Technical Stuff, Please Advise

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 21:01:55 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per John B.:
You can read the whole sales pitch at
http://dahonpro.com/rido-2/

"... you have the choice as to how much pressure, if any, you want to
bear down on that sensitive area of your anatomy simply by slightly
adjusting the saddle’s angle of tilt."

Maybe I need to read the spiel more closely... but my kneejerk reacttion
is "How is that different from any other saddle?".

Well it is shaped a little different, and it seems to have a little
more padding, and they are apparently aiming their sales pitch at
people who have only a little experience riding a bike. :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 21:32:26 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 4/1/2014 9:01 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per John B.:
You can read the whole sales pitch at
http://dahonpro.com/rido-2/

"... you have the choice as to how much pressure, if any, you want to
bear down on that sensitive area of your anatomy simply by slightly
adjusting the saddle’s angle of tilt."

Maybe I need to read the spiel more closely... but my kneejerk reacttion
is "How is that different from any other saddle?".

Well, for one thing, it's got newer color diagrams showing the saddle's
magic! The color diagrams used by other "miracle" saddles are nowhere
near as magical or modern.

Admittedly, I haven't tried a Rido saddle. But I've tried, at least on
test rides, lots of other "New! Innovative!" saddles, including ones
with no noses, ones with two moveable pads, T-shaped ones with
cylindrical foam cylinders. Plus gel saddles, hole-in-the-middle
saddles, classic leather saddles in various makes & models, etc.

I think most of the "innovative" ones are unusual because they don't
work. If they worked, they'd be common. And I think no saddle will be
comfortable for every rider. We're all different down there.

http://bicyclinglife.com/PracticalCycling/Sore.htm

I've got a whole bunch of "spare" saddles... or perhaps "trial"
saddles... anyway, the most comfortable saddle I own is a Brooks, but
even that wasn't comfortable until I had a thousand or so Km. on it.
But the one that is nearly as comfortable is a Vello VL-1205 that was
fitted on some second hand bike I bought :-)

The Brooks cost, "Oh My God! That much?" while the Vello is about 15
bucks, I think. The Brooks is good for about 75 Km before you need to
stand up and let things cool of a while the Vello is good for about 45
miles :-)

--
Cheers,

John B.

On 4/1/2014 7:18 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 1 Apr 2014 07:29:20 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Monday, March 31, 2014 6:37:38 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
I believe that I've mentioned the friend that lives on a boat and has

just completed a circumnavigation. Well, he is now lusting after a

folding bicycle and apparently is leaning toward a Dahon. He keeps

asking me questions (I guess any expert is better then no expert :-)



Anyway, the dealer is pushing SCHWALBE tires, at extra cost.



I've heard of Schwalbe tires, usually in the context of fat squishy

tires, but is the extra price of any merit for a bike that is used

primarily for short local trips, in say a village sized environment?



Controltech Bicycle components USA, another extra cost item.

They seem to make bike components, handle bars, stems, seat posts,

saddles, etc.



I've never heard of them but then again I don't lurk about peeking at

the labels on stems and seat posts. Is there any advantage to these

components over any other make?



RIDO saddles (Nothing else should come between you and your bicycle)



Their description of the advantages of their product appears to me to

be utter B.S. and I've told the bloke that, however if anyone knows

anything good about this saddle please say so. I'd hate to condemn

something that was good just because I didn't use it.

Controltech is a Seattle area manufacturer that got in to the market in the late '80s with bar ends and then started making stems and seat-posts at their facility in the PNW. Their stems and posts were OEM on the Canondale tandems in the early 90s, and I still have a few quill stems sitting around.They had a cool industrial aesthetic and were bomb-proof. My rain bike has a Controltech post -- a good solid post, but it has a somewhat kludgy saddle adjustment/seat clamp mechanism compared to the two-bolt Thompson Elite(my favorite post), or even the earlier American Classic. Controltech did have a stem recall in the early 90s, IIRC, which was caused by cracked welds at the bar clamp because a few purchasers were using undersized bars. That was before the "face plate" and two or four bolt clamp design became popular.

I met the guys who owned Controltech because I represented them in a broken bar case way back in the 90s (guy went OTB on a mountain bike). They got sued simply because the rider was using their bar ends -- which were "defective" because they allowed the rider to apply stress to the ends of he bars which allegedly snapped them. The bars were some cheap, Chinese knock-offs of a super-light Easton design that broke at the bar/stem clamp. Easton made the design work because they were careful with butting and production. A nice engineer from Easton was my expert in that case. Anyway, it looks like Controltech has since moved on to a larger product line and materials other than aluminum. Others have swiped their aesthetic, and welded aluminum stems are as common as fleas, so I assume they are staying in business by building something better than the bunch. I do know that they cared about safety back in the 90s, and I assume they still do today.

-- Jay Beattie.

So, essentially, one would expect that they are just another reputable
maker of bicycle parts.

As an aside, I am constantly astounded at the legal claims that are
made in U.S. courts :-)


The civil courts are risible, maybe even silly, but the
criminal courts are beyond ridiculous, into random chaos:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pe-conviction/

And errors run in both directions too:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/k...ul-convictions

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 4/1/2014 10:02 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Frank Krygowski:
ones with two moveable pads,

I still have one of those.

Sounded like a good idea to me - especially with the faux saddle horn
that this one featured. Gave the usual control when out of the saddle,
absolutely zero perinial contact.

Made my asshole bleed for a couple of days.

I'm guessing focused pressure where pressure shouldn't be focused with
no support.

