Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
It never ceases to amaze me
It never ceases to amaze me how protective people are towards those they find relatable and how easy they find it to deflect any and all blame towards those they don’t. It’s the fault of some mediocre collector and old men conspiring to tarnish our yom-kippur-respecting golden child (Ryan Braun); or some fame-hungry masseuse and journalist abetted by an equally fame-hungry cowboy FDA agent, neglecting his real responsibility to catch mass murderers or something, in order to tarnish our cycling messiah. Or the one that gets me the most, why punish the poor driver who barely ran a red light and hit a cyclist, “cyclists” do it all the time, if he cared for his safety he would have worn a helmet. We are wired to empathize with those we “know” and discredit those we don’t.
I thought this should be obvious by now to cycling fans: catching dopers is hard. An analytical positive is absurdly hard to get. Particularly on the handful of tests a year that pro tennis associations allow. Their testing impetus makes 00’s era cycling testing seem inquisitorial.
I liked Sharapova. I think she’s a fighter, a great story coming out from Siberia to international success and a rare occasionally insightful interview. But this is did not happen because someone missed an e-mail, or forgot to put a drug name in bold and all-caps. This happened was taking a exquisitely rare performance enhancing drug.
Is it possible that what she’s saying is true: sure. Anything is possible. But if we insist that it is better that one thousand guilty people walk free that one innocent person suffers then clean sport will remain galaxies away from a moonshot. And many more people, hapless kids nearly the lot of them, will suffer. I’d rather risk subjecting their heroes to undue scrutiny than subjecting them to faustian bargains. YMMV.
If 28mm is as wide as you
If 28mm is as wide as you need with the Giant Defy is really good bang for the buck at the moment. I’d consider the Grade or a cheaper/used frameset if you’re going wider.
I’m a bit heavier than you
I’m a bit heavier than you and a crap climber but I do tend to hit the hills early and often when I actually get out and ride. You surely know this, but as you asked about heavier wheels I’ll add some crude numbers: Climbing performance is all about power/weight, and 100g/100kg should make you heuristically (don’t extrapolate this out) about 1/1000th faster (that’s almost a full second on your average 15 minute climb). Climbing with lighter wheels does feel “punchier” for me somehow, and though that’s almost entirely psychological, it’s nice, in the way riding with nicer kit often feels nicer. And gets many of us to ride more often. And then you get fitter. And then you get faster. And then you decide you need nicer kit…
I have no personal experience with either wheelset, but I’ve shied away from Shimano wheels since I’m a set-it-and-forget-it sort of person. The guy who suggested the Fulcrum Racing 3’s seems to know what he’s talking about. The Hunt wheels by all accounts also seem like a good deal.
Meh. Most products seem to be
Meh. Most products seem to be OK. Thousands (millions?) of cyclists use chain cleaners. Few calamities are reported. Strong solvents mixed with a strong brush or a cleaning machine seem to be too much, according to the manufacturers.
I’ve found chain care to be a wholly separate hobby within a hobby. To be honest, it’s more like a semi-religion, like yoga, meditation or Herbalife. Basically, even an abused MTB chain can last you well over 1,000 miles on semi-frequent WD-40. If you clean it with a little dishwasher / soft degreaser on a rag every once in a while, use a decent lube and wipe off the excess (somewhat like this) it may last a bit longer. If the hassle puts you off from doing it somewhat regurlarly, it probably wont. When in doubt, buy a new chain. You can get an Ultegra-level 10sp chain for ÂŁ13 online. Or something else. I love KMC chains’ removable links. YMMV. Sizing a new chain is somewhat aggravating. Still, way quicker than many cyclists’ cleaning rituals. Again, YMMV.
Or you can spend a few hours and a few buckets of diluted biodegradable child-safe super-organic non-transgenic fair-trade extra-virgin anti-allergenicic hyper-cleaner after every ride degreasing it roller by roller, plate by plate and pin by pin with a horse-hair nail brush. And then cook it in unscented wax gently scraped of the groin hairs of kasai river bonobos. Whatever floats your boat. No judgement here. Well, perhaps the tenderest of ribbings.
