Groupsets

On 6/4/2020 2:57 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 8:17:24 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/4/2020 12:52 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 6:34:48 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/4/2020 10:31 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 12:30:27 AM UTC-7, Dennis Davis wrote:


Perhaps (6) is better replaced by:

(6) Requires levels of skill not present in modern cyclists.

Really? So one should buy DT shifters to develop a useless skill? At least that should translate into some performance advantage, which it doesn't.

Perhaps the "useless skill" is the ability to ride with (gasp!) only one
hand on the bars?


No you stubborn dinosaur. There are situations (traffic, road conditions or riding in a pack) even you don't want to take one hand of the handlebar and in that case you can't shift with down tube shifters period. That is the deal.

Whoa! Traffic and road conditions? Is that why I had so many crashes in
my ~33 years of bike commuting? And pack riding - like my 30 years of
club riding?

No, wait - I didn't crash. Heck, I even rode some in the Netherlands
with one or two hands off the bars. So what's the source of this fear
mongering?

That is not I said. You just choose when to ride one hand or no hands. That is not the same.


I remember someone here once saying pedals older than some certain age
were a safety hazard. You're beginning to sound like him, Lou. It's not
that scary out there.


If you are comfortable to ride no hands or with one hand cornering at speed on coblestones Paris Roubaix style than hat off.

So in other words: Make your choice based on your riding situation?
Consider advantages and disadvantages? "Horses for courses?"

It sounds like we may be dangerously close to agreeing!

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 6/4/2020 3:02 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/4/2020 11:43 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/4/2020 10:48 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 7:12:54 PM UTC-7, Frank
Krygowski wrote:

Adjusting pads is sort of a side issue, since I was
talking only about
force on the controls. Although to me, not needing to
adjust hydraulic
disc pads is kind of balanced by needing to prissily
clean things with
cotton swabs when replacing pads.

I don't clean my disc calipers with cotton swabs.Â* I just
drop in a set of pads.

Admittedly, I haven't done it because I don't use those
brakes. But these guys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQXFFgRButoÂ* seem to say
it's important to get the Q-tips out. See about 2:20 and
about 3:20 onward.

Is that only for super grungy brakes?


No Q-tips on shop time. We use auto disc brake cleaner (which is dirt
cheap) in refillable sprayers with a clean wiper, compressed air to finish.

That makes more sense to me. And really, a home mechanic wouldn't need
the compressed air; just wait for the stuff to evaporate.

I wonder why the Park Took guys took the Q-tip route?


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 6/4/2020 12:57 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 6:43:57 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/4/2020 10:48 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 7:12:54 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Adjusting pads is sort of a side issue, since I was talking only about
force on the controls. Although to me, not needing to adjust hydraulic
disc pads is kind of balanced by needing to prissily clean things with
cotton swabs when replacing pads.

I don't clean my disc calipers with cotton swabs. I just drop in a set of pads.

Admittedly, I haven't done it because I don't use those brakes. But
these guys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQXFFgRButo seem to say it's
important to get the Q-tips out. See about 2:20 and about 3:20 onward.

Is that only for super grungy brakes?

--
- Frank Krygowski

You never pry the metal parts out of the brake pads because they are grinding away the rims? That is more time consuming than running a swap along the pistons when changing the brake pads, which is also quicker than changing the brake pads of rim brakes.

I've done that picking exercise on rim brake shoes, but not very often,
and not for years now. As I recall, it was necessary only rarely, and
after a rain ride. These days I can usually avoid riding in the rain. In
any case, it never took more than a minute or so.

I don't doubt that changing disc pads is faster than changing caliper
brake shoes. OTOH, from what I hear, disc pads need changed more
frequently. I'd bet the overall time difference (i.e. total time spent
per year) is minimal.

I'll repeat what I was told by one bicycle tourist that we hosted: Never
do a really long ride without packing a spare set of pads. His pads wore
to nothing and he found himself effectively without brakes until he
could locate a bike shop in hilly, remote northern Pennsylvania.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 11:32:29 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/4/2020 1:48 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 9:34:48 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/4/2020 10:31 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 12:30:27 AM UTC-7, Dennis Davis wrote:


Perhaps (6) is better replaced by:

(6) Requires levels of skill not present in modern cyclists.

