The Velodrome - 2014-11-25

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12:40 AM

@freiheit Yay

1:22 AM

I like hats.

And I love "can a woman ride a men's bike"

Note that this is subtly different from "can a woman ride a man's bike", which is all about permission rather than capability

1 hour later…

2:44 AM

@Mσᶎ, That brake lever is awful. I came in here hoping someone else had spotted it.

I can't imagine a case for it at all.

I wish my motorbike had an accelerometer controlled brake light, my front master cylinder broke and the chinese replacement doesn't have a switch and I don't use the rear much, just the gears.

Not that anyone's looking at stuff like that here.

2 hours later…

4:19 AM

@alex very useful on certain recumbent setups, chipmunk bars that sit right in front of you and draw your elbows in are often barely wide enough for two hands side by side, let alone two brake lever clamps.

but the usual case... fixie wanker with death wish. Bar so narrow they have no control, one brake, only ride occasionally so even dealing with a fixie is hard

@alex that would wok much better - heavier bike and suspension so fewer sudden movements, much less high frequency noise.

@alex FWIW bike shop I worked in refused to stock them because they're actually not well made, we broke the first one we tried to fit when we tested it (usual brake test - adjust pads, squeeze lever in to bars, see what breaks. Ideally nothing, but cheap caliper brakes often fail at that point, and IIRC something on that lever gave out when we tested it against a decent caliper. Or maybe it was a cheap clone of that lever. Either way, riding with it was challenging.

The real use case is for people who are "this or nothing". But they're better off with a traditional lever on one side of the bars. Or a second, interrupter lever on the other side...

1 hour later…

5:38 AM

@Mσᶎ, from what I can see this is two levers for one cable, not a tidy two lever two cable deal. I'm not really au fait with recumbents though.

Why anyone would want bars narrower then their chest has always confused me. keeping my hands like that gets uncomfortable and is really twitchy (and makes me look fat(er))

In Sydney a while back I saw a very trendy kid with a breakless single speed. Was terrifying to watch, Sydney's quite a hilly place.

@alex on a racing bent with bars that narrow you probably only have a front brake anyway. Unless the race officials get whiny. But there's often not a lot of weight on the back wheel anyway...

@alex traffic. Some of the couriers go down to 200mm or so, which is where the idea comes from. But the guys who do that ride all day, every day, and they're well able to cope with it. Or they crash a lot and buy wider bars.

6 hours later…

12:07 PM

oh, yeah, hope you guys had a good thanksgiving, those of you who had things to give thanks for.

12:30 PM

0

Q: Giant TCR SLR2 2015 vs Giant Defy Composite 2 2013

this is the first time i gonna buy and ride a road bike. Mainly use to commute everyday and exercise. I'm tall 5"3 and i'm looking for a bike which is durable,fast, better to upgrade later. And i got 2 options. Giant Defy Composite 2 2013 Size Small ( 46.5cm ) i think. I got a deal on Ebay, it ...

I was sorely tempted to write something on this on the differences between the TCR and the Defy - I have a TCR for one thing. But on reflection its probably not worthwhile, the guy just wants to know whether he should get Bike A or Bike B.

4 hours later…

4:06 PM

@freiheit Yay to hats - fun enough and easy to ignore if you don't like them.

1 hour later…

5:28 PM

Another vid from Gent, not one of mine though. But this guy was in a privileged position...

somehow broke a stem. ugh...

5:44 PM

@Gary.Ray @jimirings Ok, I told SE "We Love Hats"

6:05 PM

@Batman how on earth did you manage that?

6:23 PM

I am guessing his stem is not rated for his Mac book pro. That sucks.

6:48 PM

Oh I'm at that annoying point in my email migration where the DNS changes have propagated to the new mail server, but not yet to my ISP's DNS server. So I can see email arriving on the server, but any mail client running locally is picking up the wrong IP address.

I quite like that video I posted, the people that posted it said it was captured with a GoPro Hero camera. Sod's law, that is the camera that I discounted because it doesn't have any ant+ capability.

The more I think about it, the more I rgink I need to wait another generation.

For implantable camera eyes? Cyborg video could be in 3D as well.

Unless you meant just another camera generation, which is also a fine idea.

@ChrisinAK actually both might be useful ;)

...and welcome to the velodrome. Not much happens here....

7:43 PM

@PeteH - my frame pump doesn't have a hose.

anyway, put a new tube in, and now im out of spare 26" tubes.

ill go buy some now

8:02 PM

Bloomin' heck @Batman you've been in the wars!

I must admit I don't need to buy 26" very often, but I buy my 700s in packs of 10. Removable cores are important there also - I was riding my deep rims once and the spare tube couldn't be extended. Oops.

That was just one of about 3 problems on that particular ride.....where I ended up walking a couple of miles to a lbs. Also trashed a CO2 pump.

Ditched CO2 after that, bought something that deals in "real" air

Thanks! doesn't go well with snow riding. lots of airing up and down with huge tires. I gave up on it years ago.

8:31 PM

@ChrisinAK You guys seem to get a lot of snow. I know @Batman is in the midwest and has been riding in quite cold temperatures recently. Here (in the UK) it is relatively warm and wet, and isn't really getting light at the moment. Pretty crappy, really :)

Not that I'm complaining, you understand!

its not bad today - about -2 C.

did you do anything special for thanksgiving? celebrate the heatwave?

thanksgiving is 2 days from now

cooking a turkey with some friends, making pie and stuff tomorrow

oh, I thought it was yesterday!

as for 26", its out of fashion, sure. but i already have a 26" bike for snow and stuff.

8:43 PM

When I was in the USA, I worked Thanksgiving. Cheap basterds that I worked for!

heh.

You never saw NYC so empty!

theres the parade in nyc

Aw, shit, not only was I working but I missed a parade????

Whereabouts? I worked down by Wall St and it was dead around there

the macys day parade?

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade presented by the U.S. chain store business Macy's. The tradition started in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States along with America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit, with both parades four years younger than the 6abc Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia. The three-hour Macy's event is held in New York City starting at 9:00 a.m. EST on Thanksgiving Day, and has been televised nationally on NBC since 1952. == History == In the 1920s, many of Macy's department store employees were first...

8:47 PM

wow, I never knew....

We actually get not a lot of snow here in the interior. We are technically a sub arctic desert. Nowhere, we do keep all the snow we get, because generally once October hits, it doesn't get above freezing until March.

where in alaska are you?

Fairbanks, interior.

Perfect for winter biking, cold hard trails.

=) have fun

its a nice and warm 27 F here.

never been to alaska. did you grow up there?

@ChrisinAK ah, I see you. I thinkm Google said it was a million miles from me!

@ChrisinAK It's amazing, you're probably as close to @Rilakkuma (in Tokyo) as you are to @Batman. In our tiny European countries we have no sense of the scale of the US

8:56 PM

no kidding. on top gear they're like "oh we're going to drive 800 miles"

and they're half way across europe

and i have to drive longer to reach my parents house

which isn't even half way across the country.

I have an auntie who used to live in Alberta, apparently she had to drive a day to get to the nearest....well, city, I guess. She sent us photos of grizzlys in her "garden"

Or that could have been an exaggeration she told be because I was a kid. I pulled out the name of where she lived, and it is "only" 6 hours from Edmonton, according to Google.

The bears were real, though. I think...

I've been here for all of my adult life. Which is about half now total.

that wouldn't surprise me. pretty much anywhere you live near a forest will have some bears (typically black bears - grizzly's are a north west thing)

There was a q on here once about what to do when yuou find a bear in your path. I'm, like, "Holy Crap!", but as you say apparently not all that uncommon.

I can't remember the best answer

The worst we'll get are ponies

Fairbanks is surprisingly bear free. A lot of folks living on the out skirts of town. They tend to shoot them once they get to close to "civilization" as we have it here.

9:08 PM

How big is Fairbanks? number of people

60k maybe?

is that the city proper or does that include the uni and stuff?

ok, I can relate to that.

That's probably everything including north pole and the base. We just don't have much around us. Drive 45 minutes in any direction and you are in the middle of nowhere

Its smaller than a lot of the places near to me. How do you find things like shopping? or do you rely on mail order? or have modest tastes ;)

9:15 PM

Some internet ordering, but Fairbanks had gotten a lot of box stores lately.

box store?

Also, do you have kids? What do they think? I only ask as I am in a small village (5k people), 8 miles from a city. My 15yo hates it here.

Lowe's, Barnes and noble, pet stuff, Wal-Mart.....the stores that look like someone dropped a giant box on a patch of land and started selling stuff

got you

They are 2 and 1 so they seem to like it fine.

@PeteH - i suspect its not because you're in a village, but because your 15 year old is well, a 15 year old.

9:19 PM

So update, Wikipedia says 30k in town proper, and 100k for the borough, which is another small town and two military bases

Yes and No. The problem here is that there's no public transport to speak of. So for anything you need to travel/drive.

I grew up in a city (Liverpool) where the bus service allowed quite a lot. But not so here.

But she'll be gone soon!

She can do her own thing then!

We're not there yet. My wife breaks down crying just thinking about kindergarten.

I just want then to learn to pedal so I can stop dragging a chariot.

@ChrisinAK I have a friend who's wife was maybe a bit like that. She wanted to spend every possible minute with their kid, to forge as close a bond as possible. Trouble is, we found it only lasts so long before they demand their independence. I know he went through a tough time

Rig something up, they can pull you around!

Yeah, I've done the bikejoring thing with my dogs. You get cold too easy because you are not doing much. Closer to mushing than riding bike.

9:34 PM

@PeteH I don't really get that, I had a 3 speed bike from age 8 or so and that was the end of it. 2-3km to visit friends, or ride "all the way" to town for the library and Scouts etc. I can imagine that for some girls riding would be out of the question, but I never hung round with ones like that (obviously, when you think about it).

@Mσᶎ man, I know. In fact one of my cycling buddies lives in this city (Salisbury) so I know that ride well. But we're cyclists. She isn't. I wish.......

@ChrisinAK my local circle of parents have decided that those trailer suck. a lot. Coincidentally we have an influx of euro-style cargo bikes available and they're all riding those. Depending on budget the electric-assist Gazelle Cabby or one of the cheap non-powered Lohn John style bikes. Or, for the truly eccentric, an 8-freight or something.

My car was in dock for 3 weeks once, I survived on pedal power, cycling to the station every day to head into work.

I suspect in snow you might want more wheels, but recumbent trikes are easy enough to get and most manufacturers will do a load carrying version if you ask.

Yeah there is a trade off of weight

Vs flotation. I think a fat bike towing a chariot on skis works pretty well.

9:40 PM

@ChrisinAK I normally see it as space, or money - if you can't store a trike/quad that you only use for carrying stuff, a trailer is the least awful compromise.

I have a mechanic working on a set of fat wheels for a chariot soonish, then I can get rid of the skis

@ChrisinAK that would be entertaining to watch. I suspect I'd get bored quickly.

@ChrisinAK I have some wheels with 4" tyres for my quad, they work great in sand.

The trailer works as a stroller and jogger too, so it's versatile.

Although the steering end is not so great, they tend to float in whatever direction they want to go. I ended up with ~60mm tyres on standard rims instead, that was a better balance between floating and digging in. But on the back, fatties all the way.

I think the quads we looked at here were too wide for single track.

But the double chariot is stupid wide as well....who is the manufacturer?

9:43 PM

@ChrisinAK the local parents-with-bikes seem to just use the "bin on wheels" as their base and have a lightweight stroller if they have one at all. But I haven't really dug into it too much, I don't have infants so it's all a bit arms-length.

@ChrisinAK mine is ~800mm wide, 900mm with fat tyres on. It has done some single track but I have had to use a battery powered grinder a couple of times to edit infrastructure so it's usable.

I think I've heard of those, but basically that's a new bike. The chariot let's me just stiff a hitch on my race bike and go.

@ChrisinAK there are worse things. Someone makes a stroller that you can bolt half a bike to the back of and it becomes a giant unwieldy trike, and that things is well over 900mm wide.

@ChrisinAK well, yes, if that's the compromise you want. If you ride everywhere the trailer stops being fun after a few minutes - would you ride that thing 10km each way to and from work every day, dropping the kids at daycare along the way? Admittedly here it gets down to 10°C on winter mornings, we're more concerned with 45°C in the summer afternoons

Most of the people I know have a bike, a spare bike, their beater bike, and a lot have a load bike or trailer, and a recreational racer or MTB as well. And their partner has the same. So adding a proper load bike for carrying kids is just one more into the pile

I have been yes. But I can also take them on trail rides with the skis, on simply unhook the trailer when I don't have kids duty that day. It's probably not the best, but maybe the most flexible?

yes, flexible. If you only have the one thing, that's the thing to have.

I don't have much time either, so one less bike to maintain is a desirable thing.

9:51 PM

I'm sure that people who only have one bicycle exist, I just don't really hang out with them. Actually, I know some people like that, friends of the girly that we helped set up with their first bikes a while ago. I know more people who are like "I wonder if I could make a bike do X" so they build a bike to do X.

@ChrisinAK I have a proper Park bike work stand and just do a morning of bike maintenance every now and then. I can plough through 4-5 bikes in 4 hours doing all the basic maintenance on each. Girly claims to maintain her bikes but I often find she's switched to only using her rear brake because the front one has no pads left...

Yeah, I make pancakes and pack lunches in the morning. My Park goes unused a lot.

I suspect she has a staged approach: good bike, good bike with only rear brake, beater bike, beater bike with only rear brake, whine to me, then, and only then, think about doing some work on her bike.

@ChrisinAK so does mine, this is a every month or two thing. Coz i also switch bikes when one needs maintenance. Albeit I feel nervous with only one working commuter bike so I normally fix any problemsthe first weekend after they happen.

That sounds familiar. My wife hasn't ridden for like two years though, so I haven't had to do much maintenance there. She's just starting back up. I am sure it will be horrible soon enough.

Nothing worse than having to ride my touring bike to work (how uncouth!)

I only have two winterized bikes, so I kind of don't have other options.

9:59 PM

I think I have sorted Mrs PeteH's christmas present today, btw. Our local coffee shop is running a Barista course. She says she'd love it.

Hmmmm......coffee.....time to go brew

send your wife on a course, she can do it ;)

Oh yes, just pinged my mail server and the dns finally resolved to the correct ip address. Gonna go sort Outlook out. Might be back later....

Oh well, that was easy. My "new" mail server allowed me to copy all the old accounts, so that bit was easy. But the new mail server decided that the passwords on the accounts weren't strong enough, and forced me to change them. So I had to wait until the ip change went through, then change the passwords in my email clients. Which reminds me, I now need to sort my phone out

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Nov '1425

The Velodrome

General discussion for bicycles.stackexchange.com

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