02Giant 

The smell of chain lube, in the morning.

wolfchild

I have an obsession with fixed gear bikes.

smashndash

Alright, glad it isn’t just me. I’m not a TT guy but I have followed this strategy to get my average speed up on solo rides. People don’t believe me when I say it’s faster to save yourself for the hills.

While we’re sharing - my “thing” is efficiency. I don’t care where it comes from. Comfort, aero or mechanical. Contactless sealed bearings, a one piece BB to ensure alignment, narrow bars, suspension/vibration damping, wide rims and narrow tires, multiple compound tires, full ceramic jockey wheels, shorter cranks to stay lower, etc. i could go on with upgrades I’ve made or plan to make.

But my favorite types of “efficiency” upgrades are the ones that are custom made. Custom bikes, custom shoes etc. I’m of the belief that if you’re not comfortable, you’re not going to get fast as quickly or for as long as someone who’s completely comfortable on their bike. Riding a bike when you’re comfortable is easy - just keep pedaling. When you’re uncomfortable, it’s a whole different game.

fietsbob

keeping a road/tour bike I don't ride much anymore..... because I built it's frame, myself ?

so won't have a brand name to tout..

Ironfish653

Here you go: USA made, red, white and blue graphics.
Although it may go past fetish, and straight to hard kinky.
Some of us are weird that way.

JohnDThompson 

Like this?

But its me 

Definitely lugs.

Dan Burkhart 

High flange hubs.

woodcraft

bike lights, & mini pumps.

Oh, and tire deals.

Rajflyboy

Frames

mostly the colorful frames of the 1980’s and 90’s

DHPflaumer

Does extreme color coordination count? I like 2-3 colors on a bike with every possible thing keyed in. So I've got a lot of brown and brass on my green Norther, a lot of navy on my creme and green Soma, lots of black and green on my dark grey Surly, etc.

carlos danger

I think that road bikes should be ferrari red if physically possible. Sure none of my bikes are actually ferrari red.
one is saronni metallic red (my colnago steel), and thats pretty much as far as i have gotten to ferrari red. but in theory. they should be ferrari red, and nothing else.
Ialways by my frames at closeout/discount and apparantly beggars can't be choosers. so it is what it is. but if i was made outta money all my bikes would be ferrari red. why have lesser paint?

wedgeSG

Since we are at color, I’ll confess. First off, Ferrari Red is very nice. But it isn’t the only fast Italian crayon in the box. Which brings me to my personal fetish, Passione Celeste....on anything. Shoes, rugs, sunglasses, lamps, underwear, toothbrush, seriously anything where a color choice is available in a version of it, that’s the one that goes home.

skidder

Road bicycles frames with top tubes parallel to the ground. The current trend toward slanted top tubes on everything looks ugly as heck to me (I'd give an exception for MTBs). They can be steel, aluminium, carbon models, nice artistic lugs or even well-taken-care-of 1960s era Schwinn electroforged frames, and even have larger-sized tires (over typical 700x23-35 tires) and drop or flat handlebars.

drlogik 

Tools...old and new.

MEversbergII

Agreed. Hard pass on pretty much all slope-tubes.

burnthesheep

The math is actually super simple even.

The formulas for the forces keeping you from going faster are linear for weight and rolling resistance, but non-linear for aero drag. So, it's kind of 1:1 for effort going uphill. More like 2:1 or 3:1 as you push harder and harder against the air as you go faster.

Riding downwhill is GROUND speed. It's real speed that's going into the formula that's 2:1 or 3:1 against you for aero/wind. Meaning, once you reach some speed downhill with a power.....it's going to take a lot more power to go just a touch faster. 100w might get you to 25mph downhill, but will take 250w to go 30mph, and 400w to go 35mph. Something like that.

But uphill is closer to 1:1, not quite, but closer. A person climbing a decent hill at 200w will likely be at least 50% slower than someone at 400w. On the group rides, I can usually put 30 seconds on the group up a 3 minute hill. A group in which on flat land I can't make enough power to escape from off the front.

Riding downwind isn't quite the same, it's AIR speed. So in reality you could probably give a downwind sector a little more effort than downhill. But not equal to or more than going into a headwind.

The simple way to explain it is you spend more time covering the same distance going slow versus fast. It's easier to optimize the "larger" time value than the "smaller" time value.

I dunno, just seems logical to me. Imagine a TT or race with just one hill. Up, then down. A big hill. 10mph up, 35 to 40mph down. What's the strategy there? More power up, or down? Duhhh. Uphill.

JohnDThompson 

But not as bad as straight-blade forks…

Retro Grouch 

Fetishes. I have to have my tire labels line up with the valve stems and, if the tire has a rotation arrow, I have to have it right. I also want the front and rear tire brands to match too.

On the other hand, I's not at all fussy about tire pressure anymore. Don't think I've topped up my tires for six weeks or so. I used to top them up before every single ride.