Forum Replies Created
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@BTBS – I get your point
@BTBS – I get your point about cycling to the conditions. The issue I have with rim brakes is when you suddenly need to stop and if the rims are wet, it’ll take about one revolution before the brakes start working. With discs – I can cycle normally and if I suddenly have to brake, then at least they’ll start working straight away. To be fair, I’ve never had a crash due to rim brakes, but I’ve had several moments of terror as I grab a handful of brake and it does nothing for a second or so.
The problem with traffic is that you can go at a speed that allows you to stop in the distance that you can see is clear, but some drivers do dumb things and pull out without looking, turn without indicating etc. Yes, you can ride even slower to allow for the unexpected, but I’d rather have confidence in my brakes and travel at a more reasonable speed. The other thing I’ve noticed about disc brakes is that they seem to be a lot easier to control e.g. if I hit both brakes and the rear wheel starts to lose grip, it’s a lot easier to release it and not lose control.
Ultimately, I don’t think people will necessarily take more risks riding with disc brakes as the whole tyre-traction issue is the limiting factor and certainly commuters (like me) don’t want to take it to the limit.
My previous bike has rim brakes (really crap long reach ones that I ended up upgrading) and I keep thinking that I should use it as a winter bike, but the difference between that and disc brakes on my current bike just means that the older one sits around unused (and sad).
I think a lot of the point is that speed isn’t really the be-all and end-all from the GCN videos – and that article wasn’t written by them. The GCN video is remarkably even-handed and interesting, especially in the conclusions and discussion about what could be done more or better.I didn’t watch the video, just read that summary. I’ll give the video a go later on when it’s convenient to use headphones (I much prefer reading articles than watching a video). But yeah, most people buying disc brakes aren’t concerned about a few seconds difference in performance.
Edit: watched the video with subtitles now. Looks like the difference is within experimental error.
@BTBS – I just did a quick search on performance difference between rim and disc brakes and found GCN’s testing that concluded that rim brakes are indeed faster. (Summary here: https://www.honeybikes.com/blog/2018/3/25/disc-brake-vs-rim-brake-performance-on-road-bikes)However, for me the most important difference between rims and discs is the wet weather performance.
That article has cropped up a couple of times now and is ummm – interesting. Aside from the acknowledged looseness in the tests, they’ve stitched together some of the timing from the GCN video, doubled it up, and concluded that the lighter (rim-braked) bike is faster uphill. Then, on the descents, they found that the heavier (disc-braked) bike was marginally slower downhill in the dry (0.5%) but significantly faster in the wet – enough to better the deficit from climbing – so they said the rim-brake bike had carbon rims and must have been about twice as bad downhill as one with aluminium rims. So they halved the advantage on the heavier bike and tad-dah – the lighter rim-braked bike wins !!! They did at least admit that there are other areas to consider rather than straight ‘speed’ and I think it’s possibly safe to say from the language in the article that it’s the answer they might have prefered … 🙂
It might be flawed, but I didn’t see any other direct comparisons of performance between brakes (I didn’t spend long looking though). I would have thought that GCN would be more interested in promoting disc brakes, so the bias surprises me.
I’m trying HP, I really am. Do you know what the earnings threshold is for the police to give a shit? I imagine in my corner of north London it is terrifyingly high.You just need to seize the means of production.
It’s got absolutely fuck all to do with one’s political compass, Legs. It happened in a constituency where David Lammy won the seat with over 80% of the vote at the last election.Well, that’s great. Because a Blairite MP really is the left-wing solution we’ve all been craving.
Brilliant. Fabulous. You should be Politics Editor on the BBC.
Have faith comrade – the mighty Corbyn will deliver us from the evil Tory Brexit.
…wait a minute – he’s working with them now? And he wants Brexit?
Shit!
Yeah, because he sees the EU as some ‘neoliberal construct’, FFS.
I’m thinking his time is up and Tom Watson should lead us forward to a Marxist utopia.
At least he supports the 2nd referendum.
Now that I’ve shoe-horned that into the discussion, I’ll include a link to the clearest analysis of why the referendum was flawed: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/take-it-from-the-swiss-the-brexit-referendum-wasnt-legitimate
It’s got absolutely fuck all to do with one’s political compass, Legs. It happened in a constituency where David Lammy won the seat with over 80% of the vote at the last election.Well, that’s great. Because a Blairite MP really is the left-wing solution we’ve all been craving.
Brilliant. Fabulous. You should be Politics Editor on the BBC.
Have faith comrade – the mighty Corbyn will deliver us from the evil Tory Brexit.
…wait a minute – he’s working with them now? And he wants Brexit?