Really? So one should buy DT shifters to develop a useless skill? At least that should translate into some performance advantage, which it doesn't.

Perhaps the "useless skill" is the ability to ride with (gasp!) only one
hand on the bars?

I do know several cyclists who hate taking a hand off the bars. They
stop every time they want to swig from a water bottle.

My son has never touched DT shifters, and he was going 40mph down Mirror Lake Highway no-hands, waiving his arms like a bird. Freaked me out. Sagan has probably never touched DT shifters and he wheelies up hill, waiving an arm ala rodeo cowboy. Are you saying DT shifts are necessary for learning other skills -- like typing is necessary to learn piano? BTW, great ride: https://bbrelje.wordpress.com/2013/0...ghway-cycling/


I ride with many younger, skilled riders who have never been in the same room as a DT shifter. They can ride one-hand, no hands, bunny hop, wheelie and do single track on a road bike at incredible speeds. All race CX and would laugh at DT shifting. I doubt anyone in the pro peleton has used DT shifters.

Dopes who can't handle a water bottle won't be saved by DT shifters. They just won't shift.

Right, but that's not the point. A certain percentage of STI fans tout
the safety advantage of always having both hands on the handlebars. They
must be terrified about signaling a turn, let alone scratching their nose..

There have always been people who felt less safe reaching down between their legs to shift gears. That's why we had stem shifters, thumb shifters and bar-ends. Now that DT shifting has been abandoned, I don't think anyone chooses brifters for safety reasons. It's not even an issue.

And DT shifting could be unsafe in some racing situations and it did lead to some crashes back in the day, generally when some racer was entering/exiting a corner and tried to turn, shift and either sprint or climb all at the same time. Most riders, however, timed shifts and either over-spun or under-spun for some period to avoid having to shift in close quarters sprinting or climbing out of the saddle. Cats Hill was a shifting nightmare with DT shifters. Now look at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrG12-aG_Xc&t=109s At 1:22 the whole pack would be wobbling setting up for the turn up Nicholson, over-spinning to avoid shifting on the hill, etc., etc. Now these guys hit the turn full speed, shift out of the saddle going up the hill, shift over the top without sitting down and just keep going. It's a different race than in the '70s.

And I recall the article linked here a few years ago, where several
young racers did a comparison test, riding a long climb on current bikes
vs. vintage (1980s?) racing bikes. At least one complained about feeling
insecure having to move a hand to shift - poor baby!

Well he could certain drink from a bottle and climb, so that's either misremembered or perhaps more nuanced.

I don't remember the water bottle remark in that article; and I'm afraid
it might take a ton of digging to find it again.

The testers were racers and capable of riding no hands up hill at speeds we could not attain.

No doubt they were faster than me. But that wasn't the point. At least
one of them was insecure about taking his hands off the bars to shift.
That amazed me. I always sought to be competent on the bike.

And again, we don't know what he said. I think it is fairly certain that his bike handling skills are better than yours since, IIRC, the was a semi-pro rider. You don't ride 200-400 miles a week and not know how to ride a bike.


FWIW, I'm able to remove a jacket while riding, ghost-ride another bike,
push another person up a hill, etc. On occasion I've taken off a sweater
or other garment that had to be pulled over my head. Back when we lived
where dogs were a real problem, I was pretty good at throwing rocks and
hitting dogs while riding. Now we worry about moving a hand to shift??

Again, like Lou says, all that stuff is elective. I was barreling down a hill with broken pavement today, and if I wanted another gear, I wouldn't have taken my hands off the bars (nor would I have taken a drink or removed my jacket). Riding single track and climbing on broken pavement, its also nice keeping my hands on the levers and being able to shift and not grind over a bunch of baby heads.


I raced for decades on DT shifters along with my cohorts -- who then ****-canned them because they were clearly inferior to STI. No more pack wobble going into or out of high speed corners on a rolling course as riders reached down for gears, no more sitting to shift while climbing out of the saddle, no wrong gear when sprinting because riders could just shift -- and shift a lot.

