Your Bike is Obsolete

On 11/17/2019 9:30 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

The news had it yesterday that both U.S. and Chinese firms are
"flocking" to Thailand to set up factories. In order, they say, "to
stave off the impact of the prolonged US-China trade rift."
and
"executives from many US firms have sought a meeting with the Deputy
Prime Minister and the Board of Investment (BoI) over the past several
months to solicit assistance from the government to facilitate their
relocation attempts.

I worked for a motherboard company that set up a factory in Thailand. It
didn't work. Labor was cheap but the infrastructure was not there.
Everything had to be imported from Taiwan or China. The labor savings
was not worth it because the amount of labor to build motherboards is
pretty small. But this was before Trump's tariffs.

On 11/18/2019 10:19 AM, Mark J. wrote:
On 11/18/2019 9:13 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/17/2019 9:39 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 20:19:53 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 11:11:25 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
On Thu, 14 Nov 2019 12:49:49 -0600, AMuzi wrote:

I once was involved in a product design, not related to bicycling. The
new and improved model was designed specifically to prevent owners of
previous models from using parts and accessories on the latest models.
They were expected to buy everything new for the privilege of owning
the latest model.Â* However, it was known that there was a substantial
number of "modders" who would modify the old parts and accessories to
work with newer models.Â* This couldn't easily be prevented, so it was
decided to also change the color scheme so that a combination of old
and new colors would not color match very well and look rather
atrocious.Â* It seemed to work.

Given the opportunity, I'm fairly sure the bicycle manufacturers would
change the Schrader or Presta valve stems in some way that buyers of a
new bicycle would also need to buy new tubes, rim, and pump.Â* Short or
flush valve stems anyone (to reduce rotating mass)?

Planned obsolescence, a cornerstone of selling new products since at
least the Industrial Revolution and probably before that.

I had a custom frame built a couple of years ago with friction downtube
shifters, old Suntour derailleurs and 8 speed cassettes.Â* Thank heavens
that there are still some parts available, but eventually I will
have to
stock up with enough cassettes to see me out... just turned 60, hoping
to have at least another 30 years to ride. Got another bike that uses 7
speed freewheels.Â* Once the frames wear out I'll update- they'll
probbaly be getting soft soon, right?Â* ;-)

Of course. Everyone knows that steel breaks easily, is subject to
deteriorationÂ* in sunlight and has a short service life. Best to get
rid of that old junk and buy a proper plastic bicycle.

Our bike club hosted a speaker a few days ago, a PhD chemist and bike
racer who talked about cross linking, about carbon fiber frames, etc.

At one point, she claimed that CF frames lose something like 10% of
their strength in 10 years due to the effects of sunlight and water.

I'm not a big fan of CF, but I'm skeptical of that, at least until
someone shows me good data.

Indeed, isn't that what paint is for?

CF does degrade due to UV light, but for it to lose 10% in 10 years
would require about 12,500 hours of UV exposure (0.8% per 1000 hours).
Assuming a 4 hour ride, in sunlight, every day of the year, it would
take about 9 years to lose 10%. And of course most people are not riding
4 hours a day, 365 days a year. Once you paint it you're shielding it
from UV light, at least partially.

Bottom line, your CF frame will break long before it suffers significant
degradation from UV light.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2019 08:08:48 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 11/17/2019 9:30 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

The news had it yesterday that both U.S. and Chinese firms are
"flocking" to Thailand to set up factories. In order, they say, "to
stave off the impact of the prolonged US-China trade rift."
and
"executives from many US firms have sought a meeting with the Deputy
Prime Minister and the Board of Investment (BoI) over the past several
months to solicit assistance from the government to facilitate their
relocation attempts.

I worked for a motherboard company that set up a factory in Thailand. It
didn't work. Labor was cheap but the infrastructure was not there.
Everything had to be imported from Taiwan or China. The labor savings
was not worth it because the amount of labor to build motherboards is
pretty small. But this was before Trump's tariffs.

Well yes, of course one has to examine all facets of a project before
making decisions.

Seagate, for example, came to Thailand nearly 40 years ago and
currently employs nearly 20,000 personnel in two locations and "in
June 2017, Seagate's Thailand operations registered export sales of
U.S.$ 3.78 billion."

Interesting that you couldn't find a mother board maker in Thailand as
KCE Electronics has been in business since 1983 (went public in 1988)
and according to their site do make multi layer boards. they seem to
specify both "higher layer" and "lower layer" boards and apparently
have a number of plants, including, they state, " Thai Laminate
Manufacturers Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of KCE produces a major PCB Raw
material, prepreg and laminate."
--
cheers,

John B.

On 19-11-19 17:02, sms wrote:
On 11/14/2019 10:49 AM, AMuzi wrote:
https://bikerumor.com/2019/11/11/pat...train-updates/


Peek into the future, where everything you know is wrong.

I guess I'll combine the Shimano 13 speed bottom bracket gearbox with a
Nexus 8x3 rear hub so I can have 312 different gear ratios, and add a
motorized front wheel so I never have to pedal.

Sheldon Brown had (and used)a 63-speed bike-- 3 chainwheels, 7 cogs, and
a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub.
See https://www.sheldonbrown.com/org/otb.html .

Ned

Am 20.11.2019 um 11:14 schrieb Ned Mantei:
Sheldon Brown had (and used)a 63-speed bike-- 3 chainwheels, 7 cogs, and
a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub.
See https://www.sheldonbrown.com/org/otb.html .

