Comments on: Specialized Bicycles podcast

By: Eurobike and nouveau penny-farthings | Bicycle Design

Eurobike and nouveau penny-farthings | Bicycle Design — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:43:18 +0000

[...] I also remember this carbon fiber high-wheeler concept bike that Specialized industrial designer Robert Egger did many years ago (early 90s maybe?). Does anyone know of any others? I am pretty sure that I have [...]

By: Edu&Nano

Edu&Nano — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:53:00 +0000

I know all the manufactures spend a lot of money on engineering, but i think there are some phyloshopy differents. Trek is a bussines that sells bykes. Specd. sells bikes and they make bussines with it. Two examples to ilustrate this

My 990 Trek had a crack (fatal one) between the Headset pipe and the diagonal tube, there are a reiforcement there. The crack (fatigue one) was in the HAT (Heat Affected Zone) quite probably due to a hydrogen dispersión in the metal base( I´m not sure if this is the correct name in English. This drives to a weakness by hidrogen. The cause of this is probably the welding sequence (reinforcement), the heat dispersion of the welding or many but I bet for one these ones. This could be avoid with a PWHT (Post-Welding Heat T) to reduce the welding stresses and the hydrogen dispersion. That was a manufacturer mistake, I think.

My 92 Stumjump. has a terrible crash on the top tube, the zone is not critical, mid part, and the top tube loss is rounded shape but there is no rest of fatigue crack yet, ( 10 years or so)

As a resume Specialized are more worried on his image of reliability an made quality products, than Trek. They are more worried on the marketing an brand image, than engineering and research

Am i wrong?

By: James

James — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 17:27:00 +0000

Thanks for the comments guys.

Edu&Nano, I don't know about your reliability question. I love my Specialized road bike and have not had any problems at all with it, but I have seen broken frames from most every manufacturer. For the record, I also own a Trek cross bike that I ride pretty hard without any problems. I think that both of those companies and many others invest heavily in engineering to make their products as safe as possible.

By: Edu&Nano

Edu&Nano — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:41:00 +0000

I´m a fan of Specialized products to; I still´ve a 92 Stumjumper Comp (Tange Prestige Direct Drive) and the frame is still perfect. I crack the fork but the frame is still ok. I cannot say the same thing of my 95 Trek 990.

I think they are the more reliable bicycles on big size manufacturers, aren´t they?

By: Fritz

Fritz — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:26:00 +0000

The LBS in my town is a Spesh shop so I’ll probably be buying more of their products. I already bought the ’07 Roubaix last week — nice bike.

Athlete Focus looks pretty good. I’m *so* glad they’re not calling it ‘MyFitness.com’ like so many of the other MySpace copycats are doing.

By: gwadzilla

gwadzilla — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 20:05:00 +0000

I have a specialized cross bike that has a nice flat section on the top tube for shouldering the bike

over all it is a pretty nice bike

pretty