Dumb Questions for Old Timers

On Jan 20, 1:04*pm, landotter wrote:
On Jan 20, 12:16*pm, "Clive George" wrote:

"landotter" wrote in message

....

Better yet--just ride the dang thing. With 8+ cogs in back, the ratios
are close enough on modern bikes to stop overthinking and putting
little ratio maps on yer bars. Big ring:fast, medium ring:not as fast,
small ringh crap uphill. Simple!

Heh :-) But I reckon anybody who's gone to the trouble of wanting half-step
will need numbers to convince them it's not necessary.

Nah--just a ride to realize that modern cogsets have closer ratios
making a 3t step up front sorta silly. ;-)

45-42-20 chainrings on my touring bike. 7 speed 14-16-18-21-24-28-32
or 12-14-16-18-21-24-28 in the back. Perfectly spaced gearing for
loaded touring. Or you can just shift the back for around town riding.

On Jan 20, 11:04*am, landotter wrote:
On Jan 20, 12:16*pm, "Clive George" wrote:

"landotter" wrote in message

....

Better yet--just ride the dang thing. With 8+ cogs in back, the ratios
are close enough on modern bikes to stop overthinking and putting
little ratio maps on yer bars. Big ring:fast, medium ring:not as fast,
small ringh crap uphill. Simple!

Heh :-) But I reckon anybody who's gone to the trouble of wanting half-step
will need numbers to convince them it's not necessary.

Nah--just a ride to realize that modern cogsets have closer ratios
making a 3t step up front sorta silly. ;-)

Not only silly, but an after-market kludge. You have to build your
own half-step these days (assuming you were so inclined) -- unlike
days of yore when it came standard on some OTC touring bikes including
my '86/7 Cannondale T1000 -- along with a half-step specific front
derailleur.

That REI bike is like the anti-half-step with its 12 tooth difference
between the middle and big ring. The low gear is like get-off-and-
walk low -- probably way overkill for our OP. He is probably not in
the market for discs either, but they are nice here in the PNW. -- Jay
Beattie.

On Jan 20, 12:37*pm, Nobody Special wrote:
I have carefully read all of the replies this received, and
I really appreciate the advice. *Here is what I am going to do:
...
(4) I though long and hard about adding a carrier and using the
bike for errands, but I am not keen on leaving it locked up
outside or on walking it through the aisles of the store, so I
think I will keep using the car for that.

Well, depending where you are, bike theft may not be a problem. For
the past 35 years I've used almost nothing but a homemade 1/4"
diameter steel cable and padlock. And that's included riding in most
states, including coast to coast, and about eight foreign countries.
So at least get a rack and/or bag to use occasionally. They're also
very handy for stowing a jacket on a recreational ride. (Heck, I
can't imagine getting to the library any way but on my bike!)


(5) I am still up in the air about pedals. I don't much like having
to wear special shoes or clothes for bicycling.; 99% of my rides will
be less than an hour, replacing my current walk with a ride or a
ride/walk/ride. *I probably will get some clipless, toe clip (what
I am used to from before) and platforms and experiment. *My old toe
clips hung upside down and required a special flip-it-over technique,
and I remember thinking about adding a weight to the bottom. Are
there toe clip available that will work with ordinary shoes, don't
flip upside down and still allow me to pull up as well as pushing
down while pedaling?

I'm unusual around here in that I want to be able to ride every bike I
own while wearing (almost) any pair of shoes I own. I go with toe
clips or flat pedals instead of clipless. As landotter said, mountain
bike pedals with grippy pins do well. Weighting toe clips probably
won't, I think, but I've got sheet metal "toe flips" on the back edge
of some pedals to make the flip action very easy and reliable.

You could try a toe-clip-compatible platform pedal with a nice-sized
flip tab, like the MKS GR-9 Platform Pedals (PD535)
at http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/pedals.html#platform

A minor point: It's been pretty well proven (by real-time force
measurement) that cyclists almost never really pull up on the back
part of the stroke. They do reduce the downward force, though, making
it easier for the front leg to lift the back via the cranks. However,
it's nice to pull up when you want to, like on really extreme hills,
or to jump a bike over a speed bump or railroad tracks.

(6) My old bike has "half-step plus granny gear" 15-speed gearing,
and I intend to duplicate that on the new new one, possibly with
more gears on the back end. *Ignoring the granny gear for a moment,
A half-step has two chainrings close in size at the front and gears
far apart in size at the rear so that it shifts through the ascending
gears like this: *

1 Start with the lowest gear (largest at rear, smallest at front).
2 Shift to large chainring at front.
3 Shift up one gear at rear while shifting to small chainring at front.
4 Shift to large chainring at front.
5 Shift up one gear at rear while shifting to small chainring at front.
...and so forth.

To the above gearing scheme I added a third chainring on the front
that was much smaller, giving me some really low gears for hills
that I don't use much. *I aligned the rear gears with a spot halfway
between the two large chainrings, not with the center chainring. *

The alternative for me would be closely spaced gears at the rear
and a big jump in size at the front, so that most shifting is
rear-only. What I don't like about that is that it pretty much
gives me two different 5-speeds instead of the true 10-speed that
I get with the half-step. Comments welcome, but this is my second
choice.

