Bicycle Quarterly Reviews the Love #3

[Human Epic Jolt]

... your arms rotate forward as they go up.

Hi,

I'm at school here Jan.

Can you just clarify for me what you mean. a little diagram, or kind of explain what is rotating around what.
(or anyone else for that matter). The obvious escapes me from time to time.

PS: what length cranks were on that test bike? they look pretty long.

[davids]

If my crappy memory isn't failing me... I think there was a 10cm stem on the Peg.

jimi

I use a 12cm on my stock 51cm Love. But what do I know?

[DOOFUS]

a 62cm peg is a bike for somebody who rides a, uh, 62cm.

you've got maybe 2cm of seatpost showing. jaysus. it's not 1962. that size bike should have about 12cm+ of post showing and a 140 stem, for fuck's sake.*


Jeez. For example, I ride a 57cm c-c. my seat height is 79cm. my reach is 59.5cm. If I was going to buy a peg, I'd get a 57, have the dealer cut the HT extension, and run a 130 stem. It would look like this bike. http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum...tml#post183629 **

It would not be fucked up. It would work properly. peg's geo is not oddly different than any other damn race bike.


* these are just two matters of proportion of component to bike. I am not claiming that you size a bike by such proportions, rather, that a properly sized bike yields proper proportions. effect, not cause.

** where the shit goes is a result of where your hands and ass should go relative to the wheels. you don't have to be a framebuilder to know that. there's no secret handshake. "laypeople" can understand weight distribution, too. geesh.

[Rando Nomad]

Crank is a 175 cm record aluminium

[Human Epic Jolt]

I know I said i am at school, which means i should probably behave myself, however I have to ask a few questions that i feel could be deemed offensive. they are not meant to be. i like to have things clear in my head.

Here goes:

Did you feel the bicycle fitted the original owner well.

is there much physical difference between yourself and the owner?

what alterations to the bike did you make?

regarding the reasoning behind saddle position/frame sizing you mentioned in your post, and that you couldn't get what you wanted on a smaller frame...

did you actually go through that process before test riding the bike?

[JeffS]

No, but you did say, "Overall, the appeal of the Pegoretti probably lies more in the name and the story behind the brand, rather than the actual bike." Read that sentence again and tell me you're not calling into question the work of the guy who built Miguel Indurain's bikes.

It's a $3400 frame. if you don't believe that you can get similar performance for a third of the price you're in denial.


This thread makes me scratch my head a little. Tons of people coming out the woodwork to defend a bike they've never ridden.

[DCT]

maybe how it should have been done??

[SamIAm]

I don't know, to me Jan is a helluva cyclist and I think he knows enough about what works for him to be credible. Personllay, I plan to try some of his ideas on a future bike.

[nahtnoj]

One may disagree with his opinions, but they come from an informed position.

Not about bikes outside of his preferred niche they don't...that much is clear given his responses thus far.

[Cookietruck]

jan can you tell me:
back when you were a cat2 racer, were bikes setup like you set the pegoretti up?

[Watoni]

I am concerned with bar reach – in fact, that is how I size my bikes. Looking over Pegoretti’s sizes, a smaller frame would have made the top tube much too short... Here are the sizes for the Love3:

Frame Geometry

I was surprised that Pegorettis apparently are sized for a more upright position than most performance-oriented riders prefer. The test bike had a huge 45 mm head tube extension, so it is sized like a conventional 62.5 cm frame (center-center), yet its top tube measured 57.5 cm. To get the bars 4 cm lower, we would have had to accept a 55 cm top tube! Now that would have affected the bike’s performance! (I know that Pegoretti offers custom frames, but my build is very normal, and I usually fit on stock bikes quite well.)

