Hapsmo911

In light of the cheap thread, here's the other version,

3t Dorrico setback seatpost.... worse piece of garbage I had the displeasure of purchasing....

eja_ bottecchia

I bought a set of Fulcrum Racing Zero Ltd. Edition wheelset. The wheels are great but overpriced.

The problem comes when, for whatever reason, the wheels need repair. Spokes and nipples are hard to find and very expensive. If the rim bends even a little, it may need replacing (I know I happened to me). Very expensive.

This is one instance where my vanity overcame my common sense...limited edition means a pain in the arse to repair and expensive to boot.

rmfnla

MAVIC Ksyrium wheels that developed cracks (surprise) in the rear rim three months out of warranty...

SevenTwentyNine

The actual bike itself?

Homebrew01

Campagnolo titanium BB axle back in the day ...."snap". I bought a bike for the parts, not realizing what was inside the bb.

noodle soup

I bought SRAM Force first edition.

just dank

a Regal reissue saddle

jfowler85

Worse than what?


Typically for me, anything from the LBS other than spare tubes.

RollCNY

I have several pairs of Pearl Izumi Quest shorts that work very well. I figured if they worked well, the more expensive PI Assault short must be better. It was not, and was significantly worse in aspects that matter to me.

rmfnla

Way back when I gave an Ideale 90 leather saddle a try.

I swear it got harder with every ride...

PaulRivers

Clipless pedals and shoes.

Clipless doesn't do *that* much - but the bigger problem is that my feet are a "almost wide" side. Clipless shoes you can't (or couldn't) return them once you put cleats on. The amount of agony I went through with hotspots, my knee hurting at the end of the ride, etc, when I could have just used a pair of flat shoes and had none of that...

I mean I'm not racing. I'm not saying that "no one" should use clipless, I'm just saying that for me personally with my foot size I wish I had realized earlier I could just do flats and not have to deal with all that. It really took a lot of enjoyment out of riding to know that my foot was going to hurt and go numb on the ride (even after a professional fitter, 3 pairs of shoes, 4 different shoe insert thingies, etc).

I must have spend at least $1,000 on shoes and pedals trying to get something that worked. Now I have about $150 for the flat shoes and flat pedals and it's far, far more enjoyable to ride. (If you don't have this problem, what I'm saying doesn't apply to you obviously.)

Dan333SP

Selle SMP saddle. Can't remember which specific model, but I bought it used off fleabay for something like $200. At the time I just assumed it had to be better than what I'd been using, a $25 Nashbar saddle of some sort, but it was agony for me since I hadn't learned yet that flat saddles are my preference, and I believed the online marketing hype about how comfy they are.

Saving grace was that I sold it for basically the same price I'd paid for it in the first place, minus the shipping and such.

alathIN

Not expensive in absolute terms, but pretty expensive for gloves - a pair of Castellis that were really wonderful for about a month. After one season of use, they are more worn out than a pair of Pearl Izumis I've had for over seven years.

silversx80

Oh, the dozens of saddles before I found the right one. Gotta love the Italians and the fi'zi:k Antares.

Jiggle

$120 Pro Tharsis Di2 stem. This stem works by eliminating the traditional expander and top cap and using a threaded nut at the bottom of the stem to push down on the headset bearings for tension. The fork steerer needs to be cut below the top level of the stem for the plastic cap to snap on. The problem arises with carbon steerer tubes. The stem top bolt basically cracks it if you go to the required 5 N-m. I noticed material displacement at 2.4 N-m. Also there are cut-outs around the bolts that concentrate the clamping force in a small area.

I suppose you could reinforce the inside of steerer, but there isn't much room. It is designed to work with the internal Di2 battery, which appears to add some support to the steerer, but there is nothing in the instructions about it being required (which I did read before ordering).

With the ubiquity of carbon steerers, how could you have not seen this coming, Shimano?

exmechanic89

From your description that's definitely an example of terrible design to me..

TimothyH

I have 3E wide feet with high arches.

If you ride at all aggressively then clipless does make a difference. Clipless pedals in general are not your problem. Finding a shoe that fits is your problem. I recommend that you try Sidi Genius Mega shoes for wide feet.

