General Bike Thread (Desiderata, Questions, Pics)

[Piobaire]

This will tell you how long ago I was up on cycling....my Trek had downtube shifters and I had it converted.

 

[otc]

No lie, I've considered building a bike with retroshift levers that let you mount down-tube levers on your brakes:

Gives you the modern convenience of shifting from the hoods, but without the expensive and easily-breakable STI units.

Indexed or friction...honestly, I've never had a problem with friction shifting...it is super easy to feel when the bike is in gear, and you never have to waste time perfectly tuning your shifting setup.

 

[oldandslow]

Quote: I run the GP4000 25's on my road bike and they are comfortable on rough pavement and tar and chip roads (southern Ontario). Ok on hard packed dirt too, as I often detour onto a section of rail trail to avoid a busy stretch of road on one my regular routes. Kind of sketchy on some of our gravel roads, which can have 1/2" - 3/4" stones on the surface. If I am going to be riding a fair amount on gravel and/or more 'primitive' rail trail I will opt for the disc bike with 35mm tires.

 

[LawrenceMD]



No lie, I've considered building a bike with retroshift levers that let you mount down-tube levers on your brakes:

^those are great for retro builds (7 and 8 speed). The one thing people forget is to switch up the handlebars to modern (STI friendly shorter/level reach) bars.

when you add sti/brifters to old school bars the reach/position can be awkward.

 

[brp2]

@Piobaire -- yup, you can still get the Specialized Armadillos or Conti Gatorskins, While not quite as tough, I'm most partial to Conti's GP 4Seasons in 25 or 28 mm widths. I also like Conti's GP 4000S IIs in 25 mm, but I generally save those for summer. Take all this with a grain of salt, however, as I haven't been out on any of my bikes in over a year. Having a kid just makes running much more efficient.

 

[ridethecliche]

One of my mates who has Ultegra electric still dropped his chain mid ride and bent it completely out of shape to the point he had to get his wife to come and pick him up. I said I thought the electronic stuff was supposed to be precision shifting? I guess for me I like the idea of adjusting the derailleur's with a turn of a screw rather than relying on the electronic system.

Everything breaks at some point.

I've read (from people I used to race with) that the electronic shifting stuff is just way better at shifting under load.

I'm still on DA 7800 with a 105 crank (used to have an SRM).

 

[Henry Carter]

Oh sure, I raced for a long time too and was always hard on parts when I did. Im lucky do do 200km a week these days though and I'm not so hard on stuff.

Anyway my mates ultegra is only about 8 months old and it was a simple downshift from big to small chain rings not under hard load. It jumped off in between the cranks and BB and got stuck then of course bent. We were all really surprised.

 

[gomestar]

You can even get small engines installed discretely on your bike. Just be careful, you can't race with them, and you need to make sure a friend doesn't have a completely identical bike with an engine who happens to be hanging out at the same race, and that the team mechanic doesn't mess up which bike goes where before a championship race. Really important.



(sorry bike people, I've played a lot of competitive sports, but nowhere was the pure asshole to kind of a prick ratio skewed so far to the former than in the world of cycling. Everybody here seems pretty cool, thank god)

 

[otc]

They should just say no electronic shifting, and then hit every bike with an EMP right before the race.

 

[gomestar]

I see that cheater used Wilier and I remember many years ago (in Piobtown, actually) visiting some bike stores with a relative, and they pointed out a few super expensive frames from Wilier, so I always held that brand in kind of "epic frame, epic price" territory.

fast forward 11 years and even Wilier is offering an "affordable" well-eqiped option along with their $5K frames:

http://www.competitivecyclist.com/w...lciBCaWtlczoxOjI6MTAwMDAxNDcwX2NjQ2F0MTAwMTU3

 

[oldandslow]

Out for a 'mixed surface' ride today (rail trail, gravel road, paved road). ~2°C and not much wind. Lake Huron usually has ice as far as you can see this time of year.

 

[Piobaire]

Nice! Up by Erieau?

 

[oldandslow]

Looking north, ~20km east of Sarnia.

 

[gomestar]

Ti frame? From what I can tell of the components, that bike isn't messing around.

 

[oldandslow]

Quote:
Guru Praemio ti disc frame, and quite possibly the last one built, as Guru shut down shortly after I received this one late last year (we were a dealer). Campy Athena group, FSA SLK cranks (we had a set 'lying around' the store), Reynolds Attack disc carbon wheels, Ritchey fork, Cinelli Neo Morphe handlebar, Deda Superzero seat post, Hope X2 callipers, etc. The Hope V-Twin unit converts the cable pull from the levers to operate the hydraulic calipers. The V-Twin hangs from the fork and sits under the stem. It adds a bit of plumbing, but allows you to use hydraulic calipers with non-hydraulic shifter/brake units. The short run of the cable part of the brake line, and its position up and away from the ground, also minimizes the cable contamination/friction/maintenance that affects fully cable operated systems.
One of the perks of being in the business is that you get to build up and ride some nice bikes, ones you probably couldn't afford or rationalize otherwise!