Metieval

fulcrums, levers, effort, loads
a bicycle brake lever is a class 1 lever.

the farther down the lever from the fulcrum we go , requires less effort. It is simple science. yet all of a sudden Science is irrelevant.

elcruxio

Well you offend easily. I’ll try to be less blunt / honest in the future.

However there are some serious flaws in your reasoning which I suspect rise from your inexperience with road bike posture and road riding in general.

First of all, locked elbows is a figure of speech. It’s easier to understand than ”arms too straight due to forward skewed imbalance causing shoulder tightness, difficulty to reach, too much hand pressure or any other reason of which there are many and when combined, compounded…” Get the point? You rarely if ever see completely locked up elbows but we still use the saying when it’s obvious someone has their arms too straight and not in a good way.

Moving on. His arms flex yes. As has been mentioned above, the figure of speech still applies. The man also does have pretty darn straight arms for the situation AND more importantly it seems his elbows are pointing outwards. That’s not right with a drop bar. With a wide low sweep flat bar elbows out is ok, but never with a drop bar. Pushing elbows out indicates several things but one thing it definitely does is make your whole upper body tight as a violing string.

I could be wrong of course. It is possible that his elbows are actually pointing down as they should be. It’s really quite impossible to be certain however because his arms are so straight and he has so little angle at the elbow that the figure of speech which comes to mind is ”locked elbows”.

Also I don’t think that any other experienced rider here thinks that riding over obstacles whilst tensing up to hardness of a diamond is the way to a good and safe riding experience. Most of the experienced riders here know however that hand position isn’t crucial for covering obstacles, posture, relaxation, technique etc. are.

You seem incapable of seeing this from more than one angle. You cannot even consider the possibility that the wipeout in the video was caused by bad posture rather than hand position.

Oh as a last point and this is a bit of a zinger. I can’t really take argumentation about the importance of hand positions seriously from a person who uses the wrong term for his argumentation. I went with it for now but this is really getting tiresome.

You’re not talking about drops. You can’t brake from the drops (or if you can I am truly worried about your bike setup). You’re talking about hooks. Drop bars have five distinct hand positions, drops, hooks, hoods, ramps and tops. Some could say that the hooks and drops are the same thing but if we’re at the level of deciding whether one or two fingers is good for road bike braking I think it pays to be accurate.

FYI, if you have your hands at the drops and get rear ended by say a car, it’s really unsafe because the straight portion of the bar slips right out of your hand. That’s why cycling courses here say you should never ride in the drops when riding on roads where cars are present. With hoods you can hold on properly so losing your grip when you get rear ended isn’t an issue.

indyfabz

I am heading out on tour tomorrow. $20 says this thread will be euthanized before I leave.

badger1

One can only hope ...

Metieval

Yes I absolutely love the GRX stuff

they even added more of a knock design to the hood, to assist with the hand sliding forward also.

supposedly that axis (fulcrum) change was only to the GRX di2 levers, not all GRX. If true, then disappointing.

elcruxio

I know what you said before you edited your post. It wasn't very nice. But you really should comment on the riding posture side of things as its kinda important in the grand scheme of things. Actually it almost is the grand scheme of things

MikeyMK

You didn't watch the video posted above in this thread then, showing it happen to someone..?

Happy Feet

Yes. when using canti's or mechanical disc and then hopping over to a hydraulic disc system the squeeze pressure required for stopping is far less. Sometimes that can be surprising. Your problem is...?

Happy Feet

You cry about people being offensive then post like an arrogant jerk.

On any given week I'll ride a: road bike, Fixed gear, rigid mtb, full squish mtb, fat bike and a wheel chair adapted 2 person bike - in fact, in 25 minutes that's what I'll do for work for the rest of the day and that one uses drum and coaster brakes.

Who exactly do you think you are fooling?

Metieval

the rest of us are not surprised. You've spent years Manhandling the brake lever from the hoods, because that was the only way to stop from the hoods.

