[Closed] 650b Spicy - conclusively faster says Nico

I read that on twitter and chuckled, obviously means a lot if you an pro enduro rider, of little consequence when you're hurtling down the surrey alps 😉 Nice bikes though.

Lapierre make really good looking bikes

Just says to me that he,s a consistent rider over a set course. 1sec. Is nothing though except useful hype to sell bikes to the "must have,s"

Loving the black stanchions, you seen the new carbon disc guard too.

The 650b juggernaut has set off for 2014 bikes.

We should play a game of which of the big manufacturers will be left at the table offering 26" bikes for anything other than DH (or other niche aspects like DJ).

The first of many announcements. Of course it's largely bollards, but it's still happening.

Faster or not, it will sell because of the wheels & it looks good.

So that'll be 0.7% quicker with 29" wheels. Finally, we have closure on this debate!

Could be the difference between getting a KOM or not though?

If you're seriously into racing people from the internet then I reckon it's worth the upgrade.

It's a shame the EI system can't have integrated 3G/4G so you can have live KOM updates 🙁

Could be the difference between getting a KOM or not though?

If you're seriously into racing people from the internet then I reckon it's worth the upgrade.

Where's that credit card gone?

butterbean - Member
It's a shame the EI system can't have integrated 3G/4G so you can have live KOM updates

😀

That would be real innovation. I think most would probably use it's 3G capabilities for arguing on MTB forums though, rather than actually riding the thing.

That would be real innovation. I think most would probably use it's 3G capabilities for arguing on MTB forums though, rather than actually riding the thing.

That's preposterous!

0.35% faster......wow

So if I go out for a 2 hr ride, I will get home 25 seconds faster.

I rode a 29'er, 650b and my 26'er back to back and I was equally as slow and unfit on all three.

I will get home 25 seconds faster

[pillock mode]
a 2hr ride is a 2hr ride.
you will go further rather than get back quicker
[/pillock mode]

Factor that the Italian Enduro championship was won by Alex Lupato by only 1.3 seconds, and that 1 second is suddenly a very significant gap.

Even at Enduro 1 at FOD the other weekend, less than 4 minutes seperated the top 75 riders, so incremental speed gains are really significant at the top of any Enduro race.

Factor that the Italian Enduro championship was won by Alex Lupato by only 1.3 seconds, and that 1 second is suddenly a very significant gap.

Can't argue with that, but it doesn't seem so significant when it might be the difference between 39th and 40th place.

what i said, but this bike is aimed at us, most pro riders already have a ride.

andyrm - Member

Factor that the Italian Enduro championship was won by Alex Lupato by only 1.3 seconds, and that 1 second is suddenly a very significant gap.

But they'll all be on 650b sometime soon, so, if it really was the wheels doing there 'magic' (and him not having an ever so slightly better run) the better wheels make absolutely no difference.

Therefore 1 second to us mortals makes **** all difference!

Edit: bike looks fantastic though, already been said but Lappy make great looking bikes.

But they'll all be on 650b sometime soon, so, if it really was the wheels doing there 'magic' (and him not having an ever so slightly better run) the better wheels make absolutely no difference.

Therefore 1 second to us mortals makes **** all difference!

But for those not lucky enough to have a sponsored ride, but who do compete, and like to gain every incremental increase possible, that's got to be a good thing right?

no. they're not of a good enough standard to ride consistently enough to realise the benefit.

brakes - Member

no. they're not of a good enough standard to ride consistently enough to realise the benefit.

This, they wouldn't be winning anyway!

Well 🙂

Even though this may cost me reputation of a normal person, to really prove this 1 second you'd need to do the following:

- Measure a hell of a lot timings with the same rider, tyres, weather, and other factors on the same track, with 26 inch wheels.
- Measure the same but with 650b wheels.

Do a couple of statistical tests and then try to make any conclusions. Based on my experience proving 0.35% increase in speed may be very, very, veeeeery difficult 🙂 If possible at all 🙂

BTW, while on this topic, why one can be sure that it's the bigger wheels and not the totally new (from what I can see) carbon frame? 🙂

Ahhh, analytics... 🙂 🙂

On my last ride I used Strava via my usual Garmin and also the iPhone app. I'm thrilled to announce that on most segments the iPhone 'improved' my times much more than 650b wheels improved Nico's...

Well put my name down for one! This was always going to be my response, 26 or 650b...

Proves nothing. He could do the same run on the same bike and vary by more than a second.

Lets hope they didn't spend all their time being fixated in the new wheels and hence forget to design out all the existing flaws in the 2013 bikes.........

(like the silly cable routing that causes them to rub clean through the carbon frame, even when clipped exactly in place by the factory fixings)

Proves nothing. He could do the same run on the same bike and vary by more than a second.

I imagine it will be the average of a number of runs on 26 compared to an average of a number of runs on 650b rather than 1 run on each...

Does that mean he gets slower as the tyres wear?

I imagine it will be the average of a number of runs on 26 compared to an average of a number of runs on 650b rather than 1 run on each...

