending on location, top-tube etc), on the fore-aft movement for a given seat-tube - i've heard some of the manufacturers claims but not seen any evidence on compliance, so I would only be going on perception as to whether it amounts to much. Physics say it probably should in some cases, i'd wait until I saw any testing before ruling it in or out. Aerodynamics is a different question - that does appear to have at least some figures to back up the claims for dropped stays modulo tester bias.

Track bikes still appear to be using all sorts, including dropped stays (e.g. Cervelo, Look, Argon) along with some experimentation with specially shaped raised (more vertical) stays (e.g. Lotus). Things probably will change - they found that Y was better than X, and used that for a bit, then found Z was better than X and started using that. That doesn't mean that Y was purely fashion, it just got superceded when people experimented more.

Anyway, i'm out of here - the OP asked whether there was any reason for the arrangement, I replied that there is and what it might be. The reply from someone was it's only fashion, nothing else. People can believe what they wish but at some point in time physics and reality have to be acknowledged rather than completely ignored - questioned, yeah, but not dismissed out of hand because something else can do the same. Whatever.

Cheerio 👋

My understanding is that the lowered seat stay creates a stiffer rear triangle for lateral response, whilst offering vertical flex and comfort. BMC were the first to design and manufacture their frames like this, and their patent expired a couple of years ago, hence all the other manufacturers (Ribble, Cannondale, Specialized etc.) are all at it now. Makes sense for an Endurance bike if you believe the hype over a traditional diamond.

I don't believe the hype sorry. It's just a fad.
A few years ago it was the wavy forks and rear stays of Pinarellos. Then before that we had oval chain rings for better power delivery. L shaped cranks and other rubbish.

The industry needs to churn the base to keep the senior people in dividends and yachts.

The only people actually hyping it appear to be people telling others that it's only fashion and has no purpose. It might be partly the former, as I said, but it can also have the latter.

They weren't, really - you see dropped stays going back decades. GT had plenty of triple triangle frames, Colnago Equilateral, Gitane offered them, even Raleigh had slightly lowered stays on their mk2 pros

And there was the MBK HPF (High Power Frame), must have been late 80s I think, which had dropped stays just like these bikes.

Having followed this product for over a year, it's seems it's a bit compromised being undamped and very pressure sensitive - any sag and it bobs too high and it doesn't move. Be interested to see what a journalistic review concludes.

I've got a couple of photochromic pairs of glasses (Uvex) and they typically take about  30-60 seconds to react, though I don't really notice unless it's a dramatic difference in light conditions.

I don't think any glasses change that quickly.
Oakley Transitions are quicker than my Oakley compatible photochromics but they were about three times the price.

Hardly a scientific analysis, but I had a pair of these on for an 80km ride recently, some lanes, some city, and I essentially forgot I was wearing them. Never felt like they should have been darker/clearer.

Yeah I've never had an issue with my photo chromatic lenses, I think it's rare that they ever go as dark as they possibly can, unless you've got the sun actually shining in your face, plus your pupils react so quickly to adapt for light anyway that they compensate far more quickly than any lenses possibly could.  The difference is brightness between cycling out in the open and under tree cover is usually far less than if you walk indoors, unless you've ridden into some really densely wooded area.

The Road guys have the ultimate test on their doorstep: ride flat out into the Combe Down tunnel and see how long it takes to be able to see anything...