Stiffness versus Compliance

Re: optimization

This idea is so central to bike discussion that I get @dancingwithmyself 's comment about abandoning the forums were the idea to be rejected. When optimization comes up it seems to me to be in either of two different ways. 1) personalization (you can optimize your bike for you) or 2) the target user group that the designers had in mind for their product, where we may assume that users in the group get the best outcome and users outside the group get something less when that product is a part of their bike. This is how it sounds to me when I read other riders' comments. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

How are people imagining an optimum? Like [A] I think.

The axes' scales aren't too important here. X is just a generic, unitless way of showing that for whatever characteristic of your test rider (if you are a tuner) or your target rider population (if you are a designer) that you focus on, we can imagine other riders who have less of more of that, like body weight. So we let zero be Joey Average or zero could be average of the top 30 UCI Elite Men or anything else. Y is shown like a ratio where whoever enjoys the most performance, in whatever terms you're scoring it, is set to 1 and everyone else gets a score in proportion. Other ways or showing performance could be substituted here, but this is nice and generic too.

When we of the mtb social media talk about optimization, it sounds like we imagine [A]. [B] is an example using rider weight vs. compliance to make it relevant to the conversation. [C] is another example that came up, the idea of a product being designed for the pros and every less rider inevitably enjoys it less.

I want to suggest here that D, E, and F are possibilities we can't rule out, and we have reason to favor them over A, B, and C at least sometimes. Given the choice, why would a bunch of mtb component designers hamstring their work for everyone outside a narrow target? It might be true given the constraints of some material or some process or some feasibility with respect to business. But are we going to just assume it's true for product after product unless we hear otherwise?

I'd say design wise, if anything, it's B but the general outcome and usage is A. Because B is a suboptimal way to design things - a heavy, slow rider will load a component the same way a light, agresive rider will and they might get the same response, in both cases suboptimal.

As for A vs. D vs. E/F, if we're talking about stiffness and tuning of it specifically, it's invariably going to be A well before it will be E, let alone F and D is, without adjustability or even on the fly adaptability (in the vein of Flight Attendant), just a pipe dream. Hell, for a given rider it could vary day to day, week to week, month to month depending on the mental state, fitness/skill level, pre/post injury, etc. It can even vary hour to hour or trail to trail if you're talking about different conditions (dry to wet, hardpack, dry rock to slimy roots), etc.

A: custom shock tunes

B: fork air pressure recommendation charts

C: DT EX471 rims

D: brass spoke nipples

E & F: Any dietary recommendation ever

Have we seen this? Anybody watched it?

He goes out of his way to not really say much. He thinks you are better served with different grips, a heavier duty tire at a lower pressure or running an insert with a lower tire pressure. 

This was a pretty good article discussing handlebar compliance:

https://bikerumor.com/does-handlebar-compliance-make-a-difference-facti…

This is the best bar test, video and results I’ve seen.  I wish there was more in depth testing like this.