Good quality bikes

On 5/31/2021 1:52 AM, pH wrote:
On 2021-05-31, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/30/2021 8:59 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 4:21:31 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 30 May 2021 13:19:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/30/2021 11:04 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Wed, 26 May 2021 12:12:25 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
:


I can understand owning different bikes with greatly different purposes,
e.g. a bike for loaded touring, a bike for trails in the woods, a bike
for getting groceries, a folding bike for traveling.

But I don't understand owning several bikes for "fast" riding,
especially if a person is too old or two slow to compete in actual races.

This isn't an either/or-situation. One of my sons owns und uses two
bikes for fast riding, both of the racing type. He doesn't compete in
actutal races and doesn't compete at all. For doing more than 100 km for
visiting us here, he needs a decent bike, though. A well maintained
and well equiped racing bike is a perfect fit for that purpose.

On the other hand, living in a large town means not having much choice
for parking a bicycle when riding around, so he uses a racing bike for
that purpose too, but a different one. It is an old racing bike,
somewhat worn, he bought it cheaply. Good enough for getting around,
light enough to carry it around, but expendable enough for taking the
risk of chaining it to a lamp post with a simple lock. A racing bike is
a perfect fit for that purpose, too.

I can understand that strategy. Those bikes are serving different
purposes and chosen accordingly: one is used for long fast rides where
he will never leave it alone, and the other is a much more expendable
"just getting around" or "beater" bike.

That's different than a person saying "Hmm. I'm going to do a quick
100km ride. Should I take the red one with Shimano, or the green one
with Campy, or the black one with SRAM?" At some point, too much
similarity equals useless duplication.

I'm not saying it should be illegal, but it seems strange to me.
You (and I) are undoubtedly too old to understand. After all we grew
up with only one bicycle and somehow "made do" with that one bike
whether we wanted to ride downtown to the "movies", deliver the
newspaper to earn a bit of money, or even in one case I knew about,
ride out in the pasture to herd the cows home for milking.

What we didn't realize was that we were "deprived" and had we had more
then one bicycle we would have grown up as better people. Had you been
the owner of a multitude of bicycles who knows how far you would have
gone. Even all the way to the top of the heap there in Washington
might have been possible.

You see, modern Americans really do need many bicycles. I mean, what
would the neighbors think... only one bike? Goodness, perhaps they've
lost their job?
--
Cheers,

John B.

What a load of sentimental nonsense. We're not a bunch of ten year-olds doomed to our single balloon tire bike to deliver newspapers a three AM in the driving snow, our fingers bleeding -- having to turn over our meager collections to Mr. Fagan, the evil manager for Olde Tyme News.

We're adults, and we can buy as many bikes as we want, and many -- if not most -- of us have more than one bike. IIRC, you have more than one bike. Frank has more than one bike. Who here as only one bike?

Again, I'm not questioning multiple bikes per se. I'm questioning
multiple bikes that are near duplicates and used for the same type of
riding.

For many years, I had one bike, a "sport touring" Raleigh Super Course.
In my view, that basic design is acceptable for many purposes, although
these days people would want much fancier components. I used it for slow
to fast recreational riding, centuries, a couple low-level road races,
some time trials, some fairly long tours, shopping and commuting. Heck,
even some riding on forest trails.

I suppose we could discuss how many different types of riding we each
do, what type of bike would be best for each, and how much better each
type would be compared to a general purpose bike.


One bike?!!?

Wow, one might as well have only one Coleman stove...or lantern.
Unthinkable!

I think I have around 35 lanters--stop me before I restore again! and
something like 7 stoves (not all Coleman, but don't tell).

I have a Tour Easy recumbent and my good old 1980's Cannondale touring style
frame.
It also appears that my daughter has returned/abandoned the old Mountain
bike I gave her (Specialized Rock Combo, I think?)
Maybe I'll put a bafang on that.