Yes, if I were racing, I'd want STI. But bicycling =/= racing; there are
other ways to ride. If someone prefers the simplicity or light weight of
downtube shifters over the convenience, complexity, non-repairability
and heavier weight of STI and its clones, I don't think it's a terrible
choice.

Me, I like bar ends - a sort of middle ground, in my view.

And friction had all of its problems with missed shifts and shifters that would loosen and ghost shift. And I couldn't imagine friction shifting a modern 11sp cassette, but I'm sure more than five gears is somehow wrong or unnecessary.

You've changed the subject. Downtube does not preclude index - or at
least, it once didn't. (I don't diligently follow the market.)

About more than five gears - well, I agree with Tom (!!!) that eight was
about optimum. Yes, in my view, more are unnecessary. Again, those kid
racers climbing on old bikes posted times indicating that _only_ the
bike weight made a difference. There was no apparent benefit from
micro-adjusting cadence. Lab data shows the same thing. The curve for
power output vs. cadence is very flat.

I used to do a local hill climb TT on a fixed gear because it was light.. If you have the right gear for the grade, you don't need ten others. An abundance of gears is great for rides with mixed terrain where you are trying to maintain speed. If you don't care about speed and have no need to keep up, you can live your life in a 68" gear.

I don't disagree on any of that. I think our disagreement is one of
degree - that is, what qualifies as "an abundance of gears"? Personally,
I like six (in back) better than five, but I still ride five on some
bikes. I don't like nine better than eight. The differences are too
small. I see no need for 11.

Then there's the new trend of one front sprocket, cutting one's
"abundance of gears" in half or in thirds.

Fashion is weird and powerful.

DT shifters and five speed are fashion -- conspicuous contrarianism.

I use all my 11 cassette cogs. I could give one up, but why? My little lunch ride today was our standard loop of 16 miles and 1600 feet of climbing, full speed trying to keep up with my buddy. Except for the roll into town (to see the post-riot damage), everything was some degree of up or down. I shifted my way nicely up and down the cassette, enjoying each and every cog.

My buddy wanted me to skip work tomorrow and go do McKenzie Pass while it was still closed, but I have a zoom meeting and really don't want to get my ass kicked on two sides of a pass. https://traveloregon.com/things-to-d...cenic-bikeway/ Maybe next time. If you did the trans-am east to west, you went over McKenzie Pass, although from the easy side. Nice having a lot of gears and STI for that. You can shift while sitting or standing.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 12:30:27 AM UTC-7, Dennis Davis wrote:
In article ,
jbeattie wrote:

...

I think that the curmudgeon handbook, chapter six, has a lengthy
discussion of the benefits of DT friction shifters. IIRC,
they a (1) slow and imprecise shifting, (2) missed shifts,
(3) conspicuous contrarianism, (4) longevity like an incurable
skin condition, (5) inconvenient location, and (6) conspicuous
contrarianism. Clearly superior to any STI/Ergo like system.

A double dose of "conspicuous contrarianism" ("3" and "6"). Isn't
that overkill?

Perhaps (6) is better replaced by:

(6) Requires levels of skill not present in modern cyclists.


...I'm planning to put some Simplex Retrofriction downtube levers on
my next bike...
--
Dennis Davis

I think more accurate would be "requires total lack of skills that modern cyclists have." Anyone that rides downtube shifters or centerpull brakes in this day and age is either penniless or stupid or both.

On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 1:12:15 AM UTC-7, Sepp Ruf wrote:

What a despicable demonstration of ableism!

Worst of all: Being able to lose 3+ pounds of bicycle locks, you'll also
lose significant traction!!

There is that. I cannot take an eye off of my bikes. I cannot even go into a 7-11 to get a soda while riding alone. Even at a coffee shop in a very safe neighborhood I know better than to side inside the café with my bike locked to the same outside.

On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 7:48:36 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 7:12:54 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2020 8:02 PM, Roger Merriman wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/3/2020 3:33 PM, wrote:

The end result would be a shifting/braking system that has extremely
light touch without ever having to recharge a battery. What do you gain
by electronic shifting other than automatic compensation for front chain-line?

