Forum Replies Created
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Replies
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srchar wrote:What size are
What size are your chainrings? If you want close ratios but lower overall gearing, that’s what I’d be looking to change. Either from a double to a compact or, if you already have a compact, something smaller (Spa Cycles sell a compact with a 33t inner ring)… or even a triple (sorry!)The near perfect rear cassette for me is a 12-30, which Shimano and SRAM do for 10-speed but not 11-speed – 32 is fine for really long / pretty steep climbs in the saddle but the jump between 28 and 32 on the 11-speeds is a big of a pig and mostly I don’t need a 32. Campagnolo do some great ratios but although they’d work fine with the Shimano 11-speed drive train that’s a lot of expense for a ‘nice to have’ (which is what this comes down really). SRAM do one IIRC, but for about the same price as a hack winter bike.
I’ve had a triple in the past and not keen to go back at the moment, but i’m fighting permanent thigh injury and increasingly knee and age bother so might head back there one day… just not yet 🙂
Already on a compact but hadn’t thought about a lower inner – good plan, i’ll investigate that, thanks. I have a 34T Q-ring inner thinking about it, I might try that and see if it helps….
Cheers srchar
Beefy wrote:Sram cassettes
Sram cassettes work great as an alternative to shimno, great 10 speed climing ratioAlas i’m after a 11-speed Beefy, I had a 12-30 10-speed Shimano on the old bike which was spot on. SRAM do do an 11-speed 11-30, which would be grand too but it’s silly expensive. If I find one on eBay for a bargain i’d go for it in a shot.
philtregear wrote:i had an 8
i had an 8 speed one of these as a shimano replacement and i wasnt impressed. so far as ican remember it was tricky to fit, didnt change as nicely as shimano ones. not well made. buy shimano and pay the extra is my adviceOK, sounds similar to some comments i’ve heard.. that said, given the 8-speed, was that a while ago ? Reason for asking is that Miche have abuse for shifting quality and longevity (on the aluminium cogs AFAICS) in the past but may be getting better on that, judging my what reviews i’ve seen.
As far as Shimano goes, I have their cassettes already but their ratios aren’t what I want – you have 28 or or 28-32 as an option with an 11, which is fine for most thing but they seem to have dropped the 12-30 they’ve had with a bunch of their 10 speed cassettes.
For these old legs I like something in between for long, not-so-mild, climbs and I couldn’t give a rats arse about an 11 on the descents because i’m either doing way over 40mph on a 12 spinning out or happy with the speed. The jumps on the Shimano 11-32 are just what you don’t want in your hour of need on a climb and often way too wide to do the normal jump in and out of the saddle. Do I need stronger legs ? Of course, but family life, age and injury don’t always help with sorting that 🙂
700c wrote:I think arguments
I think arguments like low weight/ ability to run at low pressure / ride quality / pinch flats would be won by tubulars over any other type of tyre system ATM. This is relevant if, for example, you’re changing wheels and tyre system to achieve some of these benefits.Pinch flats is marginal, possible but unlikely on tubs, but i’d go with the rest of that – although low weight is not one of the real benefits of road tubeless anyway (and would be typically dwarfed by the weight saving of the wheelset for tubs over any type of clincher). When I mentioned weight earlier it was in reply to the comment about adding sealant to a tubed set-up, and even then it’s not really the issue. You could always add sealant to tubs and still be miles lighter than clinchers with a decent wheelset or just carry a can of Pitstop.
I think the thing with tubs is the perceived problem with getting the tyres on and off in the first place – and the idea of carrying spare tyres (unless you’re relying on patching/sealing). Even with tape it comes across as a lot more hassle and possibly prone to errors (overblown problems admittedly, although not absolutely entirely unreasonable for some, e.g. it’s quite difficult to mount a clincher squiffy). The cost of tubs doesn’t help either – but then again TR tyres aren’t exactly bargain basement either….
Personally, if I had the money and the time i’d go with tubs but for practical reasons (I have TR wheels anyway, and not much cash) I use tubes and tubeless.
That’s not to say tubeless won’t become better in due course, but compatible tyres ( plus the required adaptations) tend to be heavier than the best available currently for clincher or tubular.The weight difference is marginal, if anything, for tubed clincher – not so marginal for tubs.. but then, as mentioned, that’s not really part of the whole tubeless thang anyway.
If you’re going to invest to achieve these kind of benefits then I don’t think there’s a convincing argument for tubeless yet.It’s possibly convincing if you value flat protection highly but I think you’re right about the barrier when talking about starting from scratch – you’d have to really hate flats to blow a few hundred quid converting otherwise.
If you have TR wheels then it’s suddenly a much brighter proposition. The one good bit of news, if you like the idea of road tubeless anyway, is that the number of TR ready rims coming out is increasing – it will interesting to see if there is any pick up in tubeless setup from the public and manufacturers when they finally become rather less niche on the road.
Hey ho, it’s all good fun anyway.
700c wrote:I can’t really
I can’t really why.. If the benefit is fewer punctures, just put sealant in your clincher tubes?Could do – but it’d be heavier, still prone to pinch flats (that tend to create long splits and so are harder to seal) and so you can’t drop the pressure as much. You also don’t get the potentially greater security of the tyre on the rim if you do lose pressure although the chance of very rapid pressure loss is still reduced presumably (aside from catastrophic tube failure). The increase in rolling resistance you might expect probably won’t be felt by any of us in real terms, but the ride quality difference might be (all depends on the tyres and tubes).
2 Wheeled Idiot wrote:At the
At the moment no
Maybe in a couple of years when there’s some actual standards and everything’s a bit more developed.The main standards are UST and Tubeless Ready – TR is the one that is becoming more common on road bikes. TR is not designed to be air-tight without sealant, but should be an improved compliance and slight weight saving.
FWIW I ran a set of Hutchinson Fusion 3 (23mm) on Bontrager Race for about 9 months when commuting and general riding. Nothing adverse noticeable on the ride, ran them at around 80/85 on the front and 85-ish on the back, very happy with them altogether. Did a few tyre inspections and could see a couple of pin-prick punctures that had sealed – I hadn’t noticed them when on the bike, but I tend to check pressures and reset most rides anyway, even with tubed clinchers. That was interesting to see – and tended to give a lot of confidence when riding in shit conditions or tracks with a bunch of debris (think, inner-city rat runs). No big issues.
All in all i’ve had a very positive experience with them and will being going back to them (tubes on the current road bike for a random reason) – although i’d like to try some other brand; Bontrager R3 and Schwalbe One seem to garner good reviews and nothing can be as big a bastard to get on as the Fusions – they were sods (although things improved a tad after I discovered bead jacks).
Colin Peyresourde
Colin sees the devil in everyone it seems – I agree with some of what he says, but not his apparent unequivocal belief that he knows it applies everywhere.We all know there is doping going on, and some teams or individuals seem more obvious targets than others, but there appears to be this naive belief that suspicion implies proof
You’re putting words in my mouth.
To some degree, yes – but it is a belief based on comments from you in the past and also at the end of your reply here.
I don’t think that Sky are any different from any other team. There is little proof that doping has been eradicated.No-one is saying that doping has been eradicated in cycling – or did you mean eradicated in Sky ?
But I think it is naive to think that just because a team talks about being drug free that it is when the results do not indicate them to be second best.Of course it would be naive to assume that without evidence – although I don’t agree that winning implies they must be doping, if that was what you were implying. If so think that is one of the areas I guess we can agree to disagree.
Sky say they do blood samples to check their riders are clean. This seems like PR. The tests equally tell them that their riders are not in imminent danger of being caught...assuming they are doping…
You seem to be somewhat aware, but believe that the Sky policy means that they are 100% clean, but JTL was hardly a guarantee of that.I agree that policy doesn’t proof compliance – although JTL didn’t dope with Sky, he was suspended by the them when the back-check against the biological passport data came to light and they sacked him when it appeared anomalous.
The CIRC did little to prove any assertion that any team is drug free.It did little to prove that every team isn’t either…
It maybe done at an individual level or at a team level. We know the means and the reasons why, just not who, when and how much.It’s nice to believe the PR but only when the ADAs have a full and fool proof means of testing will you see doping eradicated. Until then you’ll just see it by degrees.
Agreed.
I agree we’re not going to see Riis or Armstrong like performances, but in order to compete, especially in stage races, you need to dope.No, you don’t – even in athletics there are some clean winners.
Colin sees the devil in
Colin sees the devil in everyone it seems – I agree with some of what he says, but not his apparent unequivocal belief that he knows it applies everywhere.We all know there is doping going on, and some teams or individuals seem more obvious targets than others, but there appears to be this naive belief that suspicion implies proof.
if your competing at the top end of this doping is pretty much on the cards.In world tour cycling today, that’s just pushing it- and you should know that. It’s an avenue but not everyone is going down it.
Colin Peyresourde
wow. If you think that’s clever, I advise you to spend the rest of your life in solitary confinement. Your mind might get blown apart by some other obvious facts.OK – in simpler terms, you know what I was referring to when I said ‘the same’ – don’t be an ass. Fair enough ?
By the same measure do you think that the equation I’m making is equally precise.
No I didn’t – that was sort of the point.
alexwlondon wrote:dazwan,
dazwan, this is indeed the precise point I’d like to understand. The problem is that I do not know enough. Why should a high end alu frame better than a low end carbon?There are probably some bloody awful ‘quality’ aluminium frames and very good ‘low’ end carbon one – and vice versa – and the ‘high end’ frame may not be suitable for what you want (ride, position etc) – it’s just not that simple. Don’t get caught up on materials.
As mentioned, if you can get into the shops and have sit on the bikes, see what takes your fancy, arrange a test ride if possible (remember, they’re trying to sell something to you) and go from there.
If you’re buying online, like PlanetX, Canyon etc, then you’ll probably have to go on reviews, forum posts etc and choose the general type of bike is suitable for you – the RT-58 sounds like a good one for all round riding and the SRAM model, in particular, seems excellent value.
I guess “it depends” to some
I guess “it depends” to some degree but I run my Continental 23mm trainer tyre at 120 psi on a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine as that seems to be the consensus for that combination. If i’m using my road tyres (25mm) on the Tacx Genius i’ll keep it at the normal 85-90 psi and crank the roller down a bit, but I don’t tend to do any sprint-type stuff on there so don’t need quite the limpet grip (long climbs mostly).
andyp wrote:wow. If you think
wow. If you think that’s clever, I advise you to spend the rest of your life in solitary confinement. Your mind might get blown apart by some other obvious facts.OK – in simpler terms, you know what I was referring to when I said ‘the same’ – don’t be an ass. Fair enough ?
andyp wrote:fukawitribe
Do you think that Sky is different to US Postal?You think they’re the same ?
They’re blatantly not the same. Different personnel, different ‘base’ country.
Wow – how incredibly clever of you.
Both highly dodgy, mind.Yes indeed, the evidence of prolonged and systemic abuse against Sky is clear for everyone to see.
Colin Peyresourde wrote:Do
Do you think that Sky is different to US Postal?You think they’re the same ?
ianrobo wrote:It is possible
It is possible he could do it naturally, that is why I am cynical but not saying they dope. He may have been at peak form then, all going for him etc.However LA had that extra 10% or so from EPO etc in his system to help him.
’99 was when they were getting the jitters about testing and the power was going down (for a bit), he potentially had more distance to cover, as mentioned by others it was not ‘timed’ in any accurate sense, he was probably carrying over 15% more weight on a different bike, different day yadda yadda yadda. I’m cynical about a lot of things – this, not so much.