I still run half step plus granny gearing on three bikes. My advice?
Go modern.

Half step plus granny made sense when rear dropouts were just 120 mm
apart and you had only 5 or 6 cogs. But wider dropouts made room for
more cogs. Very importantly, cassettes (as opposed to freewheels)
made axles capable of spanning that width without cracking. And index
made it possible to space the cogs closer, since it wasn't necessary
to find each cog by "feel." So instead of double shifting to fine-
tune your choice of gears, you can get the same fine-tuning shift with
one easy click. It really is better.

I do prefer repairable bar end shifters to unrepairable STI, though,
partly because of their friction option. One of my indexed bikes is a
folding bike (Bike Friday) and after unfolding, I sometimes need to go
friction until the cables settle down. I've also had to do that on my
mountain bike, after some little bump. YMMV.

- Frank Krygowski

Nobody Special wrote:

My old bike has "half-step plus granny gear" 15-speed gearing,
and I intend to duplicate that on the new new one, possibly with
more gears on the back end. Ignoring the granny gear for a moment,
A half-step has two chainrings close in size at the front and gears
far apart in size at the rear so that it shifts through the ascending
gears like this:

1 Start with the lowest gear (largest at rear, smallest at front).
2 Shift to large chainring at front.
3 Shift up one gear at rear while shifting to small chainring at front.
4 Shift to large chainring at front.
5 Shift up one gear at rear while shifting to small chainring at front.
...and so forth.

To the above gearing scheme I added a third chainring on the front
that was much smaller, giving me some really low gears for hills
that I don't use much. I aligned the rear gears with a spot halfway
between the two large chainrings, not with the center chainring.

Here are some gear calculations I did using the calculator at
http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/

If I get a...

13-15-17-19-21-24-27-30-34 9-speed Cassette

....and a...

38-49-52 or 38-49-52 triple Chainring

....I will have this "half-step" shifting pattern:

F R Inches
52-13 108.0"
49-13 101.8"
52-15 93.6"
49-15 88.2"
52-17 82.6"
49-17 77.8"
52-19 73.9"
49-19 69.6"
52-21 66.9"
49-21 63.0"
52-24 58.5"
49-24 55.1"
52-27 52.0"
49-27 49.0"
52-30 46.8"
49-30 44.1"
52-34 41.3"
49-34 38.9"

....and this granny gear will give me 2 more gears:

F R Inches
38-30 34.2"
38-34 30.2"

Or, if I can get a chainring that small, 3 more gears:

F R Inches
34-27 34.0"
34-30 30.6"
34-34 27.0"

....with the rest of the combinations unused.

__o o__ o__ o__
_ \,_ _./ _ _./ _ _./ _
(_)/ (_) (_) \(_) (_) \(_) (_) \(_)

"Nobody Special" wrote in message
...

My old bike has "half-step plus granny gear" 15-speed gearing,
and I intend to duplicate that on the new new one, possibly with
more gears on the back end. Ignoring the granny gear for a moment,
A half-step has two chainrings close in size at the front and gears
far apart in size at the rear so that it shifts through the ascending
gears like this:

1 Start with the lowest gear (largest at rear, smallest at front).
2 Shift to large chainring at front.
3 Shift up one gear at rear while shifting to small chainring at front.
4 Shift to large chainring at front.
5 Shift up one gear at rear while shifting to small chainring at front.
...and so forth.

To the above gearing scheme I added a third chainring on the front
that was much smaller, giving me some really low gears for hills
that I don't use much. I aligned the rear gears with a spot halfway
between the two large chainrings, not with the center chainring.

Here are some gear calculations I did using the calculator at
http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/

If I get a...

13-15-17-19-21-24-27-30-34 9-speed Cassette

...and a...

38-49-52 or 38-49-52 triple Chainring

...I will have this "half-step" shifting pattern:

F R Inches
52-13 108.0"
49-13 101.8"
52-15 93.6"
49-15 88.2"
52-17 82.6"
49-17 77.8"
52-19 73.9"
49-19 69.6"
52-21 66.9"
49-21 63.0"
52-24 58.5"
49-24 55.1"
52-27 52.0"
49-27 49.0"
52-30 46.8"
49-30 44.1"
52-34 41.3"
49-34 38.9"

...and this granny gear will give me 2 more gears:

F R Inches
38-30 34.2"
38-34 30.2"

Or, if I can get a chainring that small, 3 more gears:

F R Inches
34-27 34.0"
34-30 30.6"
34-34 27.0"

...with the rest of the combinations unused.

How about 30-42-52 with 12-27? Same range of gears (ok, one higher one at
the top, but you could go custom 13-27 as easily as your proposed custom
13-34), less faff changing, you can buy it off the shelf and it'll actually
work with STI/ergo. Ok, there may not be the lovely close set you get with
the half-step, but in real life that's not actually going to be a problem.