I'd still like to hear from people with experience with Bafang add-on
e-drives. My friend is very unhappy with hers, and I've still been
unable to find a user's manual online. I've gotten no help from Bafang
USA or bafang-e.com

Perhaps an hour or two browsing the settings will help, but she's quite
a distance away from here. I'd prefer to have some guidance ahead of time.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 5/31/2021 4:40 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/31/2021 1:52 AM, pH wrote:
On 2021-05-31, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On 5/30/2021 8:59 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 4:21:31 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 30 May 2021 13:19:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/30/2021 11:04 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Wed, 26 May 2021 12:12:25 -0400 schrieb Frank
Krygowski
:


I can understand owning different bikes with greatly
different purposes,
e.g. a bike for loaded touring, a bike for trails in
the woods, a bike
for getting groceries, a folding bike for traveling.

But I don't understand owning several bikes for
"fast" riding,
especially if a person is too old or two slow to
compete in actual races.

This isn't an either/or-situation. One of my sons
owns und uses two
bikes for fast riding, both of the racing type. He
doesn't compete in
actutal races and doesn't compete at all. For doing
more than 100 km for
visiting us here, he needs a decent bike, though. A
well maintained
and well equiped racing bike is a perfect fit for
that purpose.

On the other hand, living in a large town means not
having much choice
for parking a bicycle when riding around, so he uses
a racing bike for
that purpose too, but a different one. It is an old
racing bike,
somewhat worn, he bought it cheaply. Good enough for
getting around,
light enough to carry it around, but expendable
enough for taking the
risk of chaining it to a lamp post with a simple
lock. A racing bike is
a perfect fit for that purpose, too.

I can understand that strategy. Those bikes are
serving different
purposes and chosen accordingly: one is used for long
fast rides where
he will never leave it alone, and the other is a much
more expendable
"just getting around" or "beater" bike.

That's different than a person saying "Hmm. I'm going
to do a quick
100km ride. Should I take the red one with Shimano, or
the green one
with Campy, or the black one with SRAM?" At some
point, too much
similarity equals useless duplication.

I'm not saying it should be illegal, but it seems
strange to me.
You (and I) are undoubtedly too old to understand.
After all we grew
up with only one bicycle and somehow "made do" with
that one bike
whether we wanted to ride downtown to the "movies",
deliver the
newspaper to earn a bit of money, or even in one case I
knew about,
ride out in the pasture to herd the cows home for milking.

What we didn't realize was that we were "deprived" and
had we had more
then one bicycle we would have grown up as better
people. Had you been
the owner of a multitude of bicycles who knows how far
you would have
gone. Even all the way to the top of the heap there in
Washington
might have been possible.

You see, modern Americans really do need many bicycles.
I mean, what
would the neighbors think... only one bike? Goodness,
perhaps they've
lost their job?
--
Cheers,

John B.

What a load of sentimental nonsense. We're not a bunch
of ten year-olds doomed to our single balloon tire bike
to deliver newspapers a three AM in the driving snow,
our fingers bleeding -- having to turn over our meager
collections to Mr. Fagan, the evil manager for Olde Tyme
News.

We're adults, and we can buy as many bikes as we want,
and many -- if not most -- of us have more than one
bike. IIRC, you have more than one bike. Frank has
more than one bike. Who here as only one bike?

Again, I'm not questioning multiple bikes per se. I'm
questioning
multiple bikes that are near duplicates and used for the
same type of
riding.

For many years, I had one bike, a "sport touring" Raleigh
Super Course.
In my view, that basic design is acceptable for many
purposes, although
these days people would want much fancier components. I
used it for slow
to fast recreational riding, centuries, a couple
low-level road races,
some time trials, some fairly long tours, shopping and
commuting. Heck,
even some riding on forest trails.

I suppose we could discuss how many different types of
riding we each
do, what type of bike would be best for each, and how
much better each
type would be compared to a general purpose bike.


One bike?!!?

Wow, one might as well have only one Coleman stove...or
lantern.
Unthinkable!

I think I have around 35 lanters--stop me before I restore
again! and
something like 7 stoves (not all Coleman, but don't tell).

