How silent is your bike?

Andre Jute wrote:
On Jun 15, 9:04 am, Ben C wrote:
On 2010-06-14, Andre Jute wrote:
[...]

Here's the experiment. Ride out on a Sunday morning around dawn or
before. Stop. Wait. Observe the special quality of the ambient
silence. Observe that there is still a very low level of background
hum.
That and the hundreds of birds singing, or don't you have those in
Ireland?

We have birds, but I was up and riding because the f----rs were
gathered before my window cawing for my wife to come feed them, at
least two klicks from this wonderfully silent road.

In fact the birds themselves may sometimes be responding to one's jockey
wheels, relaying the warning message so to speak. Birds do that.

You could try riding in Italy. The Italians are such enthusiastic
blasters-away that even the crows have been annihilated.

--AJ

Italian cities still have a serious pigeon-poop problem.


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

On 2010-06-15, Andre Jute wrote:
On Jun 15, 9:04*am, Ben C wrote:
On 2010-06-14, Andre Jute wrote:
[...]

Here's the experiment. Ride out on a Sunday morning around dawn or
before. Stop. Wait. Observe the special quality of the ambient
silence. Observe that there is still a very low level of background
hum.

That and the hundreds of birds singing, or don't you have those in
Ireland?

We have birds, but I was up and riding because the f----rs were
gathered before my window cawing for my wife to come feed them, at
least two klicks from this wonderfully silent road.

In fact the birds themselves may sometimes be responding to one's jockey
wheels, relaying the warning message so to speak. Birds do that.

You could try riding in Italy. The Italians are such enthusiastic
blasters-away that even the crows have been annihilated.

--AJ

On 14/06/10 12:42, Peter Cole wrote:
Tosspot wrote:

[1] Hands up those that have experienced the eery silence of black ice,
just before the...

Not in memory since I've been using studded tires for a decade or so,
which are hardly silent. They make a distinct crackle noise.

Yes but your weird, I mean, how many people use studded tyres? thinks
How much are they?

Tosspot wrote:
On 14/06/10 12:42, Peter Cole wrote:
Tosspot wrote:

[1] Hands up those that have experienced the eery silence of black ice,
just before the...
Not in memory since I've been using studded tires for a decade or so,
which are hardly silent. They make a distinct crackle noise.

Yes but your weird, I mean, how many people use studded tyres? thinks
How much are they?

No, he's sensible. Mine cost ~$50 each from Peter White. It's nice to
be confident in your bike control while commuting during black-ice weather.

Mark J.

On Jun 15, 8:02*pm, AMuzi wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
On Jun 15, 9:04 am, Ben C wrote:
On 2010-06-14, Andre Jute wrote:
[...]

Here's the experiment. Ride out on a Sunday morning around dawn or
before. Stop. Wait. Observe the special quality of the ambient
silence. Observe that there is still a very low level of background
hum.
That and the hundreds of birds singing, or don't you have those in
Ireland?

We have birds, but I was up and riding because the f----rs were
gathered before my window cawing for my wife to come feed them, at
least two klicks from this wonderfully silent road.

In fact the birds themselves may sometimes be responding to one's jockey
wheels, relaying the warning message so to speak. Birds do that.

You could try riding in Italy. The Italians are such enthusiastic
blasters-away that even the crows have been annihilated.

--AJ

Italian cities still have a serious pigeon-poop problem.

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

That's because cities are the only places the birds are safe. If
Italian municipalities were to declare 1 May a freefire zone in the
cities rather than 1 August in the countryside, they'd soon cure that
problem.

Andre Jute
Magneto Marinelli, Spaghetti Minelli

On Jun 15, 4:21*pm, Brad Anders wrote:
If you want quiet, try using tubeless tires at 85 psig. Amazingly
quiet.

Brad Anders

My bike is silent, period, as my experiment proves. It is the roads
that are loud. The lanes I ride on are pretty rough even when newly
tarmacced.

In any event, my favourite bike was designed (redesigned -- it is a
1935 design thoroughly modernized) from the low pressure Big Apples
upwards. See
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/Andre%20Jute's%20Utopia%20Kranich.pdf
I'm not likely to swap out the cushy comfort of those tyres for a
marginal noise reduction at the cost of a harsh ride.

