Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Good to hear positive reviews
Good to hear positive reviews, I had my eye on one of the alloy models with Ultegra, my only hesitation is that I wanted Campag on my new bike, and Rose don’t seem to offer it as an option.However the Rose with Ultegra everything and some RS81 wheels would still be cheaper AND lighter than the equivalent Campag custom build I’d planned, tempting…
Wow, I love that Wolfson
Wow, I love that Wolfson frame, all the benefits of the Holdsworth Competition and 853…Slightly funky geometry though, definitely lower than the Equilibrium for the same length, nothing a set of Hover bars couldn’t fix.
I agree that 28s are by no means necessary, but I do like to throw myself into corners and ride some really rough roads (don’t we all…).
Anecdotally, the Holdsworth Competition seems to win in that respect, one owner’s review suggested 30s might even fit.
But I can’t help but feel the Light Blue or the Equilibrium might be a tiny bit sturdier, I have memories of the huge dent in the top tube of my mates Columbus Steel frame..
All good food for thought, thanks all.
Oh wow.
Oh wow.
http://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/FRHOCO/holdsworth-competition-frameset
Almost too good to be true!
That’s interesting re: the
That’s interesting re: the Spa Audax, especially on tyre clearance, will have a closer look. Have never really paid much attention to seat tube angles but will give it a closer look.
I’ve just had confirmation back from Genesis that the Equilibrium can indeed only take a max 28c tyre which is a shame, I had it in my head it could take bigger.
Technically my Synapse could take 28s as well but there was a suspicious amount of rub marks on the side of the rear tyre which suggested it was a little close for comfort, maybe it was just the cheap and flexy Shimano wheels it had on it!
Having said that I was never actually unhappy with 25s, but if I’m restricting myself to 25s I could start looking at aluminium non-disc road bikes like the Rose XEON GF which looks great and is pretty light to boot.
Decisions decisions…
Ah, excellent, I had missed
Ah, excellent, I had missed the Thorn Audax.
Almost perfect bike, although it sounds like it would be more than half a kilogram heavier than the genesis. I did like the paint jobs though, the Fuschia would go well with my current commuter! (a bright pink Charge Plug)
Difficult to judge geometries, I’ve gone from ETT and headtube lengths to only understanding stack and reach! Will have to take a closer look.
That said, I think I’m still sold on the Genesis, although I do wonder about tyre clearances, I was sure they could take 28mm now but wonder if I’m getting confused with the disc brake model…
Well I had some partial
Well I had some partial success today on a very wet cold commute.
By pulling frequent, hard stops and attempting to drag the brakes as much as possible, they were slightly less screechy than usual, although I noticed an alarming and slightly obscene amount of vibration coming through the seatpost when using the back brake hard.
Also all the additional braking gave me some valuable interval style training, although it made my commute about 10 minutes longer…
Disc brakes, the wave of the future!
Joking aside, I’m going to the bike shop today, maybe see if they’ll consider new rotors and pads trade price at least. I notice Magura rotors (or a similar looking Spanish brand called ‘Galfer’) have loads of cut outs and edges and are designed to work far more quietly in the wet. I’d love to reduce the size of the rotors as well so they heat up more under braking, but I don’t think adaptors exist to reduce rotor sizes, only increase…
Having a very short ride on
Having a very short ride on it mighten’t hurt, you might hear some wee pings and tinkles as the spokes detension under your weight and unwind, could be quite satisfying!You could replicate this with the wheel off the bike by (carefully) applying your weight to the wheel with the wheel vertical on the ground and your weight applied to the rim at 12 o’clock. Rotate wheel slightly and repeat until pings and tinkles stop.
You might find the spokes have corrected themselves and could then just get shop to double check true + tension…
I’d have thought it WAS a
I’d have thought it WAS a problem, as the spokes are only twisted by the wheelbuilder attempting to tighten/loosen the spoke nipple. If the spoke is twisting instead of the nipple turning it begs the question: how accurately was the wheel built?
I guess the proof is in the pudding, if the wheel is evenly tensioned and straight then I suppose there is no problem, but then, those spokes will want to unwind somehow, how do you know they won’t unwind inside the nipple, i.e. loosening themselves off?
I always thought it was wheelbuilder 101 to de-stress the spokes frequently during the build to prevent them twisting, I’m only an amateur but I’ve never built a wheel with twisted spokes, round or aero.
Have you ridden it yet?
Sorry I meant Shimano had
Sorry I meant Shimano had been sitting on issue of leaking seals for years.I like the ’emperor’s new clothes’ analogy though!
The worst thing is Shimano
The worst thing is Shimano just seem to be sitting on this issue, it’s been happening for years!
My dad treated himself to a brand new, flat barred Giant Road Bike with Shimano Hydraulics for his retirement, and never rides the thing as the brakes are just so noisy (oh, and they rub too, despite repeatedly being reset with a Hayes Calliper alignment tool). I’ve just spent afternoon sanding rotors, blowtorching pads, trying to find leaks, cleaning pads, re-installing and trying to bed them in again, and I strongly suspect it won’t have worked.
I don’t buy this excuse that oil and grease get thrown up from the road either, if this is the case why are the brakes being sold on road bikes and commuters?
Also, I think the industry needs to give riders better advice on what disc brakes are actually good for, and what not. Commuting being a good example of perhaps when disc brakes are not worth the slightly improved braking response.
My commuter is cursed with screeching noisy disc brakes in the wet, so much so that I take my far less advanced/expensive rim braked commuter out when it’s wet. Maybe if I commuted through the Lakes or the Cairngorms this wouldn’t be an issue, but since Edinburgh’s ex-railway line cycle paths are all invariably flat I never do enough braking to warm the pads or the rotors up.
