New Year pedolutionists

Bleve wrote:
daveL wrote:

Hey,

I've been lurking here for a little while now but this is my first post,
so hi all.


[chomp]



So what exactly is wrong about me commuting on my MTB? I really enjoy my
daily rides and would hate to think that the people passing me (nearly
every one had a problem.


Absolutely nothing. Keep on riding

And, hey, if the aim is to keep fit, rolling resistance is your friend.
Knobblies are great!

jimmay

Zebee Johnstone wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Fri, 6 Jan 2006 13:17:20 +1100
Peter Signorini wrote:

"Zebee Johnstone" wrote:


If you want to get people into cycling, saying "you have to buy all
this specialist **** or you'll get sworn at and called a fool" is
probably not the way to do it.

I think Lotte was having a go at him more for his truly dorky riding
clothes, and self-endangering riding behaviour.


Dorky clothes is just shorthand for "not one of us".

After all, the lycra loonies are dorkish, it's just that it isn't done
to say so *here* because it marks as "one of us". Everyone else
thinks they look like adults playing dressups. I mean pretending to
be part of a pro team, really! All the stickers and team names and
silly paintjobs and fancy gadgets - trust me, dorky is what the people
who see are thinking.


Yes, it looks like those middle-aged guys with convertibles who wear
driving gloves ... fine for racing, but an optional extra for
commuting/getting fit.

The riding behaviour was the point of the thread I thought. To say
"here are these people who need help to keep riding". Saying "you
have to reach my standards before I will treat you decently" is not
going to help is it!



Yep, you don't have to wear 'wannnabe road racer' clothes nor carbon road
shoes. But get some shoes that help your pedalling action, especially if
you're going to be riding any lengthy distance.



But it isn't required. It's just nice to have if you are going to be
all serious.

It isn't a sign of someone who needs to be insulted and ignored and
told he's a fool.

Tell people "you have to have this and that fancy **** to ride" and
will they ride? There's a limit...






Clipless pedals aren't needed to ride a pushbike. Hell, tying your
feet to the bike isn't needed.

Not needed, but if you ride a lot, for longish distances, climb hills or
ride a MTB on forest tracks, they do make your riding an awful lot better.
Your choice, ignore those with experience if you like.



You miss the point. Sure - nice to have if you are doing heaps of
fancy riding.

But not required. Not needed to ride a pushbike. To say they are,
and therefore anyone who doesn't have them is to be disdained...
that's silly.

And self-defeating if you want to encourage more people.

Me, I don't care if someone is riding a clapped out postie bike or a
50cc scooter wearing shorts and thongs. Yeah, I'll mention to them
that the bike changes gear better if you wear closed shoes and that
jeans mean your kneecaps don't get filthy and you might not get as
much gravel rash if you come off, but as I want them on a motorcycle
instead of a car I'm not going to abuse them.

Indeed it seems to me they are people who need an experienced rider to
make friends with them and give them tips about inexpensive and easy
ways to have more fun. Who doesn't start from "look you lower life
form, learn How We Do It or sell the thing"


Zebee

David Trudgett wrote:
"Resound" writes:


"Tamyka Bell" wrote in message
...

DaveB wrote:

LotteBum wrote:

wear a jersey as well), doing up his toe straps (who the f*ck uses them
these days!?!)

Hmmm, well I use them on the commuter and the SS. On the commuter
because I don't trust my ability to unclip quick enough in CBD traffic,
ad on the SS because I want to ride to the shops in whatever I'm wearing.

DaveB

If your toe straps are loose enough that they're quicker to get out of
than clipless pedals, they might as well not be there

Tam

I've only recently gone clipless and I had straps that I could get
in and out of quikly and easily. They were still snug enough that I
could haul up on them and if I tried riding something with flat
pedals my feet skidded all over the place. They were definitely
doing something for me.


Maybe Tam is a clip system troll... ;-)

As a toe strap wearer, I can certainly confirm what you say. It seems
to be a myth made up by people in love with expensive "clipless"
systems (you know, the ones with the clips) that toe straps are
useless unless they are tight. They are not useless, and I wouldn't do
serious riding without them. Just for starters, without them, feet
have a habit of flying off the pedals at the most inopportune times --
even an unexpected bump in the road could do it (and has). With
just-tight-enough straps, my feet have never come off the pedals
unless I wanted them to, yet I can get my feet off the pedals almost
as easily as if the straps were not there. Furthermore, it is
eminently possible to pull up on straps that are not quite tight, thus
gaining a good portion of the efficiency of clips.

