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How Much New is Too Much for You?

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How Much New is Too Much for You?

Old 05-01-22, 10:55 AM
  #201  
Paul Barnard
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Let's see. I have dabbled in some of the new tech and have "retreated" from some of it. FWIW I am a recreational 59 year old rider. I don't race. I do occasionally do events where the pace is spirited.

I tried hydraulic disc brakes and decided that I didn't like them. They are the only brakes that have ever left me stranded and in need of a shop to get back on the road. They stop great and are easy to finesse. It's also easy to have a pucker factor moment, grab too much front brake and dump.

I had a nice carbon fiber road bike (Tarmac). It was fine. I switched to it from an aluminum bike. Some things I liked better and others not as much. I went to titanium from the carbon fiber and am just where I need to be in a road bike.

I have my first thru axle bike. There is nothing that I like about it better than standard QR.

10 speeds is enough for me.

I am way out in front of what will become a trend. Real world gearing. Compact was a gravitation in the right direction. Now there is sub-compact. They are almost where they need to be.

Have not tried tubeless and won't. Have not tried electronic shifting and won't.
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Old 05-01-22, 11:50 AM
  #202  
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Originally Posted by livedarklions
Do they really need to be replaced that quickly or are you exaggerating? Honest question, I'm just surprised by that figure and am curious as to what starts to break down that fast.
It is that way in the pneumatic/power tool industry. Most of the brands are owned by Black & Decker and made in the same places. Porter Cable, Dewalt, Stanley, Bostitch, etc, etc. They buy a company with a good reputation and dumb down the product to a price point. It's all about repeat sales. Getting one repaired will cost you as much as buying a new one. The so called "pro brands" aren't much better than Harbor Freight products. There are exceptions, of course. Most are made to be used one season until the warranty has expired. The multi year warranty will only cover certain parts on the product. The worst I've encountered is the Iron Horse brand of engines at Northern Tool. No crank bearings in the motor. Just bushings. Think about that for a moment. It might get your leaf vac through one season, or not. Looks like they don't sell them now.

Here you go. Here's a link to the sight where you can order parts for those brands under the B & D umbrella.

https://www.toolservicenet.com/

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Old 05-01-22, 03:57 PM
  #203  
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I am very much aware of how much time is spent having to recharge devices. In the past I had a bike computer that required a new 2032 battery once a year. Now I have a smartphone and a Wahoo and a cadence meter and one of my bikes is an e-bike. The idea of having to worry about the battery on a derailleur is where I think it is frivolous for those not engaged in professional road racing.

Over the past 50 years the bike industry has become a multi-billion dollar one and the good part is the ready availability of things like brake shifters and hydraulic brakes but there is also a tremendous amount of accessory items that are pure fluff, though highly profitable fluff. Unfortunately most of this ends up in a landfill.
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Old 05-01-22, 04:12 PM
  #204  
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Originally Posted by Paul Barnard
Have not tried tubeless and won't. Have not tried electronic shifting and won't.
It can be scary to try new things.


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Old 05-01-22, 04:18 PM
  #205  
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Originally Posted by Calsun
I am very much aware of how much time is spent having to recharge devices. In the past I had a bike computer that required a new 2032 battery once a year. Now I have a smartphone and a Wahoo and a cadence meter and one of my bikes is an e-bike. The idea of having to worry about the battery on a derailleur is where I think it is frivolous for those not engaged in professional road racing.

Over the past 50 years the bike industry has become a multi-billion dollar one and the good part is the ready availability of things like brake shifters and hydraulic brakes but there is also a tremendous amount of accessory items that are pure fluff, though highly profitable fluff. Unfortunately most of this ends up in a landfill.
I worry less about derailleur batteries than I did about cables. I've only very recently embraced electronic shifting, but I can't see myself going back. That seems to be the way it goes for most people who give it a try. I wouldn't go as far as converting any of my other bikes with mechanical shifting to electronic, but I think all my future bikes will be electronic. Fewer cables and touch shifters are nice. I also prefer that the brake levers don't need to move laterally. I always found that a bit weird.
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Old 05-01-22, 06:42 PM
  #206  
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Originally Posted by Point
The improvements in cars are, in my opinion, easily quantifiable. In 1984, a wall equipped smaller sedan had an MSRP of $9000 - $10,000, With that you had maybe 100 hp if lucky, an in most, AM/FM cassette, with around 25 mpg on the highway. That 1984 price now equates to $27,000 - $30,000 after inflation. A sedan now in the $30k range has 180+ hp from usually a 2.5 liter engine (more than a 5.7 liter Corvette in the mid ‘70s), maybe AWD, Bluetooth, etc, and can get 30+ mpg highway. So really measurable improvements. Computers are another area of easily quantifiable performance improvements.

