Tom Kunich writes:

On Monday, July 8, 2019 at 7:39:44 AM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
Tom Kunich writes:

On Sunday, July 7, 2019 at 11:13:31 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 7 Jul 2019 18:17:44 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Sunday, July 7, 2019 at 3:42:06 PM UTC-4, Ralph Barone wrote:
Chalo wrote:
What good is riding the tire without getting flats, if you
have to spend
more time fooling around with it than if you were getting
lots of flats
in a conventional system? You're trading the chance of a small
inconvenience for the certainty of a larger one.

If your riding time is scarce and precious, but basement
lurking time is
plentiful, I guess I can see the appeal. You probably won't
have to mess
with it while you're on the trail. But you will have to mess with it,
both when installing the stuff and again every so often when
you take out
the curds and whey-- and that's true even if you didn't get any
punctures at all.


Some people like to fiddle with the hardware, and some like to
just use it
and not think about it. With guitars, I’m a hardware fiddler,
so I ditched
music and went into engineering. A friend of mine posted a picture of
himself adjusting the valve lash on his BMW motorcycle and I
had to think
back to the last time I ever had to do that (1988?). I also
think we all
have different levels of how much we are willing to pay for an
incremental
performance improvement.

... Or for an irrelevant or negligible performance improvement. And
we definitely
have different judgments on the benefits vs. detriments of performance
improvements.

Why would I go to tubeless tires? I'd have to invest a bundle
and learn a new
maintenance drill, but for what? To reduce my few flats per year to
"few minus
one"? To reduce my rolling resistance, when I'm usually the
first or second
rider to finish a ride? (Tip: Ride with old folks! It's easier!)
Why would I
switch to a much lighter bike? I'm usually first or second to the
top of a hill,
even on the tandem. (See the tip above.) Why would I switch to disc
brakes? I
don't do that much riding in the rain, and anyway I've never
once gotten in
trouble by my rim brakes being inadequate.

I understand that there are people who want whatever the advertisers are
promoting most this year. Some do it because of the "art" value of the
(supposedly) top technology. ("I've got the finest bike!!!"). Some
may do it to
beat their buddies to the next telephone pole. Have at it, if
you like. But
that's not what most of my riding is about.

What I don't understand is people who don't understand that some
of us don't
give a damn about three fewer pounds, or one thousandth less
rolling resistance,
or magical handling that only cognoscenti can detect.

Why not just ride the bike?

- Frank Krygowski

But what do you know? After all you don't have a $4,000 bike like The
Expert does so obviously you don't know nothing :-(
--
cheers,

John B.

And you don't have anything so why are you on this group?

He's got a computer and at least one opinion. What more does one need?

Radey - if you have an opinion and nothing more there is the .soc
group. Here you are expected to actually have some technical
knowledge. The major problem with the Internet these days is that
people mistake opinions for knowledge. Even the media now has eschewed
knowledge for opinion.

It's Usenet -- no one vets your palmares, no one vouches for your bona
fides. But every reader can decide for him- or herself whether a post
is sufficiently useful/interesting/entertaining to read. Hostility can
be both unrelenting *and* entertaining, but it's tough to keep that up
for 20 or 30 posts a day. Look at Andre, a man hardened by years of
payment by the word, see how he paces himself.

I'm not all sure that years of reading Usenet have been time well spent,
but I have learned a thing or two. One is that, although I devoutly hope
one day to retire while still able to ride a bike, a person *can* have
too much free time. The other is that if doing or reading something
makes me crazy, it's better to give it a rest.

--