How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?

wrote in message
...

Where did you get this queer notion that a simple bicycle
must be expensive to be any good? Have you been reading too many bike
catalogs and believing all of the advertising? Apparently so.

It's not that a simple bike needs to be expensive to be good, it's that a
cheap bike often is no good. Take a look at these

http://www.sterlinghouse.co.uk/beatcredit.php?tfoid=9

Some people have - and their tales are pretty damning. I hear Walmart bikes
are notoriously similar.

Move up out of that lowest end cheapness and you'll get into something which
is not expensive, yet will be ok. And that's what Peter was saying.

On Jan 16, 8:32*am, Peter Clinch wrote:
wrote:
On Jan 15, 7:30 pm, !Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:00:42 -0800 (PST), in alt.war.vietnam
You can buy a $70 bike at walmart, target, kmart. they'll ride fine
and can be used to commute.
Oh, in today's market, methinks I'd budget about $500 or so for a
decent commuter. *Then about half again for the racks, fenders, and
panniers... those accesories ain't cheap!

Jones- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

So you would pay $750 when you could pay $70. *The world is full of
crazy and queer fools.

A $70 might ride fine for, oooh, whole days before it starts showing why
it cost $70. *If you want something that rides fine (a value of "fine"
that is *much* finer than the $70 Bicycle Shaped Object), and continues
to ride fine, and doesn't cover you in a stream of cack when the road is
wet, and carries luggage comfortably mounted on the bike rather than
uncomfortably on you, and doesn't have the wheels go out of true any
time you hit a big bump, etc., etc., etc. then you'll pay the higher price.

The point of money is you can throw it at things to make them better.

I guess your car of choice is a 20 year old Yugo or the like? *After
all, they're really cheap, and they go.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch * * * * * * * * * *Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 * Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 * * * * * * *Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net * *http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Many years ago, when I started riding , I had a sears bike. It was one
of those cheapie $50.00 bike. For around campus and city commuting it
was more than fine. In fact, tons of students rode and ride those
bikes for their entire careers. Of course I graduated to fancier
bikes. But I made cycling into the sport that I like. But, I've seen
people with dept store bikes that they ride quite a long time. Once
you tasted bike shop stuff, you may not want to go back to department
store stuff. But it still works.

In article ,
!Jones' Sock Puppet writes:
Actually, I kinda *like* men in tight, black panties... but, my
question has always been: How do you wear that stuff in public and
keep a straight face?

Generous crotch-stuffing.

And they're called "shorts," not "panties." I hardly ever see
male riders in tight, black panties. But then, I don't visit
that part of town (good bistros & patio/al fresca dining, but
too much car traffic. And too much "club" music, and not enough
good ol', boot-stompin' rock 'n roll.)

You forgot to address the leg-shaving thing. Some of those
triathlon guys could use a little armpit maintenance, too.

There /are/ these Andiamo[tm] undergarments than can be worn
under more conventional (and modest) shorts or whatever.
Or you can be like me, and develop a tough ass by only sitting
on hard chairs, and avoiding soft sofas, recliners or anything
that makes you grunt with effort when you try to extract
yourself of it.

Keep a straight face? Try doing a 60+ miler in your Fruit Of The
Looms & Levis, and keeping a straight (i.e: non-grimacing) face.
Actually, I could pull it off, 'cuz I'm such a skinny guy and
the clothing seams aren't in the wrong places on me, and I don't
sweat much. But anyone whose thighs slap together as they pedal
won't stand a chance. Think zinc.


cheers,
Tom

--
Welcome to Vancouver East. Expect no mercy.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:56:20 GMT, in alt.war.vietnam Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

In fairness to the company (if not the rep's math skills) you'd have to
know how many of the seats were used successfully. With that
information, you can calculate how much of a pilot's life each seat
saves.

I think that it was based on the point at which the seat would become
so expensive that their prodouct would lose out to their competitor.
I recall that it was a pilot's survivors who brought the suit claiming
that their "save rate" could have been increased had they been willing
to have spent the money. The defendants' position was: "True, but
your loved one wouldn't have been sitting in one of our seats had we
done so."

My older brother was killed in one of those seats in a level-flight
ejection from an F4 in late 1967, so I watched with some interest.
EscaPack won.

Jones

In article ],
Ryan Cousineau writes:
In article ,
!Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:32:24 +0000, in alt.war.vietnam Peter Clinch
wrote:

The point of money is you can throw it at things to make them better.

I don't disagree completely. My point is that there is a fairly wide
range of acceptance. I would suggest that a $200 bicycle is much
better than a $100 bicycle; I would flatulate further that this
principle applies to many consumer devices from kitchen mixers to
electronics. As the price grows without bound, the marginal gain
tends to flatten... i.e., adding another C-note to the $500 bicycle
doesn't give me as great of an improvement as it did with the $100
machine.

The point of inflection of that marginal curve is somewhat subjective.
OTOH, it certainly exists in all things.

Consider an ejection seat in a high-performance aircraft: you can't
get a 100% save rate... most of them run about 60% to 70%. If I'm
willing to double the cost, I might push that up to 80% (just
guessing); however, the air force would go buy my competitor's seat!
Actually, there was a lawsuit over just that against a company who
built the "Esca-Pack" ejection seats back in the early '80s. One of
the lawyers asked a company rep: "How much is a pilot's life worth?"
He replied: "Sir, a pilot's life is worth 72,395 dollars and 72
cents." That was the calculated point of marginal inflection beyond
which they couldn't sell their seats.

Jones

In fairness to the company (if not the rep's math skills) you'd have to
know how many of the seats were used successfully. With that
information, you can calculate how much of a pilot's life each seat
saves.

This whole thread is oh so obviously an invocation of Fabrizio.

But I guess he's too busy, training in the Bolivian Andes or some
other far-flung & exotic place, like Pitt Meadows, or Maple Ridge
(which used to be known as: Haney. That was before Maple Ridge
became exotic.)


cheers, & long live the Wild Duck Inn,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

wrote:

A $70 bike can ride quite well for quite a length of time. Its
apparent you do not understand the bicycle is a very simple machine.
Nothing complicated about it.

Indeed, but just because it's simple deosn't mean it isn't subject
to being better if you spend more on quality mechanical engineering.

Ball bearings are about as simple as engineering gets. That
doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained from using higher quality
ones.

You can make a very cheap one that runs
quite well. Where did you get this queer notion that a simple bicycle
must be expensive to be any good?

It's not a case of "must", but having ridden a lot of cheap ones in
my time, and quite a few expensive ones, it's direct empirical
evidence that the expensive ones ride better for longer.

Have you been reading too many bike
catalogs and believing all of the advertising? Apparently so.

No, just riding the things.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

wrote:

Once
you tasted bike shop stuff, you may not want to go back to department
store stuff. But it still works.

Not disputed. But while "works" is an acceptable value of "rides
fine" for a lot of people it's also possible to see it as "minimum
acceptable level" while "rides fine", rather than just "rides", is
quite a bit better.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In article ,
Peter Clinch writes:
wrote:

A $70 bike can ride quite well for quite a length of time. Its
apparent you do not understand the bicycle is a very simple machine.
Nothing complicated about it.

Indeed, but just because it's simple deosn't mean it isn't subject
to being better if you spend more on quality mechanical engineering.

Ball bearings are about as simple as engineering gets. That
doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained from using higher quality
ones.

You can make a very cheap one that runs
quite well. Where did you get this queer notion that a simple bicycle
must be expensive to be any good?

It's not a case of "must", but having ridden a lot of cheap ones in
my time, and quite a few expensive ones, it's direct empirical
evidence that the expensive ones ride better for longer.

Have you been reading too many bike
catalogs and believing all of the advertising? Apparently so.

No, just riding the things.

Anyways, in the latter/post days of the so-called "Energy Crisis"
and the ensuing Bike Boom of the '70s, I amassed a considerable
fleet of Apollo road-style bikes imported here from Japan.
As I recall, their retail price was well over $200 Cdn at the
time. I was paying $125/month rent for a basement suite, and
my salary was around $500 canadian bux/month.

Those Apollos were good bikes, and many of them are in service
to this day. I never bought a new one. People would buy one,
use it for less than a month, and then decide they didn't like
riding, and sell it to me for less than half-price. Eventually
hey started giving them to me. I ended up giving most of them
away to friends.

Vancouver is replete with cheap (or free) nice bicycles.
A lot of 'em are old-school, but they nevertheless go.
And that's all we need.

cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

(Tom Keats) wrote:

Keep a straight face? Try doing a 60+ miler in your Fruit Of The
Looms & Levis, and keeping a straight (i.e: non-grimacing) face.
Actually, I could pull it off, 'cuz I'm such a skinny guy and
the clothing seams aren't in the wrong places on me, and I don't
sweat much. But anyone whose thighs slap together as they pedal
won't stand a chance. Think zinc.

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Made me laugh thanks!

In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

In article ],
Ryan Cousineau writes:
In article ,
!Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:32:24 +0000, in alt.war.vietnam Peter Clinch
wrote:

The point of money is you can throw it at things to make them better.

I don't disagree completely. My point is that there is a fairly wide
range of acceptance. I would suggest that a $200 bicycle is much
better than a $100 bicycle; I would flatulate further that this
principle applies to many consumer devices from kitchen mixers to
electronics. As the price grows without bound, the marginal gain
tends to flatten... i.e., adding another C-note to the $500 bicycle
doesn't give me as great of an improvement as it did with the $100
machine.

The point of inflection of that marginal curve is somewhat subjective.
OTOH, it certainly exists in all things.

Consider an ejection seat in a high-performance aircraft: you can't
get a 100% save rate... most of them run about 60% to 70%. If I'm
willing to double the cost, I might push that up to 80% (just
guessing); however, the air force would go buy my competitor's seat!
Actually, there was a lawsuit over just that against a company who
built the "Esca-Pack" ejection seats back in the early '80s. One of
the lawyers asked a company rep: "How much is a pilot's life worth?"
He replied: "Sir, a pilot's life is worth 72,395 dollars and 72
cents." That was the calculated point of marginal inflection beyond
which they couldn't sell their seats.

Jones

In fairness to the company (if not the rep's math skills) you'd have to
know how many of the seats were used successfully. With that
information, you can calculate how much of a pilot's life each seat
saves.

This whole thread is oh so obviously an invocation of Fabrizio.

But I guess he's too busy, training in the Bolivian Andes or some
other far-flung & exotic place, like Pitt Meadows, or Maple Ridge
(which used to be known as: Haney. That was before Maple Ridge
became exotic.)


cheers, & long live the Wild Duck Inn,
Tom

Sadly, The Wild Duck is now closed and gone. However, we still have the
home pub of the late Bill Werbeniuk, the Jolly Coachman in Pitt Meadows.

Fabrizio was more of a Chilliwack guy,

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."