On to the next: While I enjoy riding long distances, we did not evaluate the Pegoretti as a brevet bike. We tested it as a racing bike – riding it up to 100 miles, climbing hills fast, descending, sprinting. I raced for 10 years, all the way up to Category 2, so I think I have a good idea what racing requires. If you don’t believe it, look at the power figures from our double-blind tests of frame stiffness. We managed to get up to about 900 Watts for uphill sprints, repeatedly, and could sustain 625 Watts. That doesn't put us in the league of Cancellara, but I doubt that many Pegoretti owners put out more. We didn’t complain that the Pegoretti doesn’t accept fenders or wide tires, or that it can’t carry luggage. We don’t expect that from a racing bike. We expect it to perform well, period.


To summarize, the Pegoretti’s sizing gives you a hint at its apparent audience. It’s sized for casual riders who don’t want to/can’t stretch out on the bike like a racer. It feels good under constant efforts, but for us, it worked less well in all-out sprints. But then, casual riders don't sprint... Now you can argue that casual riders might be better on wider tires that offer more comfort, but that overlooks the strong aesthetic appeal of a racing bike with narrow tires. As an aesthetic choice, I can see the Love3's appeal.


Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
Vintage Bicycle Press -- Home Page

Jan,

I ride a stock Nerac Love#3 on most double centuries and it would have fit you much better.

ST 54cm
TT 55cm
HT 15.4
STA 73.5
It is set up with a 130 Deda 100 stem and a seatpost with 27 mm of setback (centered SSM ERA) -- per Dario.

What is your saddle to bar reach (and with what saddle)? Drop, etc.?

As for Pegorettis being for casual cyclists, that seems a prejudice, not fact. Lots of folks race their or seek a proper position on their Pegs, and a 4.5cm HT extension seems an anomaly to me.

[Jan Heine]

jan can you tell me:
back when you were a cat2 racer, were bikes setup like you set the pegoretti up?

When I was a Cat 2 racer - and for those who think I have ridden only randonneur bikes, I have ridden more miles in total on racing bikes, because that is what I rode when I trained 10,000 miles a year - my bike wasn't set up like that. I started out with my bars very low, and slowly raised them based on advice from older racers and what felt right.

However, more than once, I raced bikes that weren't mine. Usually, I was traveling, and got the opportunity to race, but had no bike. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I found that having my bars as high as Fausto Coppi or Gino Bartali didn't affect my performance much. However, I could never ride a bike with the bars higher than the saddle. Some claim it works well, but not for me.

The Pegoretti fit me fine. The angle of the photo exaggerates the bar height - they were about 2 cm below the saddle. That's hardly radical. It looks odd because the Brooks saddle builds tall, and the seat tube is extended. Imagine a Flite saddle and the seat tube cut off at the top tube, and you have quite some seatpost showing. Our second tester rides his saddle another inch higher than I do, and he felt the same about the Pegoretti.

Some like to claim that we don't like modern bikes. That is not true, for example, we did like the Trek Madone. Here is the summary: "The Trek Madone is a modern racing bike that offers very solid performance." and "It has the potential to take its rider to the highest peaks of racing, but it may be less suited to the lower power outputs of club riders or long-distance riders." We also very much liked a Crumpton carbon bike we tested - probably the best modern bike I have ridden. (No, Nick doesn't advertise in Bicycle Quarterly.)

In any case, the criticisms of the Pegoretti were not due to how it fit. Basically, we felt that it rode like a racing bike made from oversize aluminum tubing. For a casual rider, that may not be the ideal bike. And if you want an oversize aluminum racing bike, there are other options that cost a lot less.

Again, this doesn't mean that the Pegoretti isn't a good bike, or that you shouldn't buy one.

Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
Vintage Bicycle Press -- Home Page

[Dazza]

What's the cut off for considering a bike low trail? For a 700c rando with a bag a trail around 40 is typical. Lose the bag but keep the 25-28c tires and go to a trail around 50. I'd think that's "low" trail but not all that much lower then modern bikes.

