Disk Brakes Again

On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:08:51 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

You don’t have to be a pro to be competitive. That argument is not only
specious but insulting.

I said "What doesn't make sense is very ordinary riders mimicking every choice
the pro racers make."

That seems insulting to you?

Why?

- Frank Krygowski

On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 11:21:06 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:08:51 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

You don’t have to be a pro to be competitive. That argument is not only
specious but insulting.

I said "What doesn't make sense is very ordinary riders mimicking every choice
the pro racers make."

That seems insulting to you?

Why?

- Frank Krygowski

Some of us are trying to be competitive in our own league and buying the best bike for that. Bike aren't so expensive that if somebody is really dedicated and prepared to save up can't buy the same bike as pro riders ride. So you are talking to us and in a very narrow minded way. All my bikes together cost far less than my colleague's 'environmental correct, CO2 emission free' 35000 euro electric bull**** car.

Lou

On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 2:21:06 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:08:51 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

You don’t have to be a pro to be competitive. That argument is not only
specious but insulting.

I said "What doesn't make sense is very ordinary riders mimicking every choice
the pro racers make."

That seems insulting to you?

Why?

Because you belittle people for buying light equipment and supposedly "mimicking" pro racers. That is an unmistakable put down. How could that not be insulting? What is an acceptable Frank bike? A Flying Pigeon?

I get curmudgeonly when some dope who knows nothing about bikes walks into a shop and buys an F10 because it is the "best." I do not feel the same way about someone who loves bikes, gets big-eyes and buys something he or she loves. That was me 43 years ago when I bought my first custom steel frame with all Campy NR -- just like the pros! I was racing, but certainly not at a high level. I just loved riding bikes, and I loved my bike(s).

Lou has a Canyon aero bike, IIRC, which is a spectacular bang for the buck bike. Look at his pictures. Look at garage shop qua surgical suite, the parts he designed and machined, the shoes, the wheels. He rides a lot and obviously loves his bikes. He can ride whatever the f*** he wants! Now, if he had a F10 and couldn't name all the parts on it and didn't know the difference between a bottom bracket and a shopping basket, then I'd line up behind you to make fun of him -- but that's not him.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 5/25/2019 7:02 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 2:21:06 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:08:51 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

You don’t have to be a pro to be competitive. That argument is not only
specious but insulting.

I said "What doesn't make sense is very ordinary riders mimicking every choice
the pro racers make."

That seems insulting to you?

Why?

Because you belittle people for buying light equipment and supposedly "mimicking" pro racers. That is an unmistakable put down. How could that not be insulting?
What is an acceptable Frank bike? A Flying Pigeon?

Well, what I actually said was "mimicking every choice the pro racers
make." That was much more than just buying light equipment.

And of course, I'm not trying to forbid anything. I'm trying to discuss.

I have many riding friends. I've watched them buy custom steel bikes,
super-light aluminum ones, carbon fiber ones, aero ones, recumbents and
more. I've watched them follow every shifter upgrade from 5 cog friction
through 11 cog electronic. (Well, no Rohloffs yet in my crowd.) I've
seen guys go though great lengths to lighten their existing bikes. A few
now have switched to disc brakes. A couple are experimenting with wider
tires - 32 to 35 mm or so.

I'm sorry, but I just haven't see all that make a difference. The guys
who were faster than me (almost always the ones who put serious time,
effort and pain into training) stayed faster than me. The ones who were
slower stayed slower.

I know there are guys who enjoy hard riding with buddies and sprinting
to the next telephone pole. I've done plenty of that. And if one guy
like that drops a couple thousand bucks on new aero carbon wheels, he'll
win a few more telephone pole trophies. If, that is, there actually were
telephone pole trophies. But should he really feel proud for outspending
his friend? And if the friend retaliates with even pricier equipment,
what's the point?

I can understand the appeal of fine equipment, up to a point. One of my
earliest bicycling buddies said "I can't afford the world's best stereo
system or the world's best car. But I can afford the world's best bike."
I could understand his pride even though I don't have whatever gene
makes people covet "the best in the world."

