Bicycle thread

[CTG]

Perfect example of the ilk who would use them. Comes out of the woodwork for one post. Thank you!

Schwalbe have been nothing but problems for the folks I know who have spent the cash on them. The comical thing is that they'll tell you to your face of the strange occurrences they've had with them, and they will still deny that there is anything wrong with them or their whimsical tire choices. It is the strangest thing.

Dave, you're making it about the people instead of the tyres.

 

[2whlrcr]

[Cough] Bullshit [/Cough]

That is all... carry on.

[Cough] Bullshit [/Cough]

That is all... carry on.

Any validity of this post, went right out the window as soon as I saw those canti brakes...

 

[Psycholist]

Any validity of this post, went right out the window as soon as I saw those canti brakes...

In my defense, they are attached to an IndyFab fork that is installed on a 26 year old MOOTS YBB.

 

[2whlrcr]

You mean installed on my Moots...

 

[CTG]

Lugged Ti bikes get a fork with 3D printed Ti crown, Ti or carbon steer, Ti or carbon fork blades and Ti ends.

Three days, three hammerfests along the lake. It had been a while and neither of us were dropped. That was fun. We said our byes and flew out this morning.

 

[Psycholist]

Lugged Ti bikes get a fork with 3D printed Ti crown, Ti or carbon steer, Ti or carbon fork blades and Ti ends.

Three days, three hammerfests along the lake. It had been a while and neither of us were dropped. That was fun. We said our byes and flew out this morning.

Send me one with a 1" threadless steerer, canti bosses, with good or better flexion than my IndyFab and I'll rock it. I need to get an action camera looking down at the dropouts as I go over the B roads to capture the flex of that fork.

 

[Mambo Danny]

Any validity of this post, went right out the window as soon as I saw those canti brakes...

I almost went there - the classic unique eccentric bike type, lol. ...but it's all forgiven on a quality titanium bike of any era.

-------------

My second session with the physical therapist (that I paid for with my own money to do what he could to prevent knee surgery) was Tuesday evening. He is absolutely focusing on the weak areas of the legs/hips/ankles that I have neglected by being mostly solely a cyclist over the last few years. Unlike the first visit, this one made me feel like I shouldn't plan on cycling Wednesday evening - though I did plan on it, but when push came to loading up and getting out, I chose to take the dog to the dog park. In and around my hip area (not sure what all the smaller muscles are called around there, like the gluteus medius and the vastus lateralus) everything is still sore today - which is great.

I just texted the PT, and he gave me the names of two of the movements he had me doing:

• modified side plank with top leg abduction
• lateral lunge with kettle bell

I might end up with super toned and strong legs that still need knee replacements.



and

 

[CTG]

Send me one with a 1" threadless steerer, canti bosses, with good or better flexion than my IndyFab and I'll rock it. I need to get an action camera looking down at the dropouts as I go over the B roads to capture the flex of that fork.

It is interesting to see how much a fork flexes..

 

[2whlrcr]

I almost went there - the classic unique eccentric bike type, lol. ...but it's all forgiven on a quality titanium bike of any era.

-------------

Since everything I own with 700c wheels has rim brakes, I figured I was qualified to make the observation. And I knew who the poster was...

 

[CTG]

Of note - You may consider my opinion on suspension, frames, and tires to be incorrect, but Trek changed their entire Domane line based off of what I have believed to be true for the last five years or so. They got rid of their front suspension contraption due to tires getting bigger and ding a better job of being 'suspension.' 2:17 mark in this review:

For all the interest I have in Trek, they only got rid of half the isospeed system. It is putting a positive spin on a failure. It never really worked and tyres do it better, but that doesn't make tyres the best way.

Anyway, home again after a week away.

 

[CTG]

This morning clear and sunny two and a half hour ride. Riding between 2m snow embankments near top of climbs. We do a quick change after the ride to have a look at a local avalanche with two people from an emergency service. #1 is doing the flying, she starts flight training in a few weeks. That'll be a formality. This year there has been a heavier snow fall and there are avalanche warnings. Back at home we have two slips and top road has been blocked.

 

[Mambo Danny]

Finally spent the dough on a receiver hitch for the gravel bike(s). That, alone, could have been as low as $154 ... but no, I really wanted the more-versatile 2" receiver for the Prius... and it was $363 just for being a unique 2" receiver for the little Prius.

ooh, but the ass rape wasn't over yet... next came a bike rack that supports the carbon bike(s) by the wheels instead of the frame. $613 for a Kuat there. I mean, yeah, I understand they are good, but this is the old-school Sherpa design that they've kept on, and it really should cost only like $400 or $450. But I needed it.