It should also be obvious that *tight* toe straps are *dangerous*
unless, perhaps, you are riding a fixed wheel on a velodrome (in which
case, these days, you'd almost certainly be using clips instead of
straps so you don't embarrass yourself by falling over while loosening
straps... ;-) ).

Cheers,

David


I sometimes ride with just one if I think the situation may require me
to stop suddenly.

jimmay

"David Trudgett" wrote:

As a toe strap wearer, I can certainly confirm what you say. It seems
to be a myth made up by people in love with expensive "clipless"
systems (you know, the ones with the clips) that toe straps are
useless unless they are tight.

Ah, the toe clips vs SPDs thread! Just about as infamous as a helmets
thread, or MSR vs Trangias on aus.bushwalking.

They are not useless, and I wouldn't do
serious riding without them.

I'm not about to suggest they are useless at all. If you like them stick
with them - whatever floats your boat. But personally I've found the
clipless pedals (mine are Times) to be faaantastic. Have used them for over
12 years now, so I think that counts as some experience. Several friends of
mine, who've argued for years that toe clips were the best thing out, have
suddenly become SPD advocates, about a month after trying SPDs. They have
not gone back to the toe clip.

Just for starters, without them, feet
have a habit of flying off the pedals at the most inopportune times --
even an unexpected bump in the road could do it (and has).

This is a foot-location system. But SPDs, and toe-clips are 'sposed to do
much more than this

With just-tight-enough straps, my feet have never come off the pedals
unless I wanted them to, yet I can get my feet off the pedals almost
as easily as if the straps were not there. Furthermore, it is
eminently possible to pull up on straps that are not quite tight, thus
gaining a good portion of the efficiency of clips.

Many argue that you can pull up on toe clips,or alternatively that no pedal
system allows you to pull up at all, it's all in the mind. My experience is
that in the 360 degree rotation of the pedals there is one sector where SPDs
give you a power boost, not pulling up, but pulling back. This is quite
significant when climbing a hill under load or for sprinting. I'd estimate
it can allow you to ride one gear higher than just pedalling on the down
stroke. You'll feel the action when you can feel your heel pushing back into
the rear of your shoe, sometimes described as like wiping mud off your sole.
No amount of dexterous footwork with toe straps will give you this action,
and even with old school cleated road shoes you will only pull back
effectively if you have the straps tightly done up; not so easy to get the
foot out of this.

It should also be obvious that *tight* toe straps are *dangerous*
unless, perhaps, you are riding a fixed wheel on a velodrome (in which
case, these days, you'd almost certainly be using clips instead of
straps so you don't embarrass yourself by falling over while loosening
straps... ;-) ).

Actually I thought most top track sprinters still used cleats and straps,
often double straps. Like Shane Kelly's infamous leg pull out at the start
of his time trial final.

Cheers
Peter

Michael Warner writes:

On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:53:50 GMT, Euan wrote:

Then exercise some god-dammed common courtesy and wait.

I do wait. And wait, and wait, sometimes. And I never complain
to them about it. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

Glad to hear it. Just consider that getting wound up for something
that's outside of your control is a waste of energy.
--
Cheers | ~~ __@
Euan | ~~ _-\,
Melbourne, Australia | ~ (*)/ (*)

Zebee Johnstone In aus.bicycle on Sat, 7 Jan 2006 04:25:15 +1100
hippy wrote:
There's an article about "unweighting" the non-pedaling foot
floating
around somewhere. You don't pull up as such (I think it was proved
to
be a waste of energy anyway) rather you lift enough to reduce the
load
on the pedaling foot. You're not pulling on the pedal you are just
lifting your non-pedaling foot.

Which would mean that you don't need your straps tight.

Right. Although I did ride with tight straps when I used them it was
probably pointless.

I found that snug straps over street shoes - usually some form of
running shoe with tread - worked nicely for commuting.

I prefer SPD, but it's definately PERSONAL preference.

I could spin and handle bumps, and get into and out of them easily.
Didn't have to spend a lot of money on fancy gear and have special
shoes.

My r_nners cost me double what my SPD shoes AND pedals did. They also
lasted a hell of a lot longer (5+ years and still going). For someone
commuting less than I was though I reckon r_unners and straps are
totally fine.

I think the last time I looked in a bike shop they didn't have such
things, and it was one of the reasons I didn't buy a bike to replace
the grotty old MTB. I didn't want the hassle of clipless.

