Issue 97 sees the return of celebrated and much-loved (in a platonic, non-contact fashion) Singletrack columnist, Roly. To celebrate, here’s a column he wrote for us 25 issues ago.
Rad Science.
Doctor Roly does some shonky science for us. Words by Roly Lambert.
I wondered: “Just how much difference does a choice of bike make over a short distance?”
I had two bikes in mind. A rather nice Nicolai Nonius. Then the more, er, ‘basic’ bike was a very tired Trek 7100, henceforth known as the Hybrid Of Doom or HoD, featuring screw-on block, super narrow handlebars and ever so slightly perished road-biased semi-slicks. Oh and ‘interesting’ suspension forks (the only suspense they would provide is doubt as to when they’d seize up and eject the rider).
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“Unsurprisingly Oli is faster than me. Period. But worryingly I’m closer to him on a shonky old hybrid than on a modern mountain bike.”
I’ve double and triple checked my maths, but from “Hybrid of Doom: Oli 3.45 Roly 4.19. Nicolai: Oli 3.22 Roly 3.52”
it looks to me like he’s 4 seconds further away on the HoD?
Si
Agreed
The effort must have fried some neural pathways.
Slower in percentage terms?