I have a Tour Easy recumbent and my good old 1980's
Cannondale touring style
frame.
It also appears that my daughter has returned/abandoned
the old Mountain
bike I gave her (Specialized Rock Combo, I think?)
Maybe I'll put a bafang on that.

I'd still like to hear from people with experience with
Bafang add-on e-drives. My friend is very unhappy with hers,
and I've still been unable to find a user's manual online.
I've gotten no help from Bafang USA or bafang-e.com

Perhaps an hour or two browsing the settings will help, but
she's quite a distance away from here. I'd prefer to have
some guidance ahead of time.



For any service beyond a flat tire, you want it to be
Panasonic or Bosch. Everything else sucks.

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

On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 12:45:29 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
The Airborne looks like it will be about a half lb less weight than the Trek Emonda in the same size. One might suppose that the Trek might be more Aero but like the Airborne, it has large diameter tubes that had no attempt at being aero in design. Also one would have to question whether small diameter round steel tubes are less aero than the much larger diameter of, say, the Pinarello frameset. I can't say that I ever noticed any difference between the late Basso Loto I had and the Trek Madone which was supposedly quite aero.

Of course I'm not a pro rider and I very seldom even approach the speeds that the pros commonly get in the peloton.

But isn't that the entire point of Aero? To give you that very small gain when you ride at those sorts of speeds all day long? You sure as hell aren't going to put out these sorts of power and my entire reason for posting this is to tell you that you sure as hell aren't going to gain enough to even consider spending large amounts of money on a fantasy bike to make it worth your while.

Another point - Components are now more expensive than good frames. But China is invading that space as well. You can get a Sensah 11 speed group complete for $200. They have been working their way up from not very reliable and seem to have now hit a high enough reliability standard that I will give them a test. The failure points seem to be the levers on the previous versions but that supposedly has been reengineered to be reliable. And if it weren't so you could always buy SRAM levers which have the same pull ratio and we know that those levers are reliable. And you would still save a pile of money. I'll see after I get rid of all of my extraneous bikes.

I wish bikes would achieve at least the quality of a cheap car. But they
don't and that includes expensive stuff. Every few hundred miles
something needs maintenance, wears out of needs service. Our cars go
tens of thousands of miles without a lick of trouble, all they needs is
an oil change every 4000-5000mi.

Yesterday the MicroShift derailer on the road bike began biting the
dust. The freehub is announcing its demise as well. Same for the bottom
bracket which began noise messaging, again. For both I bought the most
expensive ones from Shimano that I could find and that would fit. Not
going to do that again.

And don't get me started on tires. Hurumph, grumble.

Your bike has to be built light enough to be powered by a human being over long distances. Your car is not limited to the small percentage of one horsepower and so everything can be made far more heavy, and reliable.

On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 3:32:27 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 12:45:29 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
The Airborne looks like it will be about a half lb less weight than the Trek Emonda in the same size. One might suppose that the Trek might be more Aero but like the Airborne, it has large diameter tubes that had no attempt at being aero in design. Also one would have to question whether small diameter round steel tubes are less aero than the much larger diameter of, say, the Pinarello frameset. I can't say that I ever noticed any difference between the late Basso Loto I had and the Trek Madone which was supposedly quite aero.

Of course I'm not a pro rider and I very seldom even approach the speeds that the pros commonly get in the peloton.

But isn't that the entire point of Aero? To give you that very small gain when you ride at those sorts of speeds all day long? You sure as hell aren't going to put out these sorts of power and my entire reason for posting this is to tell you that you sure as hell aren't going to gain enough to even consider spending large amounts of money on a fantasy bike to make it worth your while.

Another point - Components are now more expensive than good frames. But China is invading that space as well. You can get a Sensah 11 speed group complete for $200. They have been working their way up from not very reliable and seem to have now hit a high enough reliability standard that I will give them a test. The failure points seem to be the levers on the previous versions but that supposedly has been reengineered to be reliable. And if it weren't so you could always buy SRAM levers which have the same pull ratio and we know that those levers are reliable. And you would still save a pile of money. I'll see after I get rid of all of my extraneous bikes.