My recumbent trike was the same, only it has a Sachs "3x7" rear wheel.
Effectively, due to reduced efficiency of the non-direct hub gears, I
was using it as a "3x7" chain drive , plus "granny" for steep uphill and
"overdrive" for steep downhill.

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 8:08:54 AM UTC-8, sms wrote:
On 11/17/2019 9:30 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

The news had it yesterday that both U.S. and Chinese firms are
"flocking" to Thailand to set up factories. In order, they say, "to
stave off the impact of the prolonged US-China trade rift."
and
"executives from many US firms have sought a meeting with the Deputy
Prime Minister and the Board of Investment (BoI) over the past several
months to solicit assistance from the government to facilitate their
relocation attempts.

I worked for a motherboard company that set up a factory in Thailand. It
didn't work. Labor was cheap but the infrastructure was not there.
Everything had to be imported from Taiwan or China. The labor savings
was not worth it because the amount of labor to build motherboards is
pretty small. But this was before Trump's tariffs.

I had a real problem with engineers laying out circuit boards with software programs. As someone that has worked in all phases of the industry I know the importance of someone specializing and all of the software programs I've seen are as lackluster as the schematic drawing programs I've seen - running lines every which way rather than with any real plan. Even in this last place I worked a in 2014, the board was noisy and was missing an interrupt line. This was because it wasn't on the schematic properly and how the hell could that be since it was the radio link and an interrupt was an absolute requirement.

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 8:19:38 AM UTC-8, sms wrote:
On 11/18/2019 10:19 AM, Mark J. wrote:
On 11/18/2019 9:13 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/17/2019 9:39 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 20:19:53 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 11:11:25 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
On Thu, 14 Nov 2019 12:49:49 -0600, AMuzi wrote:

I once was involved in a product design, not related to bicycling. The
new and improved model was designed specifically to prevent owners of
previous models from using parts and accessories on the latest models.
They were expected to buy everything new for the privilege of owning
the latest model.Â* However, it was known that there was a substantial
number of "modders" who would modify the old parts and accessories to
work with newer models.Â* This couldn't easily be prevented, so it was
decided to also change the color scheme so that a combination of old
and new colors would not color match very well and look rather
atrocious.Â* It seemed to work.

Given the opportunity, I'm fairly sure the bicycle manufacturers would
change the Schrader or Presta valve stems in some way that buyers of a
new bicycle would also need to buy new tubes, rim, and pump.Â* Short or
flush valve stems anyone (to reduce rotating mass)?

Planned obsolescence, a cornerstone of selling new products since at
least the Industrial Revolution and probably before that.

I had a custom frame built a couple of years ago with friction downtube
shifters, old Suntour derailleurs and 8 speed cassettes.Â* Thank heavens
that there are still some parts available, but eventually I will
have to
stock up with enough cassettes to see me out... just turned 60, hoping
to have at least another 30 years to ride. Got another bike that uses 7
speed freewheels.Â* Once the frames wear out I'll update- they'll
probbaly be getting soft soon, right?Â* ;-)

Of course. Everyone knows that steel breaks easily, is subject to
deteriorationÂ* in sunlight and has a short service life. Best to get
rid of that old junk and buy a proper plastic bicycle.

Our bike club hosted a speaker a few days ago, a PhD chemist and bike
racer who talked about cross linking, about carbon fiber frames, etc.

At one point, she claimed that CF frames lose something like 10% of
their strength in 10 years due to the effects of sunlight and water.

I'm not a big fan of CF, but I'm skeptical of that, at least until
someone shows me good data.

Indeed, isn't that what paint is for?

CF does degrade due to UV light, but for it to lose 10% in 10 years
would require about 12,500 hours of UV exposure (0.8% per 1000 hours).
Assuming a 4 hour ride, in sunlight, every day of the year, it would
take about 9 years to lose 10%. And of course most people are not riding
4 hours a day, 365 days a year. Once you paint it you're shielding it
from UV light, at least partially.

Bottom line, your CF frame will break long before it suffers significant
degradation from UV light.

Remember that CF is also aging purely from time. The resins do harden over time and begin cracking entirely without the addition of UV light. How much this is I don't know. Colnago offers a three year warranty but they say not to trust the bikes past two years. I just looked up Pinarello and they have a two year warranty. I would expect other European manufacturers to follow suit.

On the other hand Trek (and I assume Specialized) offers a lifetime warranty which is a bit strange. What could they be doing that Europe isn't?

On 11/20/2019 11:40 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
Colnago offers a three year warranty but they say not to trust the bikes past two years.

Hmm. Got a link for that?


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 8:54:29 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/20/2019 11:40 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
Colnago offers a three year warranty but they say not to trust the bikes past two years.

Hmm. Got a link for that?

No. But you can see the warranty: https://www.colnago.com/en/assistance-and-warranty/ They claim to make the safest carbon frame on the market. https://www.colnago.com/en/technology/ Colnago has always had a crappy warranty, even for steel frames. And getting a warranty replacement takes forever, at least based on the experience of my son's friend, who is a Colnago devotee for some reason.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Thursday, November 14, 2019 at 1:49:54 PM UTC-5, AMuzi wrote:
https://bikerumor.com/2019/11/11/pat...train-updates/

Peek into the future, where everything you know is wrong.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

I do not care if it is "wrong." At my age, retro is what I look good riding. ;p
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO