glad I got my bike when i did
10-10-20, 09:12 PM
#26
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As a car design enthusiast, I can’t fathom justifying the current road & dirt trend even further from triples to 1x systems- literally moving weight from the middle of the bikes to the back. Insane. And creating a bunch of non-straight chainline friction? Idiotic. But idiots can’t work two shifters at once and tend to have more money than sense.
As a non-racer, I really don’t get any justification for more than seven cogs in the back, regardless of if you’ve a 2x or a 3x front.
I do really love 32mm tires. Anyone who thinks they’re too big probably has spectacularly smooth roads. I sorta envy you folks, but I think I might eventually find riding in your town daily to be a bit boring from what I’m used to.
I have a bike with one of Tektro’s first hydraulic disc systems from c.2010 (cheap, early tech) and one with a 105 rs550 hydraulic disc system from 2016 (evolved, not-cheap). Not much difference in performance between them, and neither are better than a well set up rim brake with KS salmon pads on alloy rims on sunny days. Disc brake screech on rainy days? No thanks. Salty winter days- rim brakes win by a long shot due to how salt packs into disc pads and renders them useless after a couple weeks of daily use.
I won’t further waste bandwidth elaborating on cloth & plastic in lieu of metal tubing for frames.
I’m pretty much a Rivendell customer with a Kona budget.
———
People who don’t bike much more than fifty miles a year, two years out of every twenty are the customers that bike shops sell most new bikes to.
Disc brakes, thru axles, motorcycle tires, seventeen cog rears, and dropper posts are how you sell someone a road bike that keeps up with what the Jones’ have strapped to the roof of their Mercedes in 2020.
It’s these sort of people that have kept the cycling industry afloat through the decades and made a bunch of nearly NOS frames from the 70s-80s available for me to put cartridge BB and fresh wheels on to hammer the heck out of.
I feel bad for people who’ll be in the used bike budget 20-30 years from now. They’ll be stuck with some weird tech stuff that’ll have room for real world tires but no mounts for fenders.
As a non-racer, I really don’t get any justification for more than seven cogs in the back, regardless of if you’ve a 2x or a 3x front.
I do really love 32mm tires. Anyone who thinks they’re too big probably has spectacularly smooth roads. I sorta envy you folks, but I think I might eventually find riding in your town daily to be a bit boring from what I’m used to.
I have a bike with one of Tektro’s first hydraulic disc systems from c.2010 (cheap, early tech) and one with a 105 rs550 hydraulic disc system from 2016 (evolved, not-cheap). Not much difference in performance between them, and neither are better than a well set up rim brake with KS salmon pads on alloy rims on sunny days. Disc brake screech on rainy days? No thanks. Salty winter days- rim brakes win by a long shot due to how salt packs into disc pads and renders them useless after a couple weeks of daily use.
I won’t further waste bandwidth elaborating on cloth & plastic in lieu of metal tubing for frames.
I’m pretty much a Rivendell customer with a Kona budget.
———
People who don’t bike much more than fifty miles a year, two years out of every twenty are the customers that bike shops sell most new bikes to.
Disc brakes, thru axles, motorcycle tires, seventeen cog rears, and dropper posts are how you sell someone a road bike that keeps up with what the Jones’ have strapped to the roof of their Mercedes in 2020.
It’s these sort of people that have kept the cycling industry afloat through the decades and made a bunch of nearly NOS frames from the 70s-80s available for me to put cartridge BB and fresh wheels on to hammer the heck out of.
I feel bad for people who’ll be in the used bike budget 20-30 years from now. They’ll be stuck with some weird tech stuff that’ll have room for real world tires but no mounts for fenders.
I'm not a luddite, but I am all for *mature* technology. While I love my carbon fiber framed bike, I really was looking for a similarly spec'ed steel bike but couldn't find one to try. Why? Again, I like to let others be the early adopters and I get technology that has been "dialed in". In the biking world I find that takes about 5-15 years. That is one reason I really appreciate Shimano - they have a "trickle down" technology business model. Each year it seems that take what they've learned performance wise on their high end product lines and apply it to their lower end lines. It is to the point that the 105, Tiagra and Sora lines are all very impressive these days.
Last edited by Symox; 10-10-20 at 09:17 PM. Reason: more thoughts
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10-11-20, 08:25 AM
#27
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My recumbent is 12 years old, and my trike is 8 years old. I have maintained them to almost like new condition altho they have about 25,000 miles on them. If I were to have to replace them, it would now cost about $1500 more. Yes Im glad I bought them when I did.
