TheKillerPenguin

tetonrider

damn. downhill? speed?

i often think about a front blowout on a local mountain descent. i think a tubular gives me a tiny bit larger margin of error.

sad stuff.

globecanvas

@gsteinb I am very sorry for your loss. What a horrible thing for his wife to go through.

cmh

Very sad news gsteinb. My condolences.

Ygduf

this thread is sad now.

here's a picture of what tortures me daily

beatlebee 

So I low-sided today on my commute to work.
Took a sharp left that I usually rail through as it is part of a quick right then left, then another quick left right, each about 90 degrees. Very fun little spot. Well it rained last night and the path was wet. I thought I was going quite slow but next thing I know, I was on the ground sliding. I am riding veloflex roubaixs (tubular) pumped to 100 psi rear, 95 psi front. I have slipped a bit before on these tires in the wet. When it is dry, basically 98% of the time, the tires are bliss. Is there any fault that can be placed on me or should I consider these dry days only?

thoughts?

Ygduf

you sound unhurt, so that's good.

now that you've lost confidence on them in the wet you'll corner slower and will be fine.

valygrl

Sorry rob, hope you are not hurt.

tetonrider

glad you're not hurt.

i'm not MMQB'ing, but since you posed the question -- what pressure do you run in the dry? is 95/100 lower than that? if not, why not?

how much do you weigh and what width are the tires?

you *might* be able to substantially lower the pressure and improve traction.

beatlebee 

Thanks all. Just some road rash on my left forearm and tricep plus body tweaked (muscle knots, etc.) from impact.

Love the wisdom fudgy. : )

@tetonrider: I just recently decided to go a bit lower with my pressure. I used to run the rear around 103 and the front around 98. (Odd choices maybe, I set my morning alarm to 4:17am...)

I weigh in the low 160s. The tires are 25 mm, front and rear. I ride on mostly quite smooth tarmac and this turn is very smooth, MUP. (Very low use other than cycling commuters, if you are wondering)

Should I go lower with pressure, at least on a wet day? Not really that it matters, frankly, as the number of days that I ride on wet surfaces can be counted on your fingers. I vaguely remember reading at some other site that Sky made a comment about veloflex getting slick in the wet. I might be misremembering that though.

tetonrider

others might offer different opinions. here's mine:
yes, regardless of what tire you are running, you should run lower pressure when it is wet. i'd say 5psi minimum, but more likely i'd run at least 10psi lower.

you're running tubulars; one of their advantages is that you won't pinch flat. while you'll read tons of stuff about "sidewalls made from newborns' butt cheeks" and people will tell you this means you can run higher PSI, try the opposite -- run LOWER psi.

at 160 & 25s, i'd say you can probably run 90 & 95# in the dry -- and 80 / 85 f/r in the wet.

i couldn't say that this had any bearing on your slip (sometimes stuff happens), but lower pressure can't hurt.

for full disclosure, i think the notion of 'grip' for road tires is exaggerated; IOW, the differences are super minor, and it's not like one tire is AMAZING in the wet and another is terrible. yeah, i have my preferences, but i don't 'think there is anything scientific about it. maybe i'm wrong.

beatlebee 

cheers, thanks @tetonrider.

Grumpy McTrumpy

If you live in the Western desert then it probably rains so infrequently that each time there actually is rain, it raises a film of oil up from the road surface. No tire choice will offset that kind of slip.

SysteX

Just as another data point, I weigh 160 and ride 25c tires (Conti 4000iis in 23mm, but they measure out to 25.5mm on my rims), and have been using 85psi rear and 75psi front for the past season with not a single pinch flat (and I'm on New England's crappy, pothole-filled roads). Initially, it felt much slower but it was really just in my head.

I recently listened to this podcast which has some interesting info on tire pressure: CyclingTips Tire Pressure

beatlebee 

This was on a MUP.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

canuckbelle

Wooo! My green card application was *finally* approved today. That was a long 2yr process.

mattm

congrats!

beatlebee 

Anyone want to read the Pantani biography? Time to pass this book along. I never finished it as the end is just a long drawn out series of drug binges.

PM me and I'll put it in the post.

topflightpro

I'll be very happy when this election is finally over. Living in a battleground state sucks. I'm being bombarded with ads everywhere - TV, Radio, mail. The candidates seem to be here every other day.

On another note, has anyone else noticed that Trump's two daughters are both quite attractive, but his sons, not at all.

echappist

as my dad's phone # didn't change when he moved back to NJ, he still gets calls all the time.

if this were the old days, i'm sure they'd be sending things through the fax machine as well...

big john

e-bikes. Late in Saturday's ride I was on a climb with a friend when a big guy went by on a mountain bike. It looked like he had a battery on there but mostly it looked like a regular mtb.
I want to believe it was an e-bike, he just kept pulling away.

topflightpro

And to put context on how much of a battleground state this is, both candidates are holding rallies here today.

Additionally, a friend on Facebook who is working a calling bank for one of the candidates posted a photo of a bunch of TV stars who showed up yesterday to make calls too. I'll bet you can figure out which candidate that was.

Doge

I bought mostly Veloflex for my son's training. SoCal we don't know much about water. But I do think the tread is a bit tougher (which was a reason I bought them) than other tires and that may mean slicker than others when wet.

The newer Veloflex Vlaanderen I just posted about on some other thread have a larger diamond tread and other than wearing down more quickly, seem like they would grip better than our other Veloflex when wet. As they inflate to 28mm - if they fit your bike - you could rid those <100 all the time. Junior loves them as his rain / snow slush tires as he now lives where there is precipitation.

echappist

Alfred Neuman's friends at MadTv?

furiousferret

Celebrities shouldn't have any involvement in politics other than voting. My other peeve is political comedy, both of which have much too big an impact on elections.