I wish bikes would achieve at least the quality of a cheap car. But they
don't and that includes expensive stuff. Every few hundred miles
something needs maintenance, wears out of needs service. Our cars go
tens of thousands of miles without a lick of trouble, all they needs is
an oil change every 4000-5000mi.

Yesterday the MicroShift derailer on the road bike began biting the
dust. The freehub is announcing its demise as well. Same for the bottom
bracket which began noise messaging, again. For both I bought the most
expensive ones from Shimano that I could find and that would fit. Not
going to do that again.

And don't get me started on tires. Hurumph, grumble.
Your bike has to be built light enough to be powered by a human being over long distances. Your car is not limited to the small percentage of one horsepower and so everything can be made far more heavy, and reliable.

Joerg can get closer to the durability of an inexpensive car, but it will cost as much as an inexpensive car -- like a Rohloff Speedhub with a 6 speed chain. With the ebike tire market going great guns, there are plenty of durable tires on the market (that ride like rocks). Joerg has a sketchy transmission on his road bike, and it could be improved -- or he could dump the museum piece and buy a https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...alr-5/p/24385/ Great value. Or https://www.specialized.com/us/en/di...ext=96220-4044. There are lots of better options than a 40 year old sport racing bike for riding in the Sierra foothills.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 3:54:41 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 3:32:27 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 12:45:29 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
The Airborne looks like it will be about a half lb less weight than the Trek Emonda in the same size. One might suppose that the Trek might be more Aero but like the Airborne, it has large diameter tubes that had no attempt at being aero in design. Also one would have to question whether small diameter round steel tubes are less aero than the much larger diameter of, say, the Pinarello frameset. I can't say that I ever noticed any difference between the late Basso Loto I had and the Trek Madone which was supposedly quite aero.

Of course I'm not a pro rider and I very seldom even approach the speeds that the pros commonly get in the peloton.

But isn't that the entire point of Aero? To give you that very small gain when you ride at those sorts of speeds all day long? You sure as hell aren't going to put out these sorts of power and my entire reason for posting this is to tell you that you sure as hell aren't going to gain enough to even consider spending large amounts of money on a fantasy bike to make it worth your while.

Another point - Components are now more expensive than good frames. But China is invading that space as well. You can get a Sensah 11 speed group complete for $200. They have been working their way up from not very reliable and seem to have now hit a high enough reliability standard that I will give them a test. The failure points seem to be the levers on the previous versions but that supposedly has been reengineered to be reliable. And if it weren't so you could always buy SRAM levers which have the same pull ratio and we know that those levers are reliable. And you would still save a pile of money. I'll see after I get rid of all of my extraneous bikes.

I wish bikes would achieve at least the quality of a cheap car. But they
don't and that includes expensive stuff. Every few hundred miles
something needs maintenance, wears out of needs service. Our cars go
tens of thousands of miles without a lick of trouble, all they needs is
an oil change every 4000-5000mi.

Yesterday the MicroShift derailer on the road bike began biting the
dust. The freehub is announcing its demise as well. Same for the bottom
bracket which began noise messaging, again. For both I bought the most
expensive ones from Shimano that I could find and that would fit. Not
going to do that again.

And don't get me started on tires. Hurumph, grumble.
Your bike has to be built light enough to be powered by a human being over long distances. Your car is not limited to the small percentage of one horsepower and so everything can be made far more heavy, and reliable.
Joerg can get closer to the durability of an inexpensive car, but it will cost as much as an inexpensive car -- like a Rohloff Speedhub with a 6 speed chain. With the ebike tire market going great guns, there are plenty of durable tires on the market (that ride like rocks). Joerg has a sketchy transmission on his road bike, and it could be improved -- or he could dump the museum piece and buy a https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...alr-5/p/24385/ Great value. Or https://www.specialized.com/us/en/di...ext=96220-4044. There are lots of better options than a 40 year old sport racing bike for riding in the Sierra foothills.
Well, I don't think that you could characterize either of those two as reliable. But the aluminum Ridley cyclcross bikes most definitely are and their handling characteristics is probably more in line of Joerg's expectations than the Specialized which handles like a frightened mouse.

On Mon, 31 May 2021 12:45:24 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
The Airborne looks like it will be about a half lb less weight than the Trek Emonda in the same size. One might suppose that the Trek might be more Aero but like the Airborne, it has large diameter tubes that had no attempt at being aero in design. Also one would have to question whether small diameter round steel tubes are less aero than the much larger diameter of, say, the Pinarello frameset. I can't say that I ever noticed any difference between the late Basso Loto I had and the Trek Madone which was supposedly quite aero.

Of course I'm not a pro rider and I very seldom even approach the speeds that the pros commonly get in the peloton.

But isn't that the entire point of Aero? To give you that very small gain when you ride at those sorts of speeds all day long? You sure as hell aren't going to put out these sorts of power and my entire reason for posting this is to tell you that you sure as hell aren't going to gain enough to even consider spending large amounts of money on a fantasy bike to make it worth your while.

Another point - Components are now more expensive than good frames. But China is invading that space as well. You can get a Sensah 11 speed group complete for $200. They have been working their way up from not very reliable and seem to have now hit a high enough reliability standard that I will give them a test. The failure points seem to be the levers on the previous versions but that supposedly has been reengineered to be reliable. And if it weren't so you could always buy SRAM levers which have the same pull ratio and we know that those levers are reliable. And you would still save a pile of money. I'll see after I get rid of all of my extraneous bikes.


I wish bikes would achieve at least the quality of a cheap car. But they
don't and that includes expensive stuff. Every few hundred miles
something needs maintenance, wears out of needs service. Our cars go
tens of thousands of miles without a lick of trouble, all they needs is
an oil change every 4000-5000mi.

Yesterday the MicroShift derailer on the road bike began biting the
dust. The freehub is announcing its demise as well. Same for the bottom
bracket which began noise messaging, again. For both I bought the most
expensive ones from Shimano that I could find and that would fit. Not
going to do that again.

And don't get me started on tires. Hurumph, grumble.

Well, this has been discussed before buy I would suggest (again) that
if you are willing to pay as much for a bicycle as you do for your
auto then it is highly likely that you will be able to get one that
will last practically for ever.

But you are the guy that brags about using the cheapest tires that you
can get, aren't you?
--
Cheers,

John B.

On 5/31/2021 6:54 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 3:32:27 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 12:45:29 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
The Airborne looks like it will be about a half lb less weight than the Trek Emonda in the same size. One might suppose that the Trek might be more Aero but like the Airborne, it has large diameter tubes that had no attempt at being aero in design. Also one would have to question whether small diameter round steel tubes are less aero than the much larger diameter of, say, the Pinarello frameset. I can't say that I ever noticed any difference between the late Basso Loto I had and the Trek Madone which was supposedly quite aero.

Of course I'm not a pro rider and I very seldom even approach the speeds that the pros commonly get in the peloton.

But isn't that the entire point of Aero? To give you that very small gain when you ride at those sorts of speeds all day long? You sure as hell aren't going to put out these sorts of power and my entire reason for posting this is to tell you that you sure as hell aren't going to gain enough to even consider spending large amounts of money on a fantasy bike to make it worth your while.

Another point - Components are now more expensive than good frames. But China is invading that space as well. You can get a Sensah 11 speed group complete for $200. They have been working their way up from not very reliable and seem to have now hit a high enough reliability standard that I will give them a test. The failure points seem to be the levers on the previous versions but that supposedly has been reengineered to be reliable. And if it weren't so you could always buy SRAM levers which have the same pull ratio and we know that those levers are reliable. And you would still save a pile of money. I'll see after I get rid of all of my extraneous bikes.