Shit!
I hope you’re going to make a
I hope you’re going to make a formal complaint to the police about it. It probably won’t change the outcome, but it’ll show up in their KPIs.
Alternatively, have you tried being rich? That tends to get the police to respond quickly.
The amount of rubber in
The amount of rubber in contact with the road is going to be mainly down to the tyre pressure which is not going to be affected by the shape. The amount of grip is going to be determined by the amount of rubber in contact and how well the rubber conforms to the road imperfections, so maybe the shape can affect how the tyre flexes but I can’t see it being a big influence.
Anyone got any figures?
@BTBS – I just did a quick
@BTBS – I just did a quick search on performance difference between rim and disc brakes and found GCN’s testing that concluded that rim brakes are indeed faster. (Summary here: https://www.honeybikes.com/blog/2018/3/25/disc-brake-vs-rim-brake-performance-on-road-bikes)
However, for me the most important difference between rims and discs is the wet weather performance. In traffic I really like my brakes to start slowing me down as soon as I activate them and I’ve found that rim brakes make me a lot more nervous in the wet (I have to ride slower in case cars pull out on me etc). Disc brakes feel a lot nicer to use (just a finger will do with complete control) but it’s definitely the reliability factor for me.
Given the choice, I’d go for hydraulic discs every time. (I’ve clearly fallen for the capitalist propaganda)
Yeah, I’ve got a similar
Yeah, I’ve got a similar issue on my road (not-CX) bike. Mine’s Ultegra with metal pads and they’re so loud when they get wet. I assumed that it’s to do with my pads/discs being dirty as I don’t take special care of them when I’m using a bucket of car shampoo to wash my bike.
I get embarrassed if I’m needing to slow down behind pedestrians and it sounds like I’m using a horn, so I try to keep the discs dry with gentle braking as I’m riding on the roads.
I was considering changing to resin pads when I next replace the pads, but maybe that’s not worthwhile if you’ve got a similar problem with them.
Jack Osbourne snr wrote:
The title of this thread reminded me of an ex girlfriend…
Was she a boxer or wrestler?
Compounding that problem are smartphones. Both walkers and drivers use cell data 4,000 percent more than they did in 2008, which means they aren’t watching the roads.Surely there is no such thing as 4,000 %. You can only go to 100% after which you should talk in terms of multiples, thus ‘4,000% more’ should really be expressed as ’40 times more’.
Absolutely. I like the Floridian idea of ticketing any kind of distracted driver and it’d be nice to get that over here, but pointless without more traffic police or some kind of dystopian CCTV policing system.
A foil measurement will be in
A foil measurement will be in the right ballpark (sniggers), so you should now know whether your current saddle is too narrow or too wide. Just use a ruler to see what your sit-bone width looks like across the saddle.
A bike-fit is definitely a good idea – it might pick up on something cheap and easy to fix whereas getting the right new saddle can be a literal pain in the arse (and expensive if you don’t get the right one).
Edit: I found the Selle Italia sizes confusing until I found some more info:
S1 – “Narrow” intertrochanteric distance and low pelvic rotation
S2 – “Narrow” intertrochanteric distance and average pelvic rotation (Flow saddles)
S3 – “Narrow” intertrochanteric distance and high pelvic rotation (Flow and SuperFlow saddles)L1 – “Wide” intertrochanteric distance and low pelvic rotation
L2 – “Wide” intertrochanteric distance and average pelvic rotation (Flow saddles)
L3 – “Wide” intertrochanteric distance and high pelvic rotation (Flow and SuperFlow saddles)The numerical part relates to the central hole, so L3 has a wider hole than the L2 as far as I know.
There’s a reasonable amount
There’s a reasonable amount of give and take with sit-bones/saddle measurements so adding 15-30mm to your measurement should be fine.
Have you measured yourself yet? It’ll only take a couple of minutes to get a rough idea of whether you need a wider saddle or not (and costs nothing).
(I’m currently using a Selle Italia SLR Superflow L3 that’s wide and has a large cutout).
I had the cheaper bike fit at
I had the cheaper bike fit (as opposed to the full-on video analysis) at a Specialized store a few years ago which lasted a couple of hours or so and definitely recommend it. I discovered that my sit bones are quite wide, so ended up being sold a wider saddle which was indeed more comfortable. The width of your sit-bones isn’t particularly related to the size of your arse, so it’s not immediately obvious what kind of saddle is a good fit.
The measured my sit bones with a pressure pad – you sit on it for a bit and it changes colour according to the heat/pressure of your bum. You can do the measurement yourself with something like a pristine piece of cardboard or tin-foil.