Going to the 1983 Trek, yes it did have downtube friction shifters, but I wouldn’t say they were worse than Tourney. The old Sun Tour stuff was very good. Brakes, while I like modern dual pivots, weren’t that bad years ago for the better stuff like the Superbe Pros that were on the Trek. Again, my opinion, but many of the “improvements” in cycling cannot be quantified as improving performance and many new components are worse than the older stuff.
Some stuff like bluetooth, AWD, isn't necessary, we just want it, but it's not needed. People have driven in snow for many more years than AWD has been around and did so without a whole lot of issues, then I have to laugh when I see an AWD drive vehicle stuck in show! I agree that MPG today is much better than it use to be prior to the 80's, most of that is due to fuel injection, but did you realize that cars in the 80's got just as much MPG as cars today get? why is that? mostly because cars today weigh a lot more than the cars in the 80's did, plus newer cars have a lot more equipment on them today. There were quite a few cars in the 80's that got over 40 mpg; in fact I knew several people that had Chevy Chevettes that got 55 to 60 mpg with a carbureted car! I knew a guy back in the 70's had a carbureted Honda 500, he claimed it got 70 mpg, and then later I ran into another person with a 500 and he too said he got 70 mpg, what car today gets 70 mpg? Sure the 500 was a very small car, so small that a group of 5 of us picked up my friend's car and placed it on her (parents) front porch! Next morning Dad didn't find the humor in that so when he called me screaming to get the car off his porch, we all went back and took the car off, laughing the whole time we were doing it, I think dad probably laughed about it later.

Look, engineers could make modern cars easy to work on, if they chose too, but what happened was way back in the 70's car dealers were complaining that they could not make enough money on just selling cars, they needed service work to make money, so engineers since then have been steadily making cars more and more complicated requiring more and more tools. Back in the 60's and prior, all a mechanic needed was $250 in tools, adjusted for inflation that's $2,800 in tools today, but today that tool expense has exceeded $30,000; while the whole-time mechanic wages have not gone up enough to keep up with inflation, mechanics averaged just around $5 an hour in the 50's and 60's, which today would be equal to making $48 dollars an hour, but mechanics today range from $15 to $21 and hour, not even the upper end wage is keeping up with what they were paid 65 years ago, in fact it's not even half of what they got paid! A lot of blue-collar jobs are like this, and this is why they are having a shortage of blue-collar workers because the pay is crappy now. A person could work their way up at Walmart, get paid the same as a mechanic without the tool bill! I find the same thing with Bicycle mechanics, their pay is crap with an average of just $14 an hour, which is why I always tip the mechanic.