This obsession with trail as it is the the only thing that makes a bikes steer nicley under some one is flawed

there is no such thing as a cut off point

72 HTA / 50 FR
73 HTA / 45 FR
74 HTA/ 40 FR

all have the same trail, so what does that mean
Nothing on it's own
one can make a mix of head tube angles fork rakes to get the same desired number of trail


It is the whole package
and nothing but the whole package
the rider's position on the bike and then the bike is drawn/designed to fit underneath that, for the intended purpose of the bike.

[Archibald]

If the bike does not fit, you must acquit!

[e-RICHIE]

as the original point of this thread evolves and we near the 9,000 views mark, i wanna thank everyone for being cordial atmo.
the more recent posts allow us to better know the motivations of the review and we should focus on these rather than what
we might project upon jan or BQ's readers.

i am still conflicted wrt what relevance the, er - rando-slash-constructeur bicycle plays in PBP and its ilk, especially now that
we know that so few grace the winner's circle or anywhere near it. but it is a fascinating juxtaposition, this machine that appears
so frozen in time, against the very events in which it was first seen atmo.

free huey.

ps apologies for the thread drift.

[davids]

To summarize, the Pegoretti’s sizing gives you a hint at its apparent audience. It’s sized for casual riders who don’t want to/can’t stretch out on the bike like a racer.

This is where my head starts aching. The disconnect between this statement and the painfully inappropriate set-up of the tested bike - a Brooks saddle that's got to position the rider at least 2cm forward of where he should be, a stem that's probably another 2-3cm too short - is enormous.



That frame is way, way too big for the rider. Period. A properly sized frame - with a modern saddle, setback seatpost and stem that allowed the rider to balance between the wheels - would ride completely differently than the tested configuration. Anyone who thinks this bike is well set up: Please go look at the Pegorettis in the gallery.

This leaves me to draw one of two conclusions, neither of which is favorable to Mr. Heine. Either he does not know how to properly size and set up a bicycle, or he doesn't care that this one is set up like a clown bike.

[TMB]

Just for the sake of argument - and not to try pile on here - I offer a picture of a frame that Dario built for me. I gave him very little input other than size and I requested steel. The bike is/was perfect but I sold to a pal who wanted it more than I. Imagine if Jan had done the same, possibly specifying that he likes flexy frames with lots of fork rake - my guess is that this whole brouhaha would be considerably different.

If you don't ask for what you want you probably won't get it.

Anyway...

I cried when I saw a picture of that bike, AND read that you had sold it to someone else.

I was ready to pony up cash for that.

[Fourflys]

well, I certainly don't want to get in the pissing match that this thread is right on the edge of, but I will say this...

Whether you agree with Jan or not, you have to say he did have the balls to come on here after pages of some pretty bad insults and try to explain his review in question without the hint of confrontation...

[Dave Kirk]

well, I certainly don't want to get in the pissing match that this thread is right on the edge of, but I will say this...

Whether you agree with Jan or not, you have to say he did have the balls to come on here after pages of some pretty bad insults and try to explain his review in question without the hint of confrontation...

I agree. I don't agree with Jan but I respect his coming here.

dave

[TMB]

I just returned from a long ride this weekend, and was a bit surprised by the brouhaha on this list. It appears that few of the commenters have read the article, and that there are some misperceptions about what we wrote.



...............

In the end, most purchases are aesthetic choices, anyhow. People buy a Porsche or Ferrari because they like the looks, the story behind it, but not because they will get from A to B faster than they would in a Subaru WRX Sti. There is nothing wrong with aesthetic choices, but magazine tests have to provide the facts. The aesthetic choices are up to the readers. That way, Porsche drivers aren't disappointed when they get passed by a well-driven Subaru on the twisty road in the mountains. That is why we never have a "Bike of the Year" or even a comparison test – each bike appeals to different people. If you like your Pegoretti, then it is the right bike for you.

Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
Vintage Bicycle Press -- Home Page

Jeesus.

That is really all I can say.


Jeeesus.


I don't think there are any mis-perceptions.