But OTOH, he was talking about an early 1970s Raleigh Professional.
Adjusted for inflation, that would cost less than $2000 today - less
than some sets of aero wheels.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sat, 25 May 2019 07:17:23 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/24/2019 10:07 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Discs do give better braking with CF rims, they don't heat rim glue, so you don't get sew-ups squirming around on the rims. If I were doing a long descent with lots of braking on sew-ups, I might prefer a disc. Otherwise, on a rapid descent on a racing bike with clinchers on aluminum rims on dry pavement, there is no a whole lot of difference between the two, assuming both are properly adjusted and the pistons lubricated. I own both and don't find much difference, except in ways that are equally bad, e.g. rim brakes grabbing at seams or with contaminants on the rim and discs shuddering or grabbing or screaming.

If disc brakes are juiced up to the point where light braking locks up the wheel, then that's a problem. If one is used to the requisite heavy hand to get good rear braking with a cable caliper brake, then that can be a problem with discs. I had to adjust after a couple of fish-tailing experiences.

Discs are the clear winner in wet-weather riding, but on dry pavement, it's just a matter of feel and personal preference. In professional racing, there are other considerations.

Anyone still using rim brakes is standing in the way of human progress.

You are right! Nearly all the bikes I see at Tesco have disc brakes .
It must be the wave of the future.

(for Tesco, USians read Walmart)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 10:08:24 PM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 25 May 2019 07:17:23 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/24/2019 10:07 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Discs do give better braking with CF rims, they don't heat rim glue, so you don't get sew-ups squirming around on the rims. If I were doing a long descent with lots of braking on sew-ups, I might prefer a disc. Otherwise, on a rapid descent on a racing bike with clinchers on aluminum rims on dry pavement, there is no a whole lot of difference between the two, assuming both are properly adjusted and the pistons lubricated. I own both and don't find much difference, except in ways that are equally bad, e.g. rim brakes grabbing at seams or with contaminants on the rim and discs shuddering or grabbing or screaming.

If disc brakes are juiced up to the point where light braking locks up the wheel, then that's a problem. If one is used to the requisite heavy hand to get good rear braking with a cable caliper brake, then that can be a problem with discs. I had to adjust after a couple of fish-tailing experiences.

Discs are the clear winner in wet-weather riding, but on dry pavement, it's just a matter of feel and personal preference. In professional racing, there are other considerations.

Anyone still using rim brakes is standing in the way of human progress.

You are right! Nearly all the bikes I see at Tesco have disc brakes .
It must be the wave of the future.

(for Tesco, USians read Walmart)
--
cheers,

John B.

Given how poorly many bicycles in department stores are set up, I wonder just how effective a department store disc brake actually is?

On the trails around here I often see people riding V-brake equipped bicycles. A surprising number of those people have one pair of their V-brakes disconnected because a pad was rubbing on the rim.

Scary to think that a department store disc brake is most likely made of inferior parts compared to a bicycle meant to be sold at a bicycle shop. How long do those cheap department store disc brake pads last? Is there any warning that an unskilled rider would have of impending pad failure/rapid wear? How bout the rotors themselves, are they also made from relatively cheap material?

It'd be interesting to know how many lone bicyclist crashes were caused by an improperly set up department store bicycle or failure of a cheap department store bicycle component.

I've seen many department store bicycles set up with the front quick release so loose that the wheel would wobble or come out of the fork end if it hit a hard bump such as the edge of a pothole. I guess that's partly why "Lawyer Lips" were created.

So many things on many department store bicycles are just cheap imitations of quality parts/components on quality bicycles - think front shocks etcetera.

Cheers

On Sat, 25 May 2019 20:34:08 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 10:08:24 PM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 25 May 2019 07:17:23 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/24/2019 10:07 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Discs do give better braking with CF rims, they don't heat rim glue, so you don't get sew-ups squirming around on the rims. If I were doing a long descent with lots of braking on sew-ups, I might prefer a disc. Otherwise, on a rapid descent on a racing bike with clinchers on aluminum rims on dry pavement, there is no a whole lot of difference between the two, assuming both are properly adjusted and the pistons lubricated. I own both and don't find much difference, except in ways that are equally bad, e.g. rim brakes grabbing at seams or with contaminants on the rim and discs shuddering or grabbing or screaming.


If disc brakes are juiced up to the point where light braking locks up the wheel, then that's a problem. If one is used to the requisite heavy hand to get good rear braking with a cable caliper brake, then that can be a problem with discs. I had to adjust after a couple of fish-tailing experiences.