OTOH, the guy who designed/marketed it was all bent out of shape when I
commented - said "You're the only one...".... which I've heard waaaaay
too many times in my life....

During a time when I was working at a very large local manufacturer (a
major supplier to the auto industry) I attended an in-house seminar on
designing for assembly. The heart of the seminar was a video by the guy
who invented the "innovative" saddle that featured the two separate
pivoting pads.

His major point was that people resist change. His major example was
his own saddle design, which had failed miserably in the marketplace.
The reasons for that failure were obvious to me, since I'd tried the
saddle. But in the video, there was no hint that his "innovative"
saddle could be anything but brilliant.

At least his Design For Assembly information wasn't bad. As long as you
can accept that no consumer product can be disassembled or repaired,
that is.

I used to work with the co-author of 'DeLong's Guide To Bicycles and
Bicycling". He was Fred DeLong's son and a mechanical engineer. His
take was that every "new" cycling item (aside from materials) has
already been tried and discarded back in cycling's heyday between the
period of horses and the period of automobiles.

Yep. As I've said, _The Data Book_ is great fun to browse through.
Tons of nice illustrations of bike inventions and design features, going
back to the 1920s or earlier.


--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 4/1/2014 10:02 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Frank Krygowski:
ones with two moveable pads,

I still have one of those.

Sounded like a good idea to me - especially with the faux saddle horn
that this one featured. Gave the usual control when out of the saddle,
absolutely zero perinial contact.

Made my asshole bleed for a couple of days.

I'm guessing focused pressure where pressure shouldn't be focused with
no support.

OTOH, the guy who designed/marketed it was all bent out of shape when I
commented - said "You're the only one...".... which I've heard waaaaay
too many times in my life....

During a time when I was working at a very large local manufacturer (a
major supplier to the auto industry) I attended an in-house seminar on
designing for assembly. The heart of the seminar was a video by the
guy who invented the "innovative" saddle that featured the two
separate pivoting pads.

His major point was that people resist change. His major example was
his own saddle design, which had failed miserably in the
marketplace. The reasons for that failure were obvious to me, since
I'd tried the saddle. But in the video, there was no hint that his
"innovative" saddle could be anything but brilliant.

I was subjected to the same video. That seat---I wouldn't call it
a saddle---might work for some, but it sure didn't look practical
for my use.

--
Joe Riel

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 07:49:09 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 4/1/2014 7:18 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 1 Apr 2014 07:29:20 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Monday, March 31, 2014 6:37:38 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
I believe that I've mentioned the friend that lives on a boat and has

just completed a circumnavigation. Well, he is now lusting after a

folding bicycle and apparently is leaning toward a Dahon. He keeps

asking me questions (I guess any expert is better then no expert :-)



Anyway, the dealer is pushing SCHWALBE tires, at extra cost.



I've heard of Schwalbe tires, usually in the context of fat squishy

tires, but is the extra price of any merit for a bike that is used

primarily for short local trips, in say a village sized environment?



Controltech Bicycle components USA, another extra cost item.

They seem to make bike components, handle bars, stems, seat posts,

saddles, etc.



I've never heard of them but then again I don't lurk about peeking at

the labels on stems and seat posts. Is there any advantage to these

components over any other make?



RIDO saddles (Nothing else should come between you and your bicycle)



Their description of the advantages of their product appears to me to

be utter B.S. and I've told the bloke that, however if anyone knows

anything good about this saddle please say so. I'd hate to condemn

something that was good just because I didn't use it.

Controltech is a Seattle area manufacturer that got in to the market in the late '80s with bar ends and then started making stems and seat-posts at their facility in the PNW. Their stems and posts were OEM on the Canondale tandems in the early 90s, and I still have a few quill stems sitting around.They had a cool industrial aesthetic and were bomb-proof. My rain bike has a Controltech post -- a good solid post, but it has a somewhat kludgy saddle adjustment/seat clamp mechanism compared to the two-bolt Thompson Elite(my favorite post), or even the earlier American Classic. Controltech did have a stem recall in the early 90s, IIRC, which was caused by cracked welds at the bar clamp because a few purchasers were using undersized bars. That was before the "face plate" and two or four bolt clamp design became popular.

I met the guys who owned Controltech because I represented them in a broken bar case way back in the 90s (guy went OTB on a mountain bike). They got sued simply because the rider was using their bar ends -- which were "defective" because they allowed the rider to apply stress to the ends of he bars which allegedly snapped them. The bars were some cheap, Chinese knock-offs of a super-light Easton design that broke at the bar/stem clamp. Easton made the design work because they were careful with butting and production. A nice engineer from Easton was my expert in that case. Anyway, it looks like Controltech has since moved on to a larger product line and materials other than aluminum. Others have swiped their aesthetic, and welded aluminum stems are as common as fleas, so I assume they are staying in business by building something better than the bunch. I do know that they cared about safety back in the 90s, and I assume they still do today.

-- Jay Beattie.

So, essentially, one would expect that they are just another reputable
maker of bicycle parts.

As an aside, I am constantly astounded at the legal claims that are
made in U.S. courts :-)


The civil courts are risible, maybe even silly, but the
criminal courts are beyond ridiculous, into random chaos:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pe-conviction/

I suggest that it is quite likely that the bloke would not fair well
in the general prison who apparently, it is said, do not welcome "baby
rapers" into their society.

But, on the other hand, perhaps the old New York saying, "If you can't
do the time, don't do the crime", should apply.


And errors run in both directions too:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/k...ul-convictions

Of course they do. Humans are fallible thus it is likely that no human
endeavor is wholly without error.

--
Cheers,

John B.