I wish bikes would achieve at least the quality of a cheap car. But they
don't and that includes expensive stuff. Every few hundred miles
something needs maintenance, wears out of needs service. Our cars go
tens of thousands of miles without a lick of trouble, all they needs is
an oil change every 4000-5000mi.

Yesterday the MicroShift derailer on the road bike began biting the
dust. The freehub is announcing its demise as well. Same for the bottom
bracket which began noise messaging, again. For both I bought the most
expensive ones from Shimano that I could find and that would fit. Not
going to do that again.

And don't get me started on tires. Hurumph, grumble.
Your bike has to be built light enough to be powered by a human being over long distances. Your car is not limited to the small percentage of one horsepower and so everything can be made far more heavy, and reliable.

Joerg can get closer to the durability of an inexpensive car, but it will cost as much as an inexpensive car -- like a Rohloff Speedhub with a 6 speed chain. With the ebike tire market going great guns, there are plenty of durable tires on the market (that ride like rocks). Joerg has a sketchy transmission on his road bike, and it could be improved -- or he could dump the museum piece and buy a https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...alr-5/p/24385/ Great value. Or https://www.specialized.com/us/en/di...ext=96220-4044. There are lots of better options than a 40 year old sport racing bike for riding in the Sierra foothills.

Do you think the chain and cogs would last long enough to satisfy Joerg?

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 4:27:34 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/31/2021 6:54 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 3:32:27 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 12:45:29 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
The Airborne looks like it will be about a half lb less weight than the Trek Emonda in the same size. One might suppose that the Trek might be more Aero but like the Airborne, it has large diameter tubes that had no attempt at being aero in design. Also one would have to question whether small diameter round steel tubes are less aero than the much larger diameter of, say, the Pinarello frameset. I can't say that I ever noticed any difference between the late Basso Loto I had and the Trek Madone which was supposedly quite aero.

Of course I'm not a pro rider and I very seldom even approach the speeds that the pros commonly get in the peloton.

But isn't that the entire point of Aero? To give you that very small gain when you ride at those sorts of speeds all day long? You sure as hell aren't going to put out these sorts of power and my entire reason for posting this is to tell you that you sure as hell aren't going to gain enough to even consider spending large amounts of money on a fantasy bike to make it worth your while.

Another point - Components are now more expensive than good frames. But China is invading that space as well. You can get a Sensah 11 speed group complete for $200. They have been working their way up from not very reliable and seem to have now hit a high enough reliability standard that I will give them a test. The failure points seem to be the levers on the previous versions but that supposedly has been reengineered to be reliable. And if it weren't so you could always buy SRAM levers which have the same pull ratio and we know that those levers are reliable. And you would still save a pile of money. I'll see after I get rid of all of my extraneous bikes.

I wish bikes would achieve at least the quality of a cheap car. But they
don't and that includes expensive stuff. Every few hundred miles
something needs maintenance, wears out of needs service. Our cars go
tens of thousands of miles without a lick of trouble, all they needs is
an oil change every 4000-5000mi.

Yesterday the MicroShift derailer on the road bike began biting the
dust. The freehub is announcing its demise as well. Same for the bottom
bracket which began noise messaging, again. For both I bought the most
expensive ones from Shimano that I could find and that would fit. Not
going to do that again.

And don't get me started on tires. Hurumph, grumble.
Your bike has to be built light enough to be powered by a human being over long distances. Your car is not limited to the small percentage of one horsepower and so everything can be made far more heavy, and reliable.

Joerg can get closer to the durability of an inexpensive car, but it will cost as much as an inexpensive car -- like a Rohloff Speedhub with a 6 speed chain. With the ebike tire market going great guns, there are plenty of durable tires on the market (that ride like rocks). Joerg has a sketchy transmission on his road bike, and it could be improved -- or he could dump the museum piece and buy a https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...alr-5/p/24385/ Great value. Or https://www.specialized.com/us/en/di...ext=96220-4044. There are lots of better options than a 40 year old sport racing bike for riding in the Sierra foothills.
Do you think the chain and cogs would last long enough to satisfy Joerg?