Discs are the clear winner in wet-weather riding, but on dry pavement, it's just a matter of feel and personal preference. In professional racing, there are other considerations.

Anyone still using rim brakes is standing in the way of human progress.

You are right! Nearly all the bikes I see at Tesco have disc brakes .
It must be the wave of the future.

(for Tesco, USians read Walmart)
--
cheers,

John B.

Given how poorly many bicycles in department stores are set up, I wonder just how effective a department store disc brake actually is?

When we spent a lot of time in Phuket I was sort of the neighborhood
bicycle man and used to fix the local kid's bikes. A kid would bring
in his bike and complain that the brakes didn't work. I'd have a look
at it and adjust the brakes and it would work again. I developed quite
a reputation but it was really the guys who assembled the bikes at the
department store that were making me look good.

On the trails around here I often see people riding V-brake equipped bicycles. A surprising number of those people have one pair of their V-brakes disconnected because a pad was rubbing on the rim.

Ah but it is a complex subject. all them wires and levers and things.
Hard to fix.

But never mind the brakes. A youngish school girl was complaining to
my wife about how difficult it was to get up the hill on her new bike
- of course what she was doing was talking to my wife, who she knew
would talk to me who would fix her bike :-)

Anyway, I looked at her bike and it had a 7 speed cassette and was in
the highest gear so I asked the girl why she didn't just shift to a
lower gear? She had no idea that the bike had gears or how to shift
them.

I showed her how to shift gears and in a few days she acquired quite a
reputation - she could ride her bike up the hill that the boys
couldn't :-)


Scary to think that a department store disc brake is most likely made of inferior parts compared to a bicycle meant to be sold at a bicycle shop. How long do those cheap department store disc brake pads last? Is there any warning that an unskilled rider would have of impending pad failure/rapid wear? How bout the rotors themselves, are they also made from relatively cheap material?

It'd be interesting to know how many lone bicyclist crashes were caused by an improperly set up department store bicycle or failure of a cheap department store bicycle component.

I've seen many department store bicycles set up with the front quick release so loose that the wheel would wobble or come out of the fork end if it hit a hard bump such as the edge of a pothole. I guess that's partly why "Lawyer Lips" were created.

So many things on many department store bicycles are just cheap imitations of quality parts/components on quality bicycles - think front shocks etcetera.

Cheers

On the other hand if you want to buy a bicycle you can get a real
spiffy looking one down at the department store. Got shock absorbers
and everything. Cheap too.
--
cheers,

John B.

On 5/25/2019 11:34 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 10:08:24 PM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 25 May 2019 07:17:23 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 5/24/2019 10:07 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Discs do give better braking with CF rims, they don't heat rim glue, so you don't get sew-ups squirming around on the rims. If I were doing a long descent with lots of braking on sew-ups, I might prefer a disc. Otherwise, on a rapid descent on a racing bike with clinchers on aluminum rims on dry pavement, there is no a whole lot of difference between the two, assuming both are properly adjusted and the pistons lubricated. I own both and don't find much difference, except in ways that are equally bad, e.g. rim brakes grabbing at seams or with contaminants on the rim and discs shuddering or grabbing or screaming.

If disc brakes are juiced up to the point where light braking locks up the wheel, then that's a problem. If one is used to the requisite heavy hand to get good rear braking with a cable caliper brake, then that can be a problem with discs. I had to adjust after a couple of fish-tailing experiences.

Discs are the clear winner in wet-weather riding, but on dry pavement, it's just a matter of feel and personal preference. In professional racing, there are other considerations.

Anyone still using rim brakes is standing in the way of human progress.

You are right! Nearly all the bikes I see at Tesco have disc brakes .
It must be the wave of the future.

(for Tesco, USians read Walmart)
--
cheers,

John B.

Given how poorly many bicycles in department stores are set up, I wonder just how effective a department store disc brake actually is?

On the trails around here I often see people riding V-brake equipped bicycles. A surprising number of those people have one pair of their V-brakes disconnected because a pad was rubbing on the rim...

I've seen many department store bicycles set up with the front quick release so loose that the wheel would wobble or come out of the fork end if it hit a hard bump such as the edge of a pothole. I guess that's partly why "Lawyer Lips" were created.

So many things on many department store bicycles are just cheap imitations of quality parts/components on quality bicycles - think front shocks etcetera.

And all of those riders on defective bikes are included in the national
data on bike crashes.

Those of us who use brakes that actually work - really, _any_ brakes
that actually work - are almost certainly much safer than "average."


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:28:47 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/25/2019 7:02 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 2:21:06 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 5:08:51 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

You don’t have to be a pro to be competitive. That argument is not only
specious but insulting.

I said "What doesn't make sense is very ordinary riders mimicking every choice
the pro racers make."

That seems insulting to you?

Why?

Because you belittle people for buying light equipment and supposedly "mimicking" pro racers. That is an unmistakable put down. How could that not be insulting?
What is an acceptable Frank bike? A Flying Pigeon?

Well, what I actually said was "mimicking every choice the pro racers
make." That was much more than just buying light equipment.

And of course, I'm not trying to forbid anything. I'm trying to discuss.

I have many riding friends. I've watched them buy custom steel bikes,
super-light aluminum ones, carbon fiber ones, aero ones, recumbents and
more. I've watched them follow every shifter upgrade from 5 cog friction
through 11 cog electronic. (Well, no Rohloffs yet in my crowd.) I've
seen guys go though great lengths to lighten their existing bikes. A few
now have switched to disc brakes. A couple are experimenting with wider
tires - 32 to 35 mm or so.

I'm sorry, but I just haven't see all that make a difference. The guys
who were faster than me (almost always the ones who put serious time,
effort and pain into training) stayed faster than me. The ones who were
slower stayed slower.

I know there are guys who enjoy hard riding with buddies and sprinting
to the next telephone pole. I've done plenty of that. And if one guy
like that drops a couple thousand bucks on new aero carbon wheels, he'll
win a few more telephone pole trophies. If, that is, there actually were
telephone pole trophies. But should he really feel proud for outspending
his friend? And if the friend retaliates with even pricier equipment,
what's the point?

Nobody I know is retaliating against anyone by buying "pricier" equipment.

I'm not giving anyone a free pass here. There are stupid purchases -- cutting edge junk that falls apart or doesn't work well, things that are too light and break, bizarre designs good for one thing like some of the newer gravel bike designs that really shine in specific conditions and pretty much suck everywhere else. I don't support buying a bike as a display of wealth. Lou's Canyon doesn't fall into any of those categories.

I can understand the appeal of fine equipment, up to a point. One of my
earliest bicycling buddies said "I can't afford the world's best stereo
system or the world's best car. But I can afford the world's best bike."
I could understand his pride even though I don't have whatever gene
makes people covet "the best in the world."

But OTOH, he was talking about an early 1970s Raleigh Professional.
Adjusted for inflation, that would cost less than $2000 today - less
than some sets of aero wheels.

A Raleigh Pro was never the best in the world. BTW, a 1976 Raleigh Pro was $650. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/retrora...76-prices.html Inflation adjusted, that is $2,919.27.

For that money today, you can get this: https://www.canyon.com/en-us/road/ae...road-cf-sl-7-0 Well, O.K., its $2,999. Even Canyon's super-bikes are a great bank for the buck.

BTW, in 1976 I spent close to $1,000 on a custom steel sport touring bike with Phil hubs and BB and some other exotic components like ER Ti spindle pedals (that broke), but not Campy except for some cable clips. It was mostly Dura Ace. My next bike was an all Campy and Phil racing bike. It was gorgeous. I bought it to retaliate against my meager savings account. I spent a huge amount of my college earnings on bike stuff. I bought a used '69 PX10 while in high school. Had I only invested in IBM stock!

-- Jay Beattie.

On Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:28:47 AM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
But should he really feel proud for outspending
his friend? And if the friend retaliates with even pricier equipment,
what's the point?

Huh? Outspending? Retaliates? What are you talking about? Boy, you have a weird narrow minded prejudiced view and what is even worse you don't even notice it. Nobody I know is proud for outspending his friend, nobody. We are happy with everyone that show up with new equipment regardless the cost. Maybe it is a USA thing but we don't discuss costs. If he is happy with his purchase, we are. FWIW most of the times I show up on group rides with my modest aluminum bike equipped with Campy Chorus. I enjoy my feel good and go fast bike alone and in great humbleness. realizing I'm blessed to be able riding such a nice bike.


Lou