The Velodrome

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7:25 AM

lol, SRAM writes 140mm² and 140mm³ in their disc brake manual … the ² and ³ are not a unit of area or volume, it’s footnotes

2 hours later…

Michael

9:48 AM

what’s the difference between a category/condition 1 bike and a cat 6 bike? focus-bikes.com/at_en/bike-classification

Criggie

10:08 AM

at first I thought you meant racing categories, which are bands of rider's ability

But that table looks completely made up by the manufacturer and means nothing outside their catalogue

"condition 1" would be a commuter-centric bike, so a rigid with flat handlebars.
"condition 6" is a drop-bar road bike.

Michael

I think it’s part of the EN17406 standard for testing frames and components, but unfortunately it’s behind a paywall

afaik EN17406 is even required by road laws. There has been a recent EU ruling that standards used in laws have to be freely accessible. Hopefully this gets implemented soon.

Criggie

plausibly, but weird IMO. There's three different groupings for mountain bikes but none for folders? No recumbent category. No timetrial category.... etc

And aside, the word "condition" seems like a strange choice here too, unless its deliberately describing the conditions in which the bike is used..

Michael

IIRC there have been some complaints about that recently, especially when it comes to cargo bike (Babboe had a big recall of cargo bike frames which pass EN17406 tests for normal bikes but can break if you put 100kg of cargo on them)

@Criggie Focus is a German company and translated it strangely. Or maybe they wanted to distinguish from racing cats

Criggie

oh good point. Cargo isn't popular here - more likely to see an extended ebike with rear-plank-seating for a kid but even they're uncommon.

HAHAHA the road bike Con6 says
> Recommended riding skills This requires technical skills and practice

But a Con1 "city and urban bike" says
> No specific riding skills required

Michael

I don’t know what skill has to do with forces your frame can withstand o.O

Criggie

10:15 AM

Perhaps trying to lower the barrier to entry for "starter" riders ?

Maybe its about warranty exclusion - you buy a Con1 bike and go off a 16 cm drop and it breaks therefore warranty is void ?

Michael

@Criggie yes, that’s the idea

Criggie

I wish warranties weren't needed, and stuff would just last for a reasonable amount of time.

Michael

to quote the Rose manual “The bikes must only be used in accordance with their intended purpose/use. Otherwise, the user
takes responsibility”

“The XLITE frame is approved for use in category 6!”

“Category 6
Includes all bikes and e-bikes that can be used in conditions described under category 1 and that are
also used for high speeds of more than 50 km/h, such as for downhill and sprints.
Average speed 30 to 55 km/h
Height of drops: <15 cm
Recommended rider skills: technical skills and practice required”

@Criggie IMHO it makes sense to not overengineer a road bike to downhill MTB levels

Criggie

yes - that's an extreme. I just like having stuff that works without failing.

that said my last road bike was 12 KG and I still broke it

so overbuilding isn't necessarily a solution either,.

Michael

on the other end you have people like my sister who weighs 52kg or so. All the components are completely overengineered for her

btw: the UCI rule for 6.8kg minimum bike weight should be relative to the rider weight. Make it 10% of rider weight and it would be much fairer.

Criggie

10:23 AM

mmmm true.

Michael

I’m 66kg, I like that components are not completely overengineered for me but I still have some safety margin, even with luggage

Criggie

impressive !

I'm 99, so I suck at climbing.

Rule of thumb, if I get up a climb in less-than-double the time of the strava KOM I'm doing okay.

And there's many where that's not the case :-\

4 hours later…

Michael

2:36 PM

just had to point an ambulance in the right direction because some old eBike cyclist crashed

broken rib or collar bone or something

I didn’t figure out if a third party was involved, lots of chaos on the cyclepath today :D

2 hours later…

gschenk

4:28 PM

Just fixed my single speed that been out of service for a year or so. My, what a lovely ride that thing is.

It's an Al Merckx CX frame, just from the days when cantilever brakes became obsolete.

gschenk

5:02 PM

@Michael I've seen indirect evidence for the drop theory. A stem had the warning text "cat 2, drops of less than x cm" while another had "cat 3 drops up to y cm" where x < y .

4 hours later…

Criggie

9:31 PM

@Michael Good work - yeah the elderly seem overrepresented in "events" with ebikes.

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