No. I just picked a couple of budget bikes that would be appropriate for the kind of riding he's doing. He'd have to spend more than twice as much to get a Speedhub/6sp chain set up -- or he could just get a Checkpoint or Diverge aluminum frame and build a nice 3X6, although that would mean downgrading to cable discs, which still work fine. Getting along on a sport racing bike seems odd. There are also a lot of nice steel options. I always liked the Soma Fog Cutter, too. https://www.somafab.com/archives/pro...tter-frame-set There are many other steel options. He could buy that Thorn that Andre posted.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Mon, 31 May 2021 17:40:32 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/31/2021 1:52 AM, pH wrote:
On 2021-05-31, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 5/30/2021 8:59 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 4:21:31 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 30 May 2021 13:19:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/30/2021 11:04 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Wed, 26 May 2021 12:12:25 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
:


I can understand owning different bikes with greatly different purposes,
e.g. a bike for loaded touring, a bike for trails in the woods, a bike
for getting groceries, a folding bike for traveling.

But I don't understand owning several bikes for "fast" riding,
especially if a person is too old or two slow to compete in actual races.

This isn't an either/or-situation. One of my sons owns und uses two
bikes for fast riding, both of the racing type. He doesn't compete in
actutal races and doesn't compete at all. For doing more than 100 km for
visiting us here, he needs a decent bike, though. A well maintained
and well equiped racing bike is a perfect fit for that purpose.

On the other hand, living in a large town means not having much choice
for parking a bicycle when riding around, so he uses a racing bike for
that purpose too, but a different one. It is an old racing bike,
somewhat worn, he bought it cheaply. Good enough for getting around,
light enough to carry it around, but expendable enough for taking the
risk of chaining it to a lamp post with a simple lock. A racing bike is
a perfect fit for that purpose, too.

I can understand that strategy. Those bikes are serving different
purposes and chosen accordingly: one is used for long fast rides where
he will never leave it alone, and the other is a much more expendable
"just getting around" or "beater" bike.

That's different than a person saying "Hmm. I'm going to do a quick
100km ride. Should I take the red one with Shimano, or the green one
with Campy, or the black one with SRAM?" At some point, too much
similarity equals useless duplication.

I'm not saying it should be illegal, but it seems strange to me.
You (and I) are undoubtedly too old to understand. After all we grew
up with only one bicycle and somehow "made do" with that one bike
whether we wanted to ride downtown to the "movies", deliver the
newspaper to earn a bit of money, or even in one case I knew about,
ride out in the pasture to herd the cows home for milking.

What we didn't realize was that we were "deprived" and had we had more
then one bicycle we would have grown up as better people. Had you been
the owner of a multitude of bicycles who knows how far you would have
gone. Even all the way to the top of the heap there in Washington
might have been possible.

You see, modern Americans really do need many bicycles. I mean, what
would the neighbors think... only one bike? Goodness, perhaps they've
lost their job?
--
Cheers,

John B.

What a load of sentimental nonsense. We're not a bunch of ten year-olds doomed to our single balloon tire bike to deliver newspapers a three AM in the driving snow, our fingers bleeding -- having to turn over our meager collections to Mr. Fagan, the evil manager for Olde Tyme News.

We're adults, and we can buy as many bikes as we want, and many -- if not most -- of us have more than one bike. IIRC, you have more than one bike. Frank has more than one bike. Who here as only one bike?

Again, I'm not questioning multiple bikes per se. I'm questioning
multiple bikes that are near duplicates and used for the same type of
riding.

For many years, I had one bike, a "sport touring" Raleigh Super Course.
In my view, that basic design is acceptable for many purposes, although
these days people would want much fancier components. I used it for slow
to fast recreational riding, centuries, a couple low-level road races,
some time trials, some fairly long tours, shopping and commuting. Heck,
even some riding on forest trails.

I suppose we could discuss how many different types of riding we each
do, what type of bike would be best for each, and how much better each
type would be compared to a general purpose bike.