I'm puzzled by the high value some people place on a "light touch,"
whether braking or shifting. ISTM light acting controls are a benefit
only up to a point.

Brakes that can lock a wheel with a few ounces of lever force make no
sense to me.

Try MTB or Gravel descents, older MTB on steeper stuff the burn on the
forearms is real, and the older (tech) CX bike which had canti reminded me
of this few years back, present Gravel bike has cable disks which are okay
but not stellar, my MTB has hydro as does my old commuting beast which are
far better in high load sort of stuff. And let’s not forget the not needing
to adjust pads etc.

Adjusting pads is sort of a side issue, since I was talking only about
force on the controls. Although to me, not needing to adjust hydraulic
disc pads is kind of balanced by needing to prissily clean things with
cotton swabs when replacing pads.

I don't clean my disc calipers with cotton swabs. I just drop in a set of pads. Screw in the screw and replace the tiny little snap clip retainer. It takes less time than changing rim brake pads. Your proper complaint is price and longevity -- which can be recouped with savings on rims if you ride in the rain or dirty conditions, one hopes.

Also, adjusting caliper rim brake pads is a two second operation, and I don't see that as any reason for switching to hydro discs -- although it is a reason for going with hydro discs rather than cable discs. It's easy to forget to adjust cable disc pads, and you can end up with some braking surprises, IMO.

I understand the benefits of less lever force for long, steel mountain
bike downhills. Not that I ride those any more.

But even for road riding, there's been a long trend to less and less
lever force, long ago leading to in-line force-reducing spring gizmos so
people riding comfort bikes on MUPs didn't lock up the front wheel and
take headers. And I've seen a novice flip a bike because it had dual
pivot brakes, when she was used to single pivot.

BTW, our neighborhood paramedic just took delivery of a new gravel bike..
She asked me to solve a little problem with it, so I got a brief test
ride. It was interesting to me that her cable discs did not have
super-low lever force like some other discs I've tried. In fact, I
thought her back brake felt rather weak, which surprised me. (I don't
know the brake model; I'll have to check.)

Some cable discs are dreadful because of long, fully encased cable runs with hard turns that produce a lot of drag. You have to do some fussing to overcome it. My warranty replacement commuter frame had that problem when I threw on my old BB7 rear brake (which had notoriously weak return springs), so I switched to hydro. Works great now.

-- Jay Beattie.

It appears that your expensive America carbon rims are significantly lighter than my cheap Chinese ones. The rim brakes really sucked until I got Campy pads and then they are almost normal. But I don't know what that will do to the lifespan of the brake area of the rim. It is nice that you can always brake at your limit with disk brakes but these cheap Chinese deep aluminum rims weight slightly less than the carbon models and they brake perfectly.. The problem is that they are so difficult to find.

On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 9:48:34 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 4:31:19 PM UTC+2, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 12:30:27 AM UTC-7, Dennis Davis wrote:
In article ,
jbeattie wrote:

...

I think that the curmudgeon handbook, chapter six, has a lengthy
discussion of the benefits of DT friction shifters. IIRC,
they a (1) slow and imprecise shifting, (2) missed shifts,
(3) conspicuous contrarianism, (4) longevity like an incurable
skin condition, (5) inconvenient location, and (6) conspicuous
contrarianism. Clearly superior to any STI/Ergo like system.

A double dose of "conspicuous contrarianism" ("3" and "6"). Isn't
that overkill?

Perhaps (6) is better replaced by:

(6) Requires levels of skill not present in modern cyclists.

Really? So one should buy DT shifters to develop a useless skill? At least that should translate into some performance advantage, which it doesn't.

I raced for decades on DT shifters along with my cohorts -- who then ****-canned them because they were clearly inferior to STI. No more pack wobble going into or out of high speed corners on a rolling course as riders reached down for gears, no more sitting to shift while climbing out of the saddle, no wrong gear when sprinting because riders could just shift -- and shift a lot. And friction had all of its problems with missed shifts and shifters that would loosen and ghost shift. And I couldn't imagine friction shifting a modern 11sp cassette, but I'm sure more than five gears is somehow wrong or unnecessary.



...I'm planning to put some Simplex Retrofriction downtube levers on
my next bike...

I'm buying a musket for hunting!

I had Simplex DT shifters on my '69 PX10 which is thankfully long gone along with all of its odd-ball French metric components. My 26.6 Simplex seat post was heavy enough to use for home defense. And the bike came with the AVA death stem -- ah, the good old days.

-- Jay Beattie.

Gee Jay you still bother to respond? That is admirable but useless.
By the way yesterday was a glorious day: after multiple f*ck ups my gravel bike frame arrived at the LBS just (a couple of days) within half a year from the initial order (december 7 2019)! The last f*ck up was that they didn't include the right documents so the frame couldn't clear customs and was stuck at the Fedex depot for more than a week 18 km from the LBS. Unbelievable...

Lou

I ordered a handlebar stem combo 3 months ago and it appears that it will take another month to get here. This isn't manufacturers fault so we just have to roll with the punches. We can do something like make fun of Jay while we're waiting but that pot shot he just took at Frank was so close to perfectly accurate I have to let it go.

On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 9:58:31 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 9:33:14 PM UTC+2, wrote:
The main groupsets are Campagnolo, Shimano and SRAM.

They all now have electronic groupsets.

Shimano, the originator of the Di2 which forced the others into the business uses a wired system like the Campagnolo EPS.

Shimano is a highly technical design that settled upon a method of powering and communicating with each component over the same two-conductor wire.. Originally it used multiple wires and I can just picture an electronics engineer looking at that and asking Shimano management, "Why?" In any case since each part communicates with the others, you absolutely must have interchangeable components. These can be anything from 105 to Dura Ace but everything down to the battery itself much be a component interchangeable with the particular group. Why they would have different groups that are not interchangeable I couldn't say. You can get the 9000 series Di2 or the 9780 (which I have). Of course this might be nothing more than mistaken documentation on the Internet which is famous for that.

Campagnolo EPS is also a wired group and I know very little about it except that it is a 12 speed group and cost slightly less than a Tesla S model with full extras. As I've said before, my opinion of Italian engineering is that they are more artists than engineers and I wouldn't be surprised to discover that they need to go through many iterations to get it to work reliably. Though it would look pretty.

SRAM groupsets are real trash from my point of view. Their cranks for instance, have different size bearings on each side of the bike and the steel of the cranks is relatively soft so that they wear away rapidly leaving the cranks to rattle loosely in the bearings. Their electronic shifting idea became rather strange as well. Whereas Shimano has a single battery that lasts probably too long leaving you to eventually run out of juice a month after the last recharge after you've forgotten you even need to recharge, the SRAM is wireless and everything has its own battery to die on its own. They also have the odd idea that the right level shifts to a lower gear and the left to a larger gear. This means that there must be extra intelligence somewhere in this rig to calculate which is a larger gear - the upper chainring and the larger cog or the smaller ring and the smaller cog. Good luck if the battery for that component gives up the ghost. And some of these components uses a coin cell. Hope you're battery rich. Judging from my TV remote which has a three AAA cells and only lasts a month or six weeks, coin cells that go flat shifting you into a granny gear to limp 20 miles home doesn't seem all that brilliant to me.

The Chinese presently have a manual high end groupset from a couple of companies but the tests on them aren't very pleasant and it is likely that the means they are using to get around SRAM and Shimano patents in the USA make for not very well working setups.

Sooner of later I suspect that Shimano will replace the Di2 and Manual groups with hydraulic which will solve most of their problems since people are now seeing just how simple it is to bleed hydraulic systems. Changing the derailleurs to hydraulic would make the changes so soft that it would make Di2 seem like a real effort. Also you could build in chain rub compensation so that it relieves a little pressure if it detects the chain rubbing. Of course this implies that it always has to be setup so that rub is from the high pressure side.

The end result would be a shifting/braking system that has extremely light touch without ever having to recharge a battery. What do you gain by electronic shifting other than automatic compensation for front chain-line?

It would also allow a piston design for the derailleurs that was made out of plastic so it would be lighter and last forever. Maybe that is why they are holding back.