Its not just a question of not smelling, its also avoiding skin infections from not washing sweaty parts of the body.Eh. As long as you shower and change your clothes once a day you should be fine.
Some of the sarcasm on this
Some of the sarcasm on this forum escapes me. To be fair to myself, sometimes it ends up not being sarcasm at all.
Wouldn’t say “as of late”,
Wouldn’t say “as of late”, the resurgence already took place. In fact, as evidenced by Genesis offering carbon frames for their team riders last year, it seems like we hit the counter-revolutionary phase a while ago.
In that vein, I personally can’t tell the difference between an alloy and steel frame without looking. The hits don’t feel any softer. Nicer looking, though, IMHO. As always, YMMV.
The BBB one is 12-27 on Ebay for ÂŁ29, why not give it a try? If you don’t like it or it doesn’t work out, that’s not a huge amount to lose.I’d second that.
If that doesn’t pan out I would consider the 13-28, just because upgrading the whole groupset is a hassle (though 10 years in it’s actually quite a reasonable option). And as much as I’d hate to lose 12, 52/13 should take you past 30mph (@100rpm), to the point where I’m usually alternating between freewheeling and sprinting out of corners at way past 100 rpm.
Well, it’s cheaper and at 1
Well, it’s cheaper and at 1,050g probably lighter than the 10r frame. And as Pete said, a lot of people don’t trust crashed carbon. In fact, many pros still use alloy bars and stems -which doesn’t make much sense to me since the rest of the bike is carbon, but I guess the bars get dinged on nearly every impact.
It probably won’t make a
It probably won’t make a difference when swapping wheels unless they’re the same wheels (hubs & rotors, really) with different tyres. But you might get lucky. It usually spells the end for adjusting pads and calipers for any other reason.
The tweaks have been great.
The tweaks have been great. Oldest first, no auto-subscribe, latest comments/posts. I still think the home page isn’t quite there yet, but this has been a very good start. In any case it’s great to see that the site listens to its commentators, and puts in the extra effort after what must’ve been a lot of hard work with the platform migration.
I’d also vote for the drops,
I’d also vote for the drops, if only for the hand positions (the wind cheating is nice even if you’re not going too fast as an often needed physchological tool against headwinds). If you’re reaching over the ÂŁ1,000 mark then hydro discs are a must-have for me, particularly if fitness is your aim -better stopping in the winter and particularly on longish descents in the cold is well worth the extra couple hundred grams IMHO. The Search and Arkrose are good picks … I’d add in the Raleigh Mustang and the GT Grade as bikes to look at.
But do try to get a loaner road bike for a while, the handling with drops is different, and if drops aren’t your thing well then there’s no one paying to use them 🙂 Flat bars are much better off road, and hilly terrain does considerably negate some of the advantages of drops.
Hate to be harsh on what
Hate to be harsh on what surely has meant a lot of work, but I do agree with the style over substance sentiment espoused by others here. On the flip side, it does look very pretty. Maybe this is a carbon brake track situation, an upgrade that has some advantages and some disavanges and you kind of learn to deal with as it gets better over time.
On a more specific note: a little more shading would be nice, particularly for stickies, sidebars and stuff with in thin baby blue fonts; I definetely miss the promimence of news and comments in the old site; and while it is much faster for my desktop
the layout has caused some issues for my iPad particularly on Chrome.^Yep if you’re going to dual
^Yep if you’re going to dual purpose or you want a new bike it find something with a hydro lock-out fork and hydro disc brakes. The Giant Talon looks like a decent option. For strict commuter duty, something cheap and second hand with a rigid fork and some Schwalbe Big Apples or similar is a very smooth if somewhat slow (but that means maybe a couple extra minutes in a 20 minute commute) option.Extra deodorant and some kind
Extra deodorant and some kind of light aftershave are always requisite for french (water-less or nearly water-less) shower.I’m another member of the “if it’s over 80 degrees I’ll start sweating like a stuck pig even before I get on the bike” club. So I don’t even consider a second layer for cycling unless it’s under 50.
the layout has caused some issues for my iPad particularly on Chrome.