That internal aluminum bumper and its steel arms had to come off, and the receiver mounted to in-between it and the unibody, then the bumper put back on. Plastic under-fairing needed to be cut to finish it, but it's together - and done right. I know to not trust installers up in areas one just doesn't see, so I did it myself. Cardboard to have a comfortable work area on the driveway.

 

[Psycholist]

Hey Mambo Danny don't look now... but your Prius hit puberty between the second and third picture...

 

[Mambo Danny]

Hey Mambo Danny don't look now... but your Prius hit puberty between the second and third picture...

 

[CTG]

Finally spent the dough on a receiver hitch for the gravel bike(s). That, alone, could have been as low as $154 ... but no, I really wanted the more-versatile 2" receiver for the Prius... and it was $363 just for being a unique 2" receiver for the little Prius.

ooh, but the ass rape wasn't over yet... next came a bike rack that supports the carbon bike(s) by the wheels instead of the frame. $613 for a Kuat there. I mean, yeah, I understand they are good, but this is the old-school Sherpa design that they've kept on, and it really should cost only like $400 or $450. But I needed it.

That internal aluminum bumper and its steel arms had to come off, and the receiver mounted to in-between it and the unibody, then the bumper put back on. Plastic under-fairing needed to be cut to finish it, but it's together - and done right. I know to not trust installers up in areas one just doesn't see, so I did it myself. Cardboard to have a comfortable work area on the driveway.

You got it done. It surprises me a little that you chose hitch mount instead of roof mount when you already have racks. The bikes in that last photo have me a little confused. I didn't think of you as a Prius driver either lol.

 

[Mambo Danny]

You got it done. It surprises me a little that you chose hitch mount instead of roof mount when you already have racks. The bikes in that last photo have me a little confused. I didn't think of you as a Prius driver either lol.

I wasn't - I was a 395HP Ram 1500 owner / lover / driver, but then the Iranians started attacking oil tankers in 2019. Fuel prices had been low for years, and we all know the way that cycle works. The way any ... ANY ... threat to oil supplies normally works (at least up until that time) is that gasoline prices shoot up immediately, and stay high for a little while. I was worried that would be the case, and the trade-in after good negotiation was giving me $7,000 equity in the truck since it was good looking and just under 60k miles. I flipped the truck for the most fuel economical car that wasn't 100% EV I could think of (with the best reliability I could think of ... so Toyota). I was wrong about fuel prices going up due to the attacks on tankers then, but I was paid back in spades when fuel prices shot up to almost $5 per gallon after Covid. I drive a lot, and those fuel prices with the Prius meant nothing to me, where-as they would have been a burden with the truck. The Prius saved enough fuel that it helped make its own payments until I just paid it off to get it over with.

Of what I've been tracking, 56,574 miles (Fuelly app), I've saved $5,328 in fuel since early 2020 - and that's the low estimate not taking into account that I would have had to buy the more expensive gasoline more often with the truck. I imagine that would really be something like $6,500 or so.

I'm not a tree hugger (per se), I lean conservative with my spending (and investing - which that fuel savings went into). The prius still has the camo seat covers from the truck in it, lol.

Do I want my 2015 Ram 1500 back? Hell yes. Better ride, loved that 5.7L engine, the ZF 9-speed transmission was fine. But apparently my GF's aunt and uncle, who live locally down here over by the beach, told her that she found a smart one because of my Toyota hybrid car, lol. Luckily I don't suffer from small penis syndrome - good in that department - so the hit to the ego was minute. I am looking forward to Toyota making a hybrid pickup truck sometime soon, though, so that I can get back to driving a pickup truck.

-----

I thought that the bike with the front wheel on would become an unwieldy beast when balancing it up on a roof rack. I did have a Kuat roof rack/rail for a single bike, and that worked for the Kona with the quick-release dropouts. They make a through-axle version where the front tire still needed to come off, but there was no safety built into it while trying to hold the bike up to put the through-axle through, so it would end up with a lot of dents in the roof. I wanted the ability to carry two bikes as well, and have found that a year of constantly taking the front wheel off and putting it back on at riding areas kinda sucked with the through-axle. If I forgot the allen wrench at home I've have to dig deep into the bike's downtube tool area to get that mini-tool out to put the wheel on to ride.

The 2" receiver I went for was both for stability of the bike rack, in comparison to the 1 1/4" receivers, the flexibility of 2", and... yeah - because I know that I want my truck back ... whatever truck that may be ... and most 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton trucks have 2" receivers.

The other bonus is that the rear of the car now has an overbuilt steel ... 'bumper' ... should I get rear-ended in south Florida traffic by anything low enough to make the impact on the hitch.