This, plus you'd need to demonstrate that timing ranges within 26 inch mode runs and 650b inch mode runs are _less_ than this 1 second. Otherwise it proves nothing.

For example:

If in 26 inch mode it's 151.3 - 151.7 seconds (most the runs are within this range) and for 650b inch mode most of the runs measure 150.1 - 150.9 seconds then there _might_ be a case of new bike being faster (and you don't know if it's wheels or frame or something else).

If the timings range like 145-155 and 146-156 (and I believe they do) then even despite the fact that the averages are different by 1 sec, this difference cannot be deemed statistically significant - read: timing can be soooo different that 1 second is really nothing.

And something tells me that the latter is the case. Gut feeling maybe 🙂

mojo5pro - Member
Proves nothing. He could do the same run on the same bike and vary by more than a second.

Judging by this thread, it proves some people appear to actually care about a 1 second difference (even if it was just a joke), and that they're prepared to pay for it!

awesome science and i think you are right

It is not a significant and i would imagine their is considerable overlap

Perhaps even an outlier that skews the results die to say one really bad run or line choice

Also he would learn about the course and get tired ...how did they control for this

And of course how as on two different bkes so hwo did the control for than not being the factor [ not just the wheel sixe it may have been geometry

[guessing]

when nico says: '1second'

he means: 'chuff me sideways, it's almost like cheating'

or perhaps: 'the difference is significant'

[/guessing]

I was conclusively faster riding 27" wheels back in (struggles to remember but about 30 years ago). Clearly this had everything to do with wheel diameter and nothing to do with the fact that I was 30 years younger.. Oh FFS, If I had Nico's ability on a bike I wouldn't give a rats ass what wheel size I was riding, he clearly needs to get out more. 😉

Lapierre make really good looking bikes

Some would say cracking 😆

So if I had 650B wheels and Nico had 26" wheels I'd beat him by a second over a 2:50 sec run? That's how I read it anyway and it sounds bloody awesome. I'll be buying loads of them and sticking them on all my bikes tomorrow. Eat my dust, Stravanauts... 🙂

The 2014 Lapierre Spicy has been revealed and Nico Vouilloz has shared his findings on the relative merits of 26in vs 650b wheels.

Apparently the new bike is one second faster over a 2min 50sec run. Which I work out as around 0.35%.

Link to source please.

And maybe one day we'll see a press release that says "this new bike is 1 second slower" or "this bike's not quite as good" as the previous version. I believe they have a new bike to "sell" - and it looks good.

mojo5pro - Member

Proves nothing. He could do the same run on the same bike and vary by more than a second.

Nico's basically a bike-riding robot, his development testing is legendary. There was a wee interview a while back where he mentioned he'd got 2 axles, machined one of them down to make it less stiff, then done 2 days of shuttle runs to test them. 2 days! I trust it, personally, it is as good as a comparison as there will ever be.

But... This isn't the only thing he thinks/knows makes him faster. He's a flex obsessive, like above, machining down factory parts to make them less stiff. He's absolutely right IMO, but the point is that Lapierre have never taken his results on flex and sold a "15% less stiff" bike. They cherrypick what sells from his ideas and ignore what doesn't. A little well engineered flex works really well on a bike, but stiffness is easy to sell.

So what we have here isn't "speed sells", or a research led bike development programme, it's "We want to sell a 650b bike. What do we have that we can sell it with". Fact following form essentially. It's like a Singletrack thread, decide what you think [i]then[/i] google for evidence 😉

It's not unlike Fabien Barel with Mondraker... When Fabien says that fugly stems are great, you hear about it because Mondraker want to sell bikes with fugly stems. When Fabien says everyone runs their suspension too soft, and that we should be running less travel, far stiffer, and only using our suspension to provide grip... Mondraker sell softly damped bikes like everyone else, because soft suspension feels nice on test rides and in shops.

some one should tell dan atherton about this second because he chooses to race on a 26" wheeled prototype rather than the new 650b force.

For those who can't afford a new bike with 650b wheels there is always http://www.digitalepo.com/

If you're seriously into racing people from the internet then I reckon [s]it's worth the upgrade[/s] you are a bit sad if buying a bike to beat people you don't know seems a sensible and important thing to do.

Think I've fixed that for you...

b45her - Member

some one should tell dan atherton about this second because he chooses to race on a 26" wheeled prototype rather than the new 650b force.

Eh, the proto that Dirt covered this month, which is the one he raced in Italy, is 650b. But it's also got a fair number of other differences from the Force (most noticably, the head angle isn't from 2007)

So a man who is sponsored by a company declares it's new product is better than the last and the 650 is faster (cause thats what we want to sell Nico)

Well thats a massive shock who would have thought that it would be by such a massive margin (which as pointed out is well within the massive range of error)

b45her

some one should tell dan atherton about this second because he chooses to race on a 26" wheeled prototype rather than the new 650b force.

He raced a 650b bike. His 16 year old team mate rode a 26" wheel and beat him.