I also broke my knee in a crash years ago and have some lingering problems. Speedplay pedals will help your knees.

Not trying to challenge you. Just trying to impart some experience, that's all, and I wish you well.


-Tim-

rmfnla

I hear this occasionally here on BF and it makes me laugh.

I don't race either, but I consider clipless pedals and click shifting to be the two best cycling improvements in the last 50 years.

Sorry fitting your feet has been so problematic but it's kind of counter-productive to use that as an excuse to minimize a terrific technological development...

Silvercivic27

Lezyne floor pump.

PaulRivers

People get a huge ego investment in clipless like they get in a BMW - it's mostly about status and ego, with a few much smaller things that are actual improvements. It's debateable whether they give you any improvement in speed at all, but even the most optimists studies show the difference is small. They do do very well at keeping your foot firmly attached to the pedal no matter the weather or how fast you're spinning - but a pedal with pins and sticky rubber like five ten shoes are nearly as good.

There's no doubt to me that if you're having issues with hotspots and your feet hurting, that it's a lot easier to find well fitting shoes that are not clipless. It's simply that how the shoe fits. With flat shoes and flat pedals (ones that are actually flat), they fit on the bike much the same as they fit when you walk around the store in them. With clipless how they feel on the bike is very hard to tell before you actually ride in them, and once you attach cleats you can't return them, making it far more difficult to figure out beforehand - if you have issues.

I think integrating the shifters into the brakes has been absolutely fantastic, I hated to take my hands off the brakes and reach down to shift. But I find indexed shifting to be debateable - you do end up spending a lot of effort and sometimes money endlessly trying to get the indexed shifting working just right. Whereas with non-index shifting it's a little more work to shift right but you an always get it spot on.

Both the items you mentioned are huge money makers for bike manufacturers.

I'd say the #1 improvement imo is integrating brakes and shifting.
#2 is flat resistant tires.
#3 is either computer aided design or carbon fiber...modern bikes are far more comfortable to ride and avoid road vibration compared to bikes from a couple of decades ago, even though they're made out of the same material. In my experience.

Clipless is fine, but yeah I think the over-the-top cult following is absurd. Moreso if you're having problems specifically caused by clipless, which not everyone, but if you do you do.

Marcus_Ti

Worst was my first road-ish bike, a flatbar 2002 Sirrus. Stock wheels were found to be complete **** in build quality after a few hundred miles (and I was pretty light back then) with broken spokes galore...flatbar and grips led to hand numbess and pain. An $800 bill with lots of lessons.

I got an SMP Composit off PerformanceBike almost 7 years ago...50% off retail, after a long string of Fizik and Specialized etc saddles. Was a whim and "cheap" as they were $250 MSRP, still use the damn thing to this day. Should buy another before they stop getting made.

PaulRivers

I guess I figured it would hit peoples egos to ever say anything negative about clipless, but like I said that was my specific problem with them.

I would agree with your statement that if you ride aggressively then clipless can be beneficial. The primary benefit of clipless is keeping your foot attached to the pedal, and for that it does very well. But if you're not riding aggressively, but you do have foot pain issues that make you not want to ride, it's a lot easier and cheaper to solve that problem with flats than clipless.

I did cover this in my post, why it's far easier to find a shoe that fits in non-clipless.

Frankly, if it wasn't such an ego thing, people wouldn't feel so "attacked" by anyone saying it didn't work for them.

I can say with 100% certainty that that's not true because I bought and was using Speedplays.

After a decade I did actually find something that solved my problem - doing barbell squats with good form straightened out the problem in my knee and I stopped having knee pain. But I spent a decade not knowing that and having knee pain with clipless (though not flats).

I mean I wasn't trying to put clipless into a completely good / completely bad category, but like I said I have a ton of experience trying to solve the problem. Might be it solveable with clipless? Maybe. But I know it was much easier to solve with flats.

rmfnla

No offense, but this may be one of the stupidest statements I have ever read on BF...

tomato coupe

Osmium coated, billet titanium chain rings bolts ($750). They were supposed to be good for an extra 2 mph, but I only see about 1.5 mph increase. I should have bought the premium (3 mph) bolts.

grwoolf

Your castelli gloves lasted about 2 weeks longer than mine. Complete junk.