Deleted that last photo - it was a phot from Amazon of the bike rack, not my car nor my rack (yet).

 

[CTG]

I wasn't - I was a 395HP Ram 1500 owner / lover / driver, but then the Iranians started attacking oil tankers in 2019. Fuel prices had been low for years, and we all know the way that cycle works. The way any ... ANY ... threat to oil supplies normally works (at least up until that time) is that gasoline prices shoot up immediately, and stay high for a little while. I was worried that would be the case, and the trade-in after good negotiation was giving me $7,000 equity in the truck since it was good looking and just under 60k miles. I flipped the truck for the most fuel economical car that wasn't 100% EV I could think of (with the best reliability I could think of ... so Toyota). I was wrong about fuel prices going up due to the attacks on tankers then, but I was paid back in spades when fuel prices shot up to almost $5 per gallon after Covid. I drive a lot, and those fuel prices with the Prius meant nothing to me, where-as they would have been a burden with the truck. The Prius saved enough fuel that it helped make its own payments until I just paid it off to get it over with.

Of what I've been tracking, 56,574 miles (Fuelly app), I've saved $5,328 in fuel since early 2020 - and that's the low estimate not taking into account that I would have had to buy the more expensive gasoline more often with the truck. I imagine that would really be something like $6,500 or so.

I'm not a tree hugger (per se), I lean conservative with my spending (and investing - which that fuel savings went into). The prius still has the camo seat covers from the truck in it, lol.

Do I want my 2015 Ram 1500 back? Hell yes. Better ride, loved that 5.7L engine, the ZF 9-speed transmission was fine. But apparently my GF's aunt and uncle, who live locally down here over by the beach, told her that she found a smart one because of my Toyota hybrid car, lol. Luckily I don't suffer from small penis syndrome - good in that department - so the hit to the ego was minute. I am looking forward to Toyota making a hybrid pickup truck sometime soon, though, so that I can get back to driving a pickup truck.

-----

I thought that the bike with the front wheel on would become an unwieldy beast when balancing it up on a roof rack. I did have a Kuat roof rack/rail for a single bike, and that worked for the Kona with the quick-release dropouts. They make a through-axle version where the front tire still needed to come off, but there was no safety built into it while trying to hold the bike up to put the through-axle through, so it would end up with a lot of dents in the roof. I wanted the ability to carry two bikes as well, and have found that a year of constantly taking the front wheel off and putting it back on at riding areas kinda sucked with the through-axle. If I forgot the allen wrench at home I've have to dig deep into the bike's downtube tool area to get that mini-tool out to put the wheel on to ride.

The 2" receiver I went for was both for stability of the bike rack, in comparison to the 1 1/4" receivers, the flexibility of 2", and... yeah - because I know that I want my truck back ... whatever truck that may be ... and most 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton trucks have 2" receivers.

The other bonus is that the rear of the car now has an overbuilt steel ... 'bumper' ... should I get rear-ended in south Florida traffic by anything low enough to make the impact on the hitch.

Deleted that last photo - it was a phot from Amazon of the bike rack, not my car nor my rack (yet).

That's more like it!

I use 1-up style racks on the roof. They are easy with one end being supported as the bike goes in.

 

[Mambo Danny]

That's more like it!

I use 1-up style racks on the roof. They are easy with one end being supported as the bike goes in.

Maybe I should have compared what was available for better rooftop mounting. But... depending on the highway and traffic flow, I can find myself in with everyone else doing 85 MPH, perhaps 92 MPH to pass, and I'm not sure that roof bike racks are made for that. Moreover, the wind buffeting of the bikes and racks at those speeds could probably really do a number when doing long road trips. With the front wheels off, fork legs locked in, I felt that that was a more stable platform for rooftop use at speed. But that taking off of the front wheels is what I'm trying to get away from.

 

[Mambo Danny]

OK, here's the real rack with the real bike.

And when I'm not running the rack - so throughout the week during commuting - I have my south Florida added rear-end protection from being rear-ended by cars as low as mine:

 

[CTG]

You'd want to check with the manufacturer or documentation if you have any doubts about the suitability of racks. We carry eight bikes (or four tandems) and four sets of wheels on purpose built racks fitted to VW Caravelle and Golf wagons at 130kph on autoroutes. My 911TS has factory racks with three 1-up carriers. The bikes are solidly mounted. In both cases buffeting is more of an annoyance for passengers than a problem for bikes and racks and is often rectified by a small change of speed up or down or for more permanent fix by moving the carriers forward, backward, in or out slightly to break the interaction causing the turbulence.

Something to bash your shins on...