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10-11-20, 11:03 AM
#28
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Why? By your theory, they'll have their choice of like-new, 20 year-old bikes with only 100 miles on them.
10-11-20, 11:06 AM
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Maybe someone should post the results of the forum age poll ... it really helps explain threads like this.
10-12-20, 10:38 AM
#30
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It’s gonna suck for them because more than half of the unused used bikes will be plastic framed... have you gotten into a car with 20 year old plastic, even if it’s garaged for those twenty years- start giving it 2-12 hours of sunlight from commuting and locking it up outside, the plastic does something called “gassing out” and becomes super brittle.
Also, even the proper metal framed bikes are likely to have obnoxious sized/interfaced bottom brackets that are likely to be rare items to come by, likewise with headsets and wheel bearings.
As it is, we used-market-ers have to avoid French bikes from before ~1985 or be prepared to either check the BB daily or only have one cartridge BB option.
Will we still have 650B/27.5 tires in production in 2040?
How many different disc pad interfaces are there now? And rotor interfaces? Also pretty sure that there’s multiple brake fluids specified for different systems. Will any of these still be in production?
Will these students and underemployed adults of the future will be forced into not just trading an obsolete bike which they saved for months to buy because their LBS says “you’re boned”, but have to walk their obsolete bike home and keep saving for a few more months because the shop needs cash on top of the trade to be able to trade them a used bike which they have that’s not obsolete?
It almost definitely will be a regular occurrence at every shop that is in city limits.
I assure you, I’m not a Luddite, but this stuff worked fine.
10-12-20, 10:52 AM
#31
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10-12-20, 03:13 PM
#33
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10-12-20, 03:16 PM
#34
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What have you been smoking?
I am all for vintage bikes, I love them and have a bunch of great ones but saying modern bikes are like riding a heavy clunky tractor is absolutely ridiculous. I am not going to wade into the disc vs rim debate because it has been done to death and I love both and have both but to say technology magically stopped with older groupsets however nice and desirable they might be is silly. My Di2 road bike rides way better than any of my vintage bikes especially shifting wise but also for the fact I can run 28mm tires without rubbing and I am sorry but skinny tires aren't so nice.
In terms of material debates I ride titanium and steel so the new carbon stuff doesn't excite me much but the technology has come along a great deal.
Give me the 15k and I will put it to good use building up some nice modern bikes that will shift like a champ and brake like they should and can be super light (though I am not a lightweight rider so I tend to avoid super light stuff)
I am all for vintage bikes, I love them and have a bunch of great ones but saying modern bikes are like riding a heavy clunky tractor is absolutely ridiculous. I am not going to wade into the disc vs rim debate because it has been done to death and I love both and have both but to say technology magically stopped with older groupsets however nice and desirable they might be is silly. My Di2 road bike rides way better than any of my vintage bikes especially shifting wise but also for the fact I can run 28mm tires without rubbing and I am sorry but skinny tires aren't so nice.
In terms of material debates I ride titanium and steel so the new carbon stuff doesn't excite me much but the technology has come along a great deal.
Give me the 15k and I will put it to good use building up some nice modern bikes that will shift like a champ and brake like they should and can be super light (though I am not a lightweight rider so I tend to avoid super light stuff)
Add that to the current fad of fat rims and tires, current will add even more mass. Plus rotors. Further handicap will be the wider chainstays, which will inefficiently increase your Q-factor.
Di2: great system. Super smooth and reliable shifting. No argument there.
Last edited by Dave Mayer; 10-12-20 at 04:20 PM.
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10-12-20, 07:25 PM
#36
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It’s not a theory. It’s mostly great for now.
It’s gonna suck for them because more than half of the unused used bikes will be plastic framed... have you gotten into a car with 20 year old plastic, even if it’s garaged for those twenty years- start giving it 2-12 hours of sunlight from commuting and locking it up outside, the plastic does something called “gassing out” and becomes super brittle.
Also, even the proper metal framed bikes are likely to have obnoxious sized/interfaced bottom brackets that are likely to be rare items to come by, likewise with headsets and wheel bearings.
As it is, we used-market-ers have to avoid French bikes from before ~1985 or be prepared to either check the BB daily or only have one cartridge BB option.
Will we still have 650B/27.5 tires in production in 2040?
How many different disc pad interfaces are there now? And rotor interfaces? Also pretty sure that there’s multiple brake fluids specified for different systems. Will any of these still be in production?