Now that the market offers better brakes, you still have no modulation because your habit is full on brake.

My problem, since you asked. Is that you think your previous lack of ability to apply power from the hoods is seen as modulation by you, and that you promote this hood braking on descents as sound bicycling on a forum. Which does not promote safe riding for riders that are learning.

Happy Feet

Sure man.. you got me figured out. Obviously, in the rush to be right you forgot the part where I'm one of the guys who rides in the drops regularly - even though you have quoted that a couple of times

People who just make up stuff to ascribe to others because they can't debate honestly or even remember what they read or write a page or two back.

ksryder

Where are you going?

I want to do some bikepacking this fall but it's a really busy time of year and I have commitments seemingly every other weekend. And this year on the few weekends I have free, it seems like there's either massive thunderstorms or unbearable heat or both.

I really need to get a job in a state with more pleasant weather... but there's not exactly a lawyer shortage anywhere so I'm probably stuck here for the time being.

Metieval

only in the last few years though, yeah? I mean before that there was something in the way of you reaching the drops.

Kapusta

It’s really just conjecture why he crashed. It’s not clear from the video at all if the reason he crashed was because his hand was knocked of the hoods, or if his hand moved instinctively to reposition his grip after the wheels torqued hard to one side.

wipekitty

OK, *this* wins the Internets.

Also, I enjoy riding in the drops...descending, climbing, sprinting, and JRA. It's a good time.

cyccommute 

Further, if you watch the whole video there are very few people riding on the drops. No one around the guy who crashed is riding the drops and there are lots of fast downhill in close group riding where all of the riders are on the hoods. For hood riding being so unsafe, there seem to be a lot of people doing it in that video. Perhaps they just aren't aware of the danger that they are in

cyccommute 

Sorry for your loss.

That said, you weren't there so you really can't draw any kind of conclusion at to how or why he crashed.


Two out of three bad practices in my opinion. Either of the latter could have contributed to a crash. Or none of it contributed to a crash. Since I wasn't there and you weren't there we can't know.


That's one minor point out of about a dozen. All of the others are of far more importance.

terrymorse 

An opinion that is not shared by experts, nor the majority of experienced cyclists.

cyccommute 

So you never ride on the hoods? You've never braked from the hoods? You only brake from the drops because it is so "safe"? I wasn't born at night nor was I born last night.

cyccommute 

Um...you might want to reword that if you want to keep arguing that braking from the hoods is "unsafe". He's maintaining a secure grip at the expense of braking performance while maximizing braking performance at the expense of grip? It doesn't follow.

terrymorse 

A very clumsily built and obvious straw man argument.

Of course I ride on the hoods much of the time. I switch to the drops when the descent becomes technical, as do the vast majority of experienced road cyclists.

Metieval

just because someone does something, does not make it a bad choice.

I brake from the hoods, I just don't brake from them on descents.

I also pull Idaho stops, but i don't tell people that Idaho stops are 100% safe because I have never gotten hit in 40 years.

Happy Feet

Again.. do you have a point?

Is it that I do ride in the drops, or that I did feel losing weight helped me feel more comfortable there, or some other notion you have been trying to argue in favour of?

Or are you pathetically trying to score a cheap shot against someone you don't even know by suggesting that I only have a couple of years experience riding in drops so could not possibly agree with the points you were trying to make?

How about you just attempt to express your own experience intelligently, if that's possible and let the weight of that be judged instead of trying (unsuccessfully) to pretend to know anything about strangers you have never met. for so many of your posts that would be an improvement.

Finally you say something that makes sense. We agree!

Metieval

I thought you were basing everything on years of experience... my bad.

Happy Feet

Man, you two are a quite the pair in this thread. Metrieval, you know I'm not cyclocommute right?

Let's quote the whole thing in context:

And Spoonrobot - Prove your point some more about how modern ergonomic brake levers are not easy to activate in the hoods by showing another picture of those modern ergonomic brake levers that are easy to activate in the hoods. I liked the logic in that one.