(I ride 13-23 in 9 with 30-42-52, and that gives me a low enough bottom gear
for most stuff - but I'd have lower on a tourer)

A 30t granny ring is quite large - normal for a road triple though. A 38t is
a normal middle ring - you'll find a 38t granny harder to get than a 34 at a
guess, and both really hard compared to a 30t.

Cross-chaining (running big-big and small-small) isn't good. Your bike
probably will sulk if you try to use 52/34 and 49/34.

As landotter says, just ride it, don't sweat away at funny custom gearing
setups. Once you've been riding for a while with a normal setup, then you
can think about how to improve it - but I bet you find you won't need to.

On Jan 20, 2:35*pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
On Jan 20, 11:04*am, landotter wrote:



On Jan 20, 12:16*pm, "Clive George" wrote:

"landotter" wrote in message

....

Better yet--just ride the dang thing. With 8+ cogs in back, the ratios
are close enough on modern bikes to stop overthinking and putting
little ratio maps on yer bars. Big ring:fast, medium ring:not as fast,
small ringh crap uphill. Simple!

Heh :-) But I reckon anybody who's gone to the trouble of wanting half-step
will need numbers to convince them it's not necessary.

Nah--just a ride to realize that modern cogsets have closer ratios
making a 3t step up front sorta silly. ;-)

Not only silly, but an after-market kludge. *You have to build your
own half-step these days (assuming you were so inclined) *-- unlike
days of yore when it came standard on some OTC touring bikes including
my '86/7 Cannondale T1000 -- along with a *half-step specific front
derailleur.

That REI bike is like the anti-half-step with its 12 tooth difference
between the middle and big ring. *The low gear is like get-off-and-
walk low -- probably way overkill for our OP. He is probably not in
the market for discs either, but they are nice here in the PNW. -- Jay
Beattie.


I like that bike despite the discs and with BB7s running the same
price as a lot of caliper brakes, upgrading from the Shimano in the
future isn't a very spendy proposition. It's a true do anything
machine, and specced with 622 wheels this year*. True what you say
about the gearing. I'm waiting to wear out a similar cassette--the 34t
bailout gear is kinda wacky on a bike with a triple. A 12-26 would be
plenty.




*still 26 on the smaller models, and from what I've noticed with all
Novaras--the wheels are almost universally in need of a prof
retensioning.

Nobody Special wrote:

I have carefully read all of the replies this received, and
I really appreciate the advice. Here is what I am going to do:

(1) I am going to get rid of the Lambert/Viscount, selling it if
I can get a replacement fork and giving it away with the fork
removed if I can't. The "fork of death" goes to an aluminum
recycler.

Because it's recalled and proven dangerous, that is the most
interesting part of the bike. My friend Pardo, of pardo dot net,
maintains a sort of museum of interestingly broken and fundamentally
flawed bike parts. I'm all but certain that he would pick up the tab
for having that fork sent to him for archival purposes. If you are
interested in making a contribution to bicycle historical
preservation, you can reach him by dialing pardo at pardo dot net.

http://pardo.net/pardo/bike/pic/fail/000.html

Chalo

On Jan 20, 2:35*pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
On Jan 20, 11:04*am, landotter wrote:





On Jan 20, 12:16*pm, "Clive George" wrote:

"landotter" wrote in message

....

Better yet--just ride the dang thing. With 8+ cogs in back, the ratios
are close enough on modern bikes to stop overthinking and putting
little ratio maps on yer bars. Big ring:fast, medium ring:not as fast,
small ringh crap uphill. Simple!

Heh :-) But I reckon anybody who's gone to the trouble of wanting half-step
will need numbers to convince them it's not necessary.

Nah--just a ride to realize that modern cogsets have closer ratios
making a 3t step up front sorta silly. ;-)

Not only silly, but an after-market kludge. *You have to build your
own half-step these days (assuming you were so inclined) *-- unlike
days of yore when it came standard on some OTC touring bikes including
my '86/7 Cannondale T1000 -- along with a *half-step specific front
derailleur.

That REI bike is like the anti-half-step with its 12 tooth difference
between the middle and big ring. *The low gear is like get-off-and-
walk low -- probably way overkill for our OP. He is probably not in
the market for discs either, but they are nice here in the PNW. -- Jay
Beattie.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Half step gearing allows consistent gearing changes across the range.
Without huge overlaps in gearing. Build my own half step gearing?
Yes I did that. But then I build all of my bikes. A factory bike
isn't for me. A road double front derailleur shifts half step gearing
very well. No need for a specific derailleur.

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:52:44 +0000, Nobody Special
may have said:

Dumb questions about bikes:

On review, no, I don't think so.

I stopped riding when I was in my 20s, and now, at 55,
I am ready to start again. I just dusted off my old
Lambert/Viscount with the "aircraft aluminum" forks and
plan on having a local pro bike shop do a complete overhaul,
replacing/cleaning/lubing as needed (it was stored in a
cool dry place, and I see no rust.) They may