Sports Technology?

An anonymous reader writes "With the 90th Tour de France starting today, it is fun to marvel at the improvement of road bike technology over the years. Like others, I have traded up from heavy steel to aluminum, and now carbon fiber, ending up with a bike far better than its rider. How have advances in sports technology enhanced your own performance and enjoyment of sport?"

Comments

Bikes

[superdan2k]

Well, given that I've been racing bicycles for 15 years now, I think that the biggest advances have to be lightweight suspensions and disc brakes on mountain bikes, integrated shift/brake levers on road bikes, and scandium as a frame material.

Scandium's a pretty new development -- gives you the weight of aluminum with the durability and "liveliness" of steel...

Carbon fiber -- I've never liked, not even Trek's OCLV -- too much of a "dead" feel to the ride...

For my road bike, I too, am on aluminum, but I'm going back to steel this fall -- because, in the end, steel is real. I can get a bike similarly equipped to my aluminum one, at a similar weight (steel's got some great new alloys), with the feel and responsiveness I've always loved...

I could write forever on this subject, so I'll just shut up now. :-)