On my other bikes I have Marathon Plus or Bontrager equivalents,
around 37mm wide, run at 65-80psi, and they are definitely noisier.
And they require sprung forks (choose expensive and harsh or soft and
unreliable) and sprung seatposts and gel grips to isolate me from the
rudeness of the road. I like the Big Apple paradigm *a lot* better. As
a bonus I get lower rolling resistance and actually superior
roadholding with the Big Apples than with the Marathon Plus, while in
my riding conditions the puncture protection (the big, big selling
point of the Plus) seems on a par.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html

Back in my childhood we used to use candle wax and though we were
pretty high tech.


TBerk

Tosspot wrote:
On 14/06/10 12:42, Peter Cole wrote:
Tosspot wrote:

[1] Hands up those that have experienced the eery silence of black ice,
just before the...
Not in memory since I've been using studded tires for a decade or so,
which are hardly silent. They make a distinct crackle noise.

Yes but your weird, I mean, how many people use studded tyres? thinks
How much are they?


Depends on where/when you ride. Studded tires are the only effective way
to deal with black ice. Around here (Boston) black ice isn't all that
common. It usually only appears when a cold snap follows a rain, since
there's usually enough grit around in the winter until it gets washed
away. That's for roads. Bike paths, on the other hand, even those which
get plowed, are never sanded, so the alternating thaw/freeze cycles
leave them pretty icy for most of the winter. For 2 or 3 months,
equipped with studded tires, my wife & I can pretty much have the paths
along the river to ourselves.

Studded tires are expensive, but having bought a couple of pairs around
10 years ago, I think I made a sound investment. With multiple bikes (or
multiple wheel sets), you can continue to ride all winter, using the
studs for those days or routes where ice is likely to be found. Good
studded tires use tungsten carbide studs (like auto studs) and last
virtually forever. Winter cycling is important to me. I find it very
pleasant and I actually do it frequently as there are so few other
activities to compete with it in the cold weather. I think I paid around
$50 a tire. Despite being frugal, studded tires were a no-brainer. In
recent years, I have noticed more people using them -- easily identified
by the crackle.

On some rare days we get ice storms on top of snow cover, thick enough
to support a bike. Under those conditions, the woods become effectively
paved. It's a blue moon thing (maybe once every couple of years) but
with studs it's about the most fun I've ever had on a bike. For thrill
seekers, there's riding on frozen ponds & lakes, but I don't have really
suitable spots nearby, although I will ride the margins (shallow) of the
river if it's been cold long enough.

Studs work best on ice, but are some help on packed snow, particularly
the polished ruts you can get sometimes on back streets. They're heavy
and have lots of rolling resistance (probably as much from the deep
tread as studs), but for winter speeds and distances, that's no big
deal. I know a few locals who have broken bones riding on ice, and I
have a floating bone chip in one elbow from a similar fall, black ice
will take you down before you know what's happening.

Andre Jute wrote, On 6/14/2010 11:33 PM:
On Jun 15, 2:48 am, wrote:

But I'm looking to 'dry lube' during the summer season, that and
upgrade/refurb the crank bearings.

I used White Lightning white wax inside a chaincase. The least you can
say for it is that it is a clean process, making your geartrain a
pleasure to handle. But it didn't make my drivetrain (PC1 chain, cheap
crap, Shimano Nexus/Nexave crank/chainwheel, cheap crap) last all that
much longer than wet lube and I've now switched to Oil of Rohloff,
still inside chaincases. The White Lightning turned out to be
economical because after the first few applications your chain and
gears stay waxy and you use very little new wax. But so is the Oil of
Rohloff, which sticks so well and spreads so well that you use only a
few drops at long intervals (I went from 500m to a 1000m because the
chain was clean enough). -- AJ


http://www.marvelmysteryoil.com/

--

Paul D Oosterhout
I work for SAIC (but I don't speak for SAIC)

On 15/06/10 22:25, Mark J. wrote:
Tosspot wrote:
On 14/06/10 12:42, Peter Cole wrote:
Tosspot wrote:

[1] Hands up those that have experienced the eery silence of black ice,
just before the...
Not in memory since I've been using studded tires for a decade or so,
which are hardly silent. They make a distinct crackle noise.

Yes but your weird, I mean, how many people use studded tyres? thinks
How much are they?

No, he's sensible. Mine cost ~$50 each from Peter White. It's nice to
be confident in your bike control while commuting during black-ice weather.

We get a lot of it here in Germany, but it's generally obvious, that is,
don't ride over the dark bits. Ice-Rain on the other hand, when a warm
front dumps rain onto sub-zero pavements and turns the whole city into
an ice skating rink, well, it happens about once in five years, but
since you can't even walk home, I guess they'd pay for themselves.