Will these students and underemployed adults of the future will be forced into not just trading an obsolete bike which they saved for months to buy because their LBS says “you’re boned”, but have to walk their obsolete bike home and keep saving for a few more months because the shop needs cash on top of the trade to be able to trade them a used bike which they have that’s not obsolete?
It almost definitely will be a regular occurrence at every shop that is in city limits.
I assure you, I’m not a Luddite, but this stuff worked fine.
It’s gonna suck for them because more than half of the unused used bikes will be plastic framed... have you gotten into a car with 20 year old plastic, even if it’s garaged for those twenty years- start giving it 2-12 hours of sunlight from commuting and locking it up outside, the plastic does something called “gassing out” and becomes super brittle.
Also, even the proper metal framed bikes are likely to have obnoxious sized/interfaced bottom brackets that are likely to be rare items to come by, likewise with headsets and wheel bearings.
As it is, we used-market-ers have to avoid French bikes from before ~1985 or be prepared to either check the BB daily or only have one cartridge BB option.
Will we still have 650B/27.5 tires in production in 2040?
How many different disc pad interfaces are there now? And rotor interfaces? Also pretty sure that there’s multiple brake fluids specified for different systems. Will any of these still be in production?
Will these students and underemployed adults of the future will be forced into not just trading an obsolete bike which they saved for months to buy because their LBS says “you’re boned”, but have to walk their obsolete bike home and keep saving for a few more months because the shop needs cash on top of the trade to be able to trade them a used bike which they have that’s not obsolete?
It almost definitely will be a regular occurrence at every shop that is in city limits.
I assure you, I’m not a Luddite, but this stuff worked fine.
Many of the bike manufacturers have lifetime warranties on their frames. I'm sure they did enough research to insure they won't go bankrupt by replacing brittle frames.
Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it
10-13-20, 07:42 PM
#37
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10-14-20, 05:43 AM
#38
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I have copies of the first three editions of The Complete Book of the Bicycle by Eugene A. Sloane. The first edition as published in 1970. This was the book to read back when I was in high school if you wanted a basic book on bicycles. It was in those pages I found out about toe clips, glue on tires, removing kickstands, Reynolds 531, low temperature brazing and handmade wheelsets .
I don't have any of those books in front of me at this exact moment but, certainly by the second edition, either 1972 or 1974, has a picture and discussion on both drum brakes and Shimano disk brakes. So while not developed and widely available, disk brakes on bikes have been around since at least the 1970s.
My primary road bike is a 15 year old Al frame with dual pivot sidepulls. It replaced a mid 80s steel frame with single pivot sidepulls. The newer bike is a gigantic improvement over the older. My friend had a 2020 CF with e-shifting and disk brakes. While I'm not going to get something like that until I need a new ride, I'm not against any of it either. It is an improvement. My 15 year old bike was $1500 when new, not sure of the % of inflation but a comp bike today would probably be about $2000 which is a lot of money for a bicycle but I maintain you get what you pay for. When my rim brakes are wet they not quite as good stopping as I would like. If disk solves that problem then I would like to have then but I'm not going to spend my next 5 paychecks on them just yet. Bicycling is a hobby for me.
Having said all this I rejoice in that the OP and some here are thankful that they bought their bikes when they did. Whatever makes them happy makes me happy!
I don't have any of those books in front of me at this exact moment but, certainly by the second edition, either 1972 or 1974, has a picture and discussion on both drum brakes and Shimano disk brakes. So while not developed and widely available, disk brakes on bikes have been around since at least the 1970s.
My primary road bike is a 15 year old Al frame with dual pivot sidepulls. It replaced a mid 80s steel frame with single pivot sidepulls. The newer bike is a gigantic improvement over the older. My friend had a 2020 CF with e-shifting and disk brakes. While I'm not going to get something like that until I need a new ride, I'm not against any of it either. It is an improvement. My 15 year old bike was $1500 when new, not sure of the % of inflation but a comp bike today would probably be about $2000 which is a lot of money for a bicycle but I maintain you get what you pay for. When my rim brakes are wet they not quite as good stopping as I would like. If disk solves that problem then I would like to have then but I'm not going to spend my next 5 paychecks on them just yet. Bicycling is a hobby for me.
Having said all this I rejoice in that the OP and some here are thankful that they bought their bikes when they did. Whatever makes them happy makes me happy!