Shimano will never replace Di2 with hydraulics.

Lou

They may be forced to. If someone institutes hydraulics Shimano might have to follow suit. The simplicity of a hydraulic setup would then take over all of its own advantages.

On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 10:48:04 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 9:34:48 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/4/2020 10:31 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 12:30:27 AM UTC-7, Dennis Davis wrote:


Perhaps (6) is better replaced by:

(6) Requires levels of skill not present in modern cyclists.

Really? So one should buy DT shifters to develop a useless skill? At least that should translate into some performance advantage, which it doesn't.

Perhaps the "useless skill" is the ability to ride with (gasp!) only one
hand on the bars?

I do know several cyclists who hate taking a hand off the bars. They
stop every time they want to swig from a water bottle.

My son has never touched DT shifters, and he was going 40mph down Mirror Lake Highway no-hands, waiving his arms like a bird. Freaked me out. Sagan has probably never touched DT shifters and he wheelies up hill, waiving an arm ala rodeo cowboy. Are you saying DT shifts are necessary for learning other skills -- like typing is necessary to learn piano? BTW, great ride: https://bbrelje.wordpress.com/2013/0...ghway-cycling/


I ride with many younger, skilled riders who have never been in the same room as a DT shifter. They can ride one-hand, no hands, bunny hop, wheelie and do single track on a road bike at incredible speeds. All race CX and would laugh at DT shifting. I doubt anyone in the pro peleton has used DT shifters.

Dopes who can't handle a water bottle won't be saved by DT shifters. They just won't shift.



And I recall the article linked here a few years ago, where several
young racers did a comparison test, riding a long climb on current bikes
vs. vintage (1980s?) racing bikes. At least one complained about feeling
insecure having to move a hand to shift - poor baby!

Well he could certain drink from a bottle and climb, so that's either misremembered or perhaps more nuanced. The testers were racers and capable of riding no hands up hill at speeds we could not attain.


I raced for decades on DT shifters along with my cohorts -- who then ****-canned them because they were clearly inferior to STI. No more pack wobble going into or out of high speed corners on a rolling course as riders reached down for gears, no more sitting to shift while climbing out of the saddle, no wrong gear when sprinting because riders could just shift -- and shift a lot.

Yes, if I were racing, I'd want STI. But bicycling =/= racing; there are
other ways to ride. If someone prefers the simplicity or light weight of
downtube shifters over the convenience, complexity, non-repairability
and heavier weight of STI and its clones, I don't think it's a terrible
choice.

Me, I like bar ends - a sort of middle ground, in my view.

And friction had all of its problems with missed shifts and shifters that would loosen and ghost shift. And I couldn't imagine friction shifting a modern 11sp cassette, but I'm sure more than five gears is somehow wrong or unnecessary.

You've changed the subject. Downtube does not preclude index - or at
least, it once didn't. (I don't diligently follow the market.)

About more than five gears - well, I agree with Tom (!!!) that eight was
about optimum. Yes, in my view, more are unnecessary. Again, those kid
racers climbing on old bikes posted times indicating that _only_ the
bike weight made a difference. There was no apparent benefit from
micro-adjusting cadence. Lab data shows the same thing. The curve for
power output vs. cadence is very flat.

I used to do a local hill climb TT on a fixed gear because it was light. If you have the right gear for the grade, you don't need ten others. An abundance of gears is great for rides with mixed terrain where you are trying to maintain speed. If you don't care about speed and have no need to keep up, you can live your life in a 68" gear.

...I'm planning to put some Simplex Retrofriction downtube levers on
my next bike...

I'm buying a musket for hunting!

I have two good friends who hunt using black powder, and one friend who
is a bowhunter. You may not understand their choices, but they probably
don't care.

I don't care either, but at least with bows and muzzleloaders, you get access to different seasons and game than you might with a modern rifle. Bow versus rifle is also bike versus unicycle and not DT versus brifter.

-- Jay Beattie.

There were three of us returning from a ride up the foothills of the San Francisco peninsula and we were passed but what looked like a 10 year old riding no hands wheelies past us.