Perhaps the manufacturers need to develop a pad which works despite infrequent use, and doesn’t screech in the wet. Perhaps some sort of compound which doesn’t glaze over and is siped to clear water from the disc. A compound that doesn’t instantly soak up every little impurity out of the spray from the road would be handy too…
I was thinking about this the
I was thinking about this the other day, I’m always torn on my commute (45 minutes through Edinburgh to Kirkliston) as I meet a lot of others coming the other way, after a while trying to wave or say hello to every one just seems a little silly. Now it’s just a raised finger from the bars.
Also I think because everyone is commuting and has somewhere to be there’s a lot of fixed stares looking ahead rather than raised heads looking around waiting to catch people’s eye.
How do people feel about trying to greet someone you’re passing? I treat my commute like training, and ride a relatively nippy bike (for a commuter) so pass quite a few people on the way. I feel bad but at the same time actively turning to look them in the eye and greet them seems *WAY* overkill…
As for disc brakes, try them, you won’t go back.Unless you value your eardrums whilst commuting in the wet, can’t wait to get my canti-braked single-speed back on the road so I can ditch the disc braked bike I’m using right now. But that’s a topic for another thread
Cheers DaSy, I was beginning
Cheers DaSy, I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person who got hung up on the noise issue.
I guess it’s easy to forget lots of people who ride might not even be comfortable adjusting or maintaining rim brakes (there’s a guy in my office who could rip the legs off the majority of riders and yet who can’t do even the simplest maintenance on his bike).
Possibly for those folks the benefits of discs outweight the drawbacks, a neglected cheap hydraulic disc probably still performs better than a neglected cheap calliper brake…
I’ve been having the same
I’ve been having the same debate as I may have the best part of £2,000 to spend on a new road bike in September.
Recent experiences with discs (both on my new mountainbike and my dad’s new ‘flat bar’ road bike) have convinced me I wouldn’t want discs on a road bike.
Reasons:
1) The old cliche. I don’t need the extra power. I never found my 105 callipers wanting for power, 1 finger on the drops was amazing. I completely accept that many might find callipers underpowered however. I would never turn down free ‘extra power’ but not at the expense of the following:
2) Noise. I’ve used discs for years, mostly on mountainbikes but also on a touring bike (Salsa Vaya) and recently on my commuter (a Trek Superfly with slick tyres). Most of them have been very quiet in the dry, but all of them have made noise to some degree in the wet. So what? you say. Well I would genuinely prefer a slightly longer stopping distance over squeeling, yowling warbling discs. Sure once they warm up and dry off they’re great, but for street use, or rides that don’t feature huge long descents, they may never warm up or dry up enough, unless you drag them a little before hand. But guess what? Callipers work great in the wet too if you drag them a little beforehand to dry the rim off…
I’m sure people will come along and say I’ve got the wrong pads or something, but I’m fed up trawling forums and reviews trying to figure out which pads may or may not make less noise in the wet, since I already know the answer – rubber calliper brake pads!
3) Maintenance. This is a closer call, I’d maybe even agree that rim brakes require more maintenance, especially if you’re a hardcore winter rider, but the thing is in most instances I’ve found rim brake maintenance easier. Buckled wheels are easier to sort than warped discs. Calliper brakes are much easier to align and center perfectly on a rim than a disc brake calliper is to keep perfectly aligned and drag free on a disc. Cables are easier to replace than hydraulic discs are to bleed.
Note I’m not saying the maintenance on discs is especially difficult, just that I believe for a home mechanic with limited tools, and perhaps limited space, I’d suggest calliper/rim brakes are easier.
4) Weight/spec. When I was speccing my dream £2000 road bike I realised how much more I could get for my money if I ditched disc brakes, and how much weight I could save! (approx 10kg with discs, 8.7kg without). It also gave me more choice of lighter/better wheels, for instance I’m one of those perverts that prefers cup and cone hubs, especially the ones with simple, spanner free adjustment like Shimano Ultegra and Fulcrum/Campag. You don’t get that with disc wheels…
Anyway, my point is that if you don’t desperately want the power of disc brakes, you really need to ask why you would spec them. I prefer a bike which doesn’t make a hellish racket when braking in the wet and that doesn’t require a degree in black magic to keep the brakes perfectly aligned and drag free*.
Oh and did I mention the dodgy leaking seals on some Shimano disc brakes? My dad seems to have suffered two sets now. No thanks.
*exaggerating for effect
I wouldn’t have thought QR
I wouldn’t have thought QR tightness would affect disc alignment? I know it can affect bearing preload but that’s the difference between QR completely loose and QR completely closed, not a microscopic difference between closed and slightly more closed.
I guess it’s a good general point either way though, I always used the Shimano ‘starts to feel tight at 90 degrees’ method…
And I think through axles only help if you’re prone to tightening the QR with the wheel squint in the dropouts (I’ve seen it done and think I’ve been guilty of it myself). It’s impossible to fit a through axle system ‘squint’. If the wheels are different hubs/discs etc. then you might still need to re-align, as others said above.
I went a bit overboard and
I went a bit overboard and used carbon assembly paste on the post and the bits of the wedge that grip the frame, but then used Park polylube 1000 (basically carbon friendly grease) on the two sliding faces of the wedge. Basically coating every surface in some sort of grease.It sort of worked for a while, I’ve got countless creaks at the moment which may or may not be from the seatpost …
Great bike, absolute chore to keep creak free ~X(