10-15-20, 01:04 PM
#39
Clark W. Griswold
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I was not referring to a 'vintage' bike as being better than the latest and greatest of 2020. I was referring to a UCI-level (team) bike from say 2015 versus a current $10k consumer bike off the shelf. The earlier frame will be made of T1000 carbon, and will weight well under 1kg. Overall, the older bike will be at least 2 pounds lighter than the current bike, the critical advantage being in lower rotating mass. Much of that is due to the need to bulk up hubs, rims and spokes to take the stresses of disc braking, the forces of which are transferred differently in rim vs. disc wheels and frames.
Add that to the current fad of fat rims and tires, current will add even more mass. Plus rotors. Further handicap will be the wider chainstays, which will inefficiently increase your Q-factor.
Di2: great system. Super smooth and reliable shifting. No argument there.
Add that to the current fad of fat rims and tires, current will add even more mass. Plus rotors. Further handicap will be the wider chainstays, which will inefficiently increase your Q-factor.
Di2: great system. Super smooth and reliable shifting. No argument there.
11-22-20, 10:08 PM
#40
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Been doing a lot more rides after doing some tuneups on the bike myself (I like working on my bikes): Trued both wheels, replaced shifter/brake cables, replaced chain, expanded the range of the cassette, put new brake pads, new tires (went from 23s to 28s OMG what have I been missing!), overhauled hubs, put new bearings in the rear hub as well as replaced a chipped hub cone, packed fresh grease in bottom bracket and bearings and adjusted the derailleurs properly.
Now I love the bike even more. Never getting rid of it - its a fantastic bike that excels in the hills.
Now I love the bike even more. Never getting rid of it - its a fantastic bike that excels in the hills.
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11-23-20, 06:26 AM
#41
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Well maintained bikes with good tires are good whether they have the latest tech or not.
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11-23-20, 11:57 AM
#42
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This is truth.
Ive had entry level road bikes & hard tail mountain bikes, both of which i enjoyed, both of which were stolen.
Got knocked down and lost the taste for cycling for 10 or so years.
Got back into it this year to avoid public transport during a pandemic. A collosal shortage meant i had to look at what was available, and went with a "fitness" bike which is a flatbar gravel bike, if such a category even exists.
I absolutely love the thing. it bridges the gap between the road and hardtail MTB in a very capable way i didnt think possible when i owned both of those.
Its more responsive than my previous bikes, more comfortable than the MTB and very little if any slower than the old road bike.
Given the option id have gone for something familar but im glad the chips fell as they did as i have a bike i genuinely look forward to riding, where i used to have to force myself onto the road bike a bit and the MTB was only a weekend thing.
Lunchtime spins around the park with longer weekend spins have replaced the gym as my exercise routine during the pandemic.
Ive had entry level road bikes & hard tail mountain bikes, both of which i enjoyed, both of which were stolen.
Got knocked down and lost the taste for cycling for 10 or so years.
Got back into it this year to avoid public transport during a pandemic. A collosal shortage meant i had to look at what was available, and went with a "fitness" bike which is a flatbar gravel bike, if such a category even exists.
I absolutely love the thing. it bridges the gap between the road and hardtail MTB in a very capable way i didnt think possible when i owned both of those.
Its more responsive than my previous bikes, more comfortable than the MTB and very little if any slower than the old road bike.
Given the option id have gone for something familar but im glad the chips fell as they did as i have a bike i genuinely look forward to riding, where i used to have to force myself onto the road bike a bit and the MTB was only a weekend thing.
Lunchtime spins around the park with longer weekend spins have replaced the gym as my exercise routine during the pandemic.
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11-24-20, 07:21 AM
#44
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Dropper posts are a flipping great idea for riding down steep terrain as well. I don't ride aggressively enough anymore to need something like that.
Not singling out anyone but I don't understand why so many people are so resistant to change. Lately I've been on a kick of trying different things on my bikes just because. Two years ago I didn't own a bike with fenders or a kick stand. Bought a gravel bike just because I didn't own a bike that was less than 20 years old and had never ridden a bike with "brifters" or disc brakes. Outfitted that with touring racks and paniers to see what touring was like. Got a set of 27.5" wheels and set those up tubeless to see how that worked. Think I've used those twice. Bought a recumbent because I've always wondered what that would be like. It has grip shifters, something I never thought I would like. Built an ebike because I wanted a project and work commuter. Hooked a trailer to a MTB and take that into the woods to scavenge firewood.
And my one and only road bike is still a 40 year old Bianchi with drop tube shifters, one of the few original parts left on the bike.
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11-25-20, 12:10 PM
#45
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I think that you will find that for the same money you will get better components and/or wheels on an AL frame vs a CF frame. CF frames are more expensive to produce.
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11-25-20, 10:13 PM
#48
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