One bike?!!?

Wow, one might as well have only one Coleman stove...or lantern.
Unthinkable!

I think I have around 35 lanters--stop me before I restore again! and
something like 7 stoves (not all Coleman, but don't tell).

I have a Tour Easy recumbent and my good old 1980's Cannondale touring style
frame.
It also appears that my daughter has returned/abandoned the old Mountain
bike I gave her (Specialized Rock Combo, I think?)
Maybe I'll put a bafang on that.

I'd still like to hear from people with experience with Bafang add-on
e-drives. My friend is very unhappy with hers, and I've still been
unable to find a user's manual online. I've gotten no help from Bafang
USA or bafang-e.com

Perhaps an hour or two browsing the settings will help, but she's quite
a distance away from here. I'd prefer to have some guidance ahead of time.

You didn't say what Bafang model but try
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/00...C18-EN.pdf?107
or
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/00...ebikes.pdf?112

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 31 May 2021 19:27:27 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/31/2021 6:54 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 3:32:27 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, May 31, 2021 at 12:45:29 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 5/25/21 10:38 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
The Airborne looks like it will be about a half lb less weight than the Trek Emonda in the same size. One might suppose that the Trek might be more Aero but like the Airborne, it has large diameter tubes that had no attempt at being aero in design. Also one would have to question whether small diameter round steel tubes are less aero than the much larger diameter of, say, the Pinarello frameset. I can't say that I ever noticed any difference between the late Basso Loto I had and the Trek Madone which was supposedly quite aero.

Of course I'm not a pro rider and I very seldom even approach the speeds that the pros commonly get in the peloton.

But isn't that the entire point of Aero? To give you that very small gain when you ride at those sorts of speeds all day long? You sure as hell aren't going to put out these sorts of power and my entire reason for posting this is to tell you that you sure as hell aren't going to gain enough to even consider spending large amounts of money on a fantasy bike to make it worth your while.

Another point - Components are now more expensive than good frames. But China is invading that space as well. You can get a Sensah 11 speed group complete for $200. They have been working their way up from not very reliable and seem to have now hit a high enough reliability standard that I will give them a test. The failure points seem to be the levers on the previous versions but that supposedly has been reengineered to be reliable. And if it weren't so you could always buy SRAM levers which have the same pull ratio and we know that those levers are reliable. And you would still save a pile of money. I'll see after I get rid of all of my extraneous bikes.

I wish bikes would achieve at least the quality of a cheap car. But they
don't and that includes expensive stuff. Every few hundred miles
something needs maintenance, wears out of needs service. Our cars go
tens of thousands of miles without a lick of trouble, all they needs is
an oil change every 4000-5000mi.

Yesterday the MicroShift derailer on the road bike began biting the
dust. The freehub is announcing its demise as well. Same for the bottom
bracket which began noise messaging, again. For both I bought the most
expensive ones from Shimano that I could find and that would fit. Not
going to do that again.

And don't get me started on tires. Hurumph, grumble.
Your bike has to be built light enough to be powered by a human being over long distances. Your car is not limited to the small percentage of one horsepower and so everything can be made far more heavy, and reliable.

Joerg can get closer to the durability of an inexpensive car, but it will cost as much as an inexpensive car -- like a Rohloff Speedhub with a 6 speed chain. With the ebike tire market going great guns, there are plenty of durable tires on the market (that ride like rocks). Joerg has a sketchy transmission on his road bike, and it could be improved -- or he could dump the museum piece and buy a https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...alr-5/p/24385/ Great value. Or https://www.specialized.com/us/en/di...ext=96220-4044. There are lots of better options than a 40 year old sport racing bike for riding in the Sierra foothills.

Do you think the chain and cogs would last long enough to satisfy Joerg?

Probably not but if you allocated the cost of a new car to buying and
maintaining a bicycle I suggest that at the end of ten years there
would be money left over to buy another new bicycle.
--
Cheers,

John B.