Clips and straps not available? Are you serious?? I've thrown away more
sets of toe-straps than I can count! They're worse than those reflectors
things and bells

hippy


--
hippy

hippy Wrote:


[snip]

My r_nners cost me double what my SPD shoes AND pedals did. They also
lasted a hell of a lot longer (5+ years and still going). For someone
commuting less than I was though I reckon r_unners and straps are
totally fine.
[snip]

hippy

Umm if r_nners are lasting 5 yrs, they're not "r_nners"... I'm not
sure what they're called, but definately not "r_nners"!

Ritch


--
ritcho

On 2006-01-05, Zebee Johnstone (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
In aus.bicycle on Fri, 06 Jan 2006 09:51:56 +1100
DaveB wrote:
LotteBum wrote:
wear a jersey as well), doing up his toe straps (who the f*ck uses them
these days!?!)

Hmmm, well I use them on the commuter and the SS. On the commuter
because I don't trust my ability to unclip quick enough in CBD traffic,
ad on the SS because I want to ride to the shops in whatever I'm wearing.

I used them when I was riding to work because I couldn't see the point
in having to buy expensive pedals and expensive shoes.

If you want to get people into cycling, saying "you have to buy all
this specialist **** or you'll get sworn at and called a fool" is
probably not the way to do it.

Amen.

Whilst I found last year that cycling knicks are certainly more
comfortable than shorts or jeans, and that clipless shoes are nice for
high cadence work (note, you are not meant to *pull up* on pedals,
contrary to popular opinion -- they're only good to stop your foot
slipping off at 90rpm, and to remove the thud at the bottom of the
stroke), I was fine for years on lesser equipment. When I started
getting more serious, the fact that knicks cost $60 minimum became a
slightly lower barrier -- cycling was now a hobby rather than a means
to and end, so justified me spending more money. The barrier of shoes
and pedal costing $250 minimum, for such relatively little benefit,
was not overcome til April this year.

Truly useful things like convincing people to spin at 90rpm (and this
suggestion comes free) are much more useful than telling them they
need to buy $500 of kit just to start out.

--
TimC
I don't want Perl to be beautiful -- I want you to write
beautiful programs in Perl. --Larry Wall

On 2006-01-06, Zebee Johnstone (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
In aus.bicycle on Fri, 6 Jan 2006 13:17:20 +1100
Peter Signorini wrote:

"Zebee Johnstone" wrote:

If you want to get people into cycling, saying "you have to buy all
this specialist **** or you'll get sworn at and called a fool" is
probably not the way to do it.

I think Lotte was having a go at him more for his truly dorky riding
clothes, and self-endangering riding behaviour.

Dorky clothes is just shorthand for "not one of us".

After all, the lycra loonies are dorkish, it's just that it isn't done
to say so *here* because it marks as "one of us". Everyone else
thinks they look like adults playing dressups. I mean pretending to
be part of a pro team, really! All the stickers and team names and
silly paintjobs and fancy gadgets - trust me, dorky is what the people
who see are thinking.

Ricer cars!

Eeeek!


I don't like glary jerseys for just this reason. I don't like
advertising, so why would I want to wear many company's logos
plastered over my clothes?

--
TimC
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a
blunt ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
-- Edsger Dijkstra

TimC wrote:


Whilst I found last year that cycling knicks are certainly more
comfortable than shorts or jeans, and that clipless shoes are nice for
high cadence work (note, you are not meant to *pull up* on pedals,
contrary to popular opinion -- they're only good to stop your foot
slipping off at 90rpm, and to remove the thud at the bottom of the
stroke),

Kathy as you all know had real problems with cleats and is currently
using plat pedals. (Thanks for the SPD SL pedals Kath On Amy's ride
yesterday I noticed she was pushing huge gears at low cadence. 52 * 15
up a hill IIRC.

Turns out it was the way she figured out to keep her feet on the pedals,
Keeping the load on if you see what I mean

It points to what a strong cyclist she may turn into.. but sheesh... it
aint effective. Euan.. can you give me that coaches email?


I was fine for years on lesser equipment. When I started
getting more serious, the fact that knicks cost $60 minimum became a
slightly lower barrier -- cycling was now a hobby rather than a means
to and end, so justified me spending more money. The barrier of shoes
and pedal costing $250 minimum, for such relatively little benefit,
was not overcome til April this year.

Yeah poverty is a problem. Mind you one does occasionally find shoes for
$50 and pedals for $80. You need to keep your eyes open and grab
stuff when you find bargains. And of course it depends on how badly you
need stuff.


Truly useful things like convincing people to spin at 90rpm (and this
suggestion comes free) are much more useful than telling them they
need to buy $500 of kit just to start out.

Oh yeah.. thats so true. I try not to be so critical .. cept of
supermarket bikes. Even GV bikes are a light year from total crap.

Regards

Dave