I went off on a tangent with the pay thing, but a car could be made a lot simpler in most respects, sure the electronic crap is going to be a pain, but the mechanical aspects don't have to be. I also understand there are space limitations in today's cars, but that still doesn't mean you have to have $30,000 plus in tools to fix stuff.
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Old 05-01-22, 06:48 PM
  #207  
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Originally Posted by Rolla
While I love downtube friction shifters, no matter how reliable, repairable, and inexpensive they are, the rider still has to take his or her hands from the bars to shift, to the detriment of safety, efficiency, accuracy, and comfort. The development of "briftors" was never solely about shifting performance.
Removing one's hand to make a shift never bothered me, in fact my old touring bike had downtube shifters and I didn't have any issues shifting when the bike was loaded. Is it convenient to have briftors? Yes, but from a mechanical and cost standpoint it's not better. My new touring bike has bar end shifters, those are pretty cool too, again cheap to maintain and replace should something go bad.
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Old 05-01-22, 06:54 PM
  #208  
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Originally Posted by rekmeyata
Some stuff like bluetooth, AWD, isn't necessary, we just want it, but it's not needed. People have driven in snow for many more years than AWD has been around and did so without a whole lot of issues.
I drive a rear wheel drive pick up here in Canada and never been stuck yet...Also no bluetooth and no power windows and no infotainment system to distract me.... I LOL at people who purchase 4x4 trucks with off road package and who never ever go off road..
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Old 05-01-22, 07:05 PM
  #209  
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Originally Posted by Calsun
I am very much aware of how much time is spent having to recharge devices. In the past I had a bike computer that required a new 2032 battery once a year. Now I have a smartphone and a Wahoo and a cadence meter and one of my bikes is an e-bike. The idea of having to worry about the battery on a derailleur is where I think it is frivolous for those not engaged in professional road racing.
....
Originally Posted by PeteHski
I worry less about derailleur batteries than I did about cables. I've only very recently embraced electronic shifting, but I can't see myself going back. That seems to be the way it goes for most people who give it a try. I wouldn't go as far as converting any of my other bikes with mechanical shifting to electronic, but I think all my future bikes will be electronic. Fewer cables and touch shifters are nice. I also prefer that the brake levers don't need to move laterally. I always found that a bit weird.
the batteries that drive my di2 setup seem to last a VERY long time; so long that you'd have warning of them being low long before any ride of a reasonable length could exhaust them. i'm sure it happens, but bikes need somewhat regular maintenance and charging a single battery in the seatpost every couple months and replacing a couple coin cells in the shifters less often than that is really trivial compared to how much of a hassle it is to adjust a mechanical derailleur. of all the components on my other road bike (GRX) the rear derailleur was by the most annoying, very difficult to get perfectly aligned and indexed, and of course it doesn't stay there forever. with electronic shifting that seems to be a thing of the past, for the price of a few seconds of plugging a cable in every once in a while. i'm 100% sold, along with the flexibility it allows in shifter designs. i was very skeptical until i tried it.
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Old 05-01-22, 07:12 PM
  #210  
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Originally Posted by wolfchild
I drive a rear wheel drive pick up here in Canada and never been stuck yet...Also no bluetooth and no power windows and no infotainment system to distract me.... I LOL at people who purchase 4x4 trucks with off road package and who never ever go off road..
Yup, there were people I knew in the southern states would romp around in mud using nothing but 2-wheel drive pickups, yet an inexperience person will come romping through there in their 4x4 Jeep Rubicon and get stuck, guess how they pull those jeeps and other 4x4's out? with a two-wheel drive truck! LMAO!! I knew people when I was younger would buy a Jeep and then take a bucket of mud and splatter the jeep with it so it would look like they had taken it offroad! to impress the ladies of course.
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Old 05-01-22, 07:19 PM
  #211  
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Originally Posted by rekmeyata
my old touring bike had downtube shifters and I didn't have any issues shifting when the bike was loaded. My new touring bike has bar end shifters, those are pretty cool too
Whatever shifts yer gears.
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Old 05-01-22, 07:21 PM
  #212  
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Originally Posted by rekmeyata
Yup, there were people I knew in the southern states would romp around in mud using nothing but 2-wheel drive pickups, yet an inexperience person will come romping through there in their 4x4 Jeep Rubicon and get stuck, guess how they pull those jeeps and other 4x4's out? with a two-wheel drive truck! LMAO!! I knew people when I was younger would buy a Jeep and then take a bucket of mud and splatter the jeep with it so it would look like they had taken it offroad! to impress the ladies of course.
Z71, baby. You can't make it through life without one. At least that's what we're led to believe. I noticed last week that the option number has changed on the newest edition.
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Old 05-02-22, 09:08 AM
  #213  
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Originally Posted by wolfchild
I drive a rear wheel drive pick up here in Canada and never been stuck yet...Also no bluetooth and no power windows and no infotainment system to distract me.... I LOL at people who purchase 4x4 trucks with off road package and who never ever go off road..
I'm surprised you have internet and a computer.
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Old 05-02-22, 09:19 AM
  #214  
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Originally Posted by PeteHski
I'm surprised you have internet and a computer.
he or she was tricked into it by the marketing, which is the only reason anything new is purchased!
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Old 05-02-22, 10:57 AM
  #215  
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People who design products need something to do all day, so they work on new designs whether or not those designs are needed or not. As a result, our daily lives have become ever more complicated. My car has so many features that I don't even know what they all are. I see buttons to press whose purpose I've never bothered to look up in the manual. I have all kinds of messages popping up on various screens that take a long time to figure out how to turn off. Changing the time on the clock requires paging through the manual or getting on line. On my bikes, I never had any trouble figuring out how to fix or maintain things. Now I have to watch a number of videos to learn how to bleed hydraulic brakes. For me, as an older person, simpler is better in almost everything. All the innovations in bicycle development are truly unnecessary however advantageous they may be. Personally, I'd love to be able to easily buy a new bike with rim brakes, a quill stem, and components made of material that didn't require a torque wrench to adjust. Modern bikes are overall better than older bikes, but better is not always better.
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Old 05-02-22, 11:43 AM
  #216  
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Originally Posted by jackb
People who design products need something to do all day, so they work on new designs whether or not those designs are needed or not. As a result, our daily lives have become ever more complicated. My car has so many features that I don't even know what they all are. I see buttons to press whose purpose I've never bothered to look up in the manual. I have all kinds of messages popping up on various screens that take a long time to figure out how to turn off. Changing the time on the clock requires paging through the manual or getting on line. On my bikes, I never had any trouble figuring out how to fix or maintain things. Now I have to watch a number of videos to learn how to bleed hydraulic brakes. For me, as an older person, simpler is better in almost everything. All the innovations in bicycle development are truly unnecessary however advantageous they may be. Personally, I'd love to be able to easily buy a new bike with rim brakes, a quill stem, and components made of material that didn't require a torque wrench to adjust. Modern bikes are overall better than older bikes, but better is not always better.
Not so much that we're old and can't understand the stuff, or refuse to understand, we use computers and smart phones all the time. But I think your point is that over complication isn't necessary no matter the age. Like you said, you had to leaf through your owner's manual to figure out how to change the time, when back in the analog clock days all we did was reach for the stem knob on the clock, pull the stem and change the time, that can be done with an electric or digital clock, but no, instead we have to leaf through pages of a book to figure it out. Other stuff like a simple placement of a car battery, it took me over an hour working on a friend's Chevy Lumina just to get to the battery so we could replace it! I then ended up cutting a bracket off because they didn't make a tool on the general market that could reach the bolt, but with all the crap that went on over the battery the bracket wasn't necessary anyways, that battery wasn't going to move. I found out later that a lot of mechanics did the same thing I did to that bracket! And that battery placement wasn't even the worse location, some Buicks you had to remove the front driver's wheel, remove the fender liner, and then remove brackets and bracings to get the battery out. One car model the battery is under the rear seat, which meant you have to remove the rear seat since it doesn't tilt up and forward to allow access. Some cars you have to take off the fuel injection system to get the rear 3 plugs out. All cars today require removing the dash to get to the heater core, that's an 8 hour labor charge for a $32 part! All they had to do was put into the firewall mounted by 2 bolts, and the core would fit into a a slot on the firewall, easy to excess and easy to repair. The list goes on and on.

What is funny is when you go into a dealership to look at a new or used cars, even the sales staff can't figure out all the crap on all the cars, there's too much variety between cars, whereas in the old days any sales person could figure out how to operate anything in the car. I have people tell me that they couldn't figure out something on their car even after reading the manual, take it to the car dealer, the sales person would sit in the car for about 30 minutes unable to figure it out themselves, only to say read the owner's manual and give up in frustration.

Then when something breaks it costs a lot of money to replace. For example, my neighbor has a Toyota Prius, the info screen died, $3,200 later it was repaired, really? Everything in that car is accessed through the info screen, not unlike a Tesla which would probably cost at least twice as much to repair. What happens if the radio in a modern car needs to be replaced, on most cars you can't simply put in a new head unit, you have to go back to the dealer and get the radio assuming it's still being made.

Unless you're a gear head and like to dink around with your bike more often than not, then trying to figure out how to bleed hydro brakes is a waste of my time! Which is why I opted for mechanical disk brakes on my touring bike instead of hydro, but there is a learning curve with mechanical as well.

And you brought up an excellent point concerning torque wrench necessity that is required on carbon fiber bikes, it's asinine if you ask me! If you get the torque values wrong you could damage the part and cause a crash later down the road. Most home mechanics either don't use a torque wrench thinking it's not a big deal, or they just take it in to the shop for that stuff, problem is even most shops don't always get the correct torque values, so when something breaks then what? You can't prove who was at fault, the mechanic that applied the wrong torque value or the material broke due to some fault of its own.

Simpler is always better. They can make high tech cars without all the complications if they wanted to.
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Old 05-02-22, 12:17 PM
  #217  
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Originally Posted by jackb
People who design products need something to do all day, so they work on new designs whether or not those designs are needed or not. As a result, our daily lives have become ever more complicated. My car has so many features that I don't even know what they all are. I see buttons to press whose purpose I've never bothered to look up in the manual. I have all kinds of messages popping up on various screens that take a long time to figure out how to turn off. Changing the time on the clock requires paging through the manual or getting on line. On my bikes, I never had any trouble figuring out how to fix or maintain things. Now I have to watch a number of videos to learn how to bleed hydraulic brakes. For me, as an older person, simpler is better in almost everything. All the innovations in bicycle development are truly unnecessary however advantageous they may be. Personally, I'd love to be able to easily buy a new bike with rim brakes, a quill stem, and components made of material that didn't require a torque wrench to adjust. Modern bikes are overall better than older bikes, but better is not always better.
Originally Posted by rekmeyata
Not so much that we're old and can't understand the stuff, or refuse to understand, we use computers and smart phones all the time. But I think your point is that over complication isn't necessary no matter the age. Like you said, you had to leaf through your owner's manual to figure out how to change the time, when back in the analog clock days all we did was reach for the stem knob on the clock, pull the stem and change the time, that can be done with an electric or digital clock, but no, instead we have to leaf through pages of a book to figure it out. Other stuff like a simple placement of a car battery, it took me over an hour working on a friend's Chevy Lumina just to get to the battery so we could replace it! I then ended up cutting a bracket off because they didn't make a tool on the general market that could reach the bolt, but with all the crap that went on over the battery the bracket wasn't necessary anyways, that battery wasn't going to move. I found out later that a lot of mechanics did the same thing I did to that bracket! And that battery placement wasn't even the worse location, some Buicks you had to remove the front driver's wheel, remove the fender liner, and then remove brackets and bracings to get the battery out. One car model the battery is under the rear seat, which meant you have to remove the rear seat since it doesn't tilt up and forward to allow access. Some cars you have to take off the fuel injection system to get the rear 3 plugs out. All cars today require removing the dash to get to the heater core, that's an 8 hour labor charge for a $32 part! All they had to do was put into the firewall mounted by 2 bolts, and the core would fit into a a slot on the firewall, easy to excess and easy to repair. The list goes on and on.

What is funny is when you go into a dealership to look at a new or used cars, even the sales staff can't figure out all the crap on all the cars, there's too much variety between cars, whereas in the old days any sales person could figure out how to operate anything in the car. I have people tell me that they couldn't figure out something on their car even after reading the manual, take it to the car dealer, the sales person would sit in the car for about 30 minutes unable to figure it out themselves, only to say read the owner's manual and give up in frustration.

Then when something breaks it costs a lot of money to replace. For example, my neighbor has a Toyota Prius, the info screen died, $3,200 later it was repaired, really? Everything in that car is accessed through the info screen, not unlike a Tesla which would probably cost at least twice as much to repair. What happens if the radio in a modern car needs to be replaced, on most cars you can't simply put in a new head unit, you have to go back to the dealer and get the radio assuming it's still being made.

Unless you're a gear head and like to dink around with your bike more often than not, then trying to figure out how to bleed hydro brakes is a waste of my time! Which is why I opted for mechanical disk brakes on my touring bike instead of hydro, but there is a learning curve with mechanical as well.

And you brought up an excellent point concerning torque wrench necessity that is required on carbon fiber bikes, it's asinine if you ask me! If you get the torque values wrong you could damage the part and cause a crash later down the road. Most home mechanics either don't use a torque wrench thinking it's not a big deal, or they just take it in to the shop for that stuff, problem is even most shops don't always get the correct torque values, so when something breaks then what? You can't prove who was at fault, the mechanic that applied the wrong torque value or the material broke due to some fault of its own.

Simpler is always better. They can make high tech cars without all the complications if they wanted to.
Is this what happens when you get old? I know a few old guys who actually look forward to the future and embrace new technology. They have an open-mind and I find it quite inspirational - unlike this kind of talk ^
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Old 05-02-22, 12:24 PM
  #218  
livedarklions
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Originally Posted by jackb
All the innovations in bicycle development are truly unnecessary however advantageous they may be...

Modern bikes are overall better than older bikes, but better is not always better.
Those two sentences are complete nonsense.

If something is enormously advantageous, it is not "truly unnecessary". It might be unnecessary in the strictest sense of the word in that you could ride without it but, in that sense, the entire bicycle is unnecessary because you could survive without riding.

Better is always better. If it's not better, then it's not better.

Jeez, the clocks in cars are a hell of a lot easier to set than when you had to flip through 12 hours worth of mechanical tabs because you couldn't flip backwards, and those mechanical clocks always broke. Now I push a couple of digital buttons and my time adjusts, you've got to be kidding me.
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Old 05-02-22, 12:26 PM
  #219  
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Originally Posted by PeteHski
Is this what happens when you get old? I know a few old guys who actually look forward to the future and embrace new technology. They have an open-mind and I find it quite inspirational - unlike this kind of talk ^

Those screeds sounded like a pile of hogwash to me, and I'm old enough to say "hogwash".
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Old 05-02-22, 12:31 PM
  #220  
jackb
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PeteHski,

No, this is not what happens when you get old. It happens when you assess current circumstances and draw conclusions. I see nothing closed-minded about not embracing all new bike technology. Some people like anything new, some like nothing new, and some, like myself, some things new and some things not. I like advances in tire technology resulting in fewer flats as well as developments in lightweight materials, advances that do not make my life more complicated.
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Old 05-02-22, 12:50 PM
  #221  
PeteHski
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Originally Posted by jackb
PeteHski,

No, this is not what happens when you get old. It happens when you assess current circumstances and draw conclusions. I see nothing closed-minded about not embracing all new bike technology. Some people like anything new, some like nothing new, and some, like myself, some things new and some things not. I like advances in tire technology resulting in fewer flats as well as developments in lightweight materials, advances that do not make my life more complicated.
So just a coincidence that you both happen to be old then. Sure, I believe you.
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Old 05-02-22, 01:28 PM
  #222  
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Originally Posted by jackb
Now I have to watch a number of videos to learn how to bleed hydraulic brakes.
Originally Posted by rekmeyata
trying to figure out how to bleed hydro brakes is a waste of my time!
Whether or not you like hydraulic brakes is your business, but the objection that bleeding them is some sort of black art is simply inaccurate. It takes about ten minutes and is easier than installing cantilever brake pads. Try it sometime and see for yourself.
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Old 05-02-22, 02:04 PM
  #223  
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Originally Posted by Rolla
Whether or not you like hydraulic brakes is your business, but the objection that bleeding them is some sort of black art is simply inaccurate. It takes about ten minutes and is easier than installing cantilever brake pads. Try it sometime and see for yourself.

Do you need a torque wrench?

(No, not a serious question)
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Old 05-02-22, 02:10 PM
  #224  
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Originally Posted by rekmeyata
Not so much that we're old and can't understand the stuff ...
There must be clear skies in the midwest today -- no clouds to shout at, so gotta do it online.
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Old 05-02-22, 02:43 PM
  #225  
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Originally Posted by PeteHski
Is this what happens when you get old? I know a few old guys who actually look forward to the future and embrace new technology. They have an open-mind and I find it quite inspirational - unlike this kind of talk ^
Nope. It is what happens when you form emotional attachments to inanimate objects.

A Chevy Chevette that "got 55 to 60 mpg with a carbureted car!" Not likely. My mum's got mid 20's being driven mostly highway miles. And it was the "Scooter" model. The one that didn't even have a radio. Maybe one of the diesel Chevettes would get 50. Try and find one today. Almost all of them have rusted away into oblivion. Gone and not missed, except by folks filled with nostalgia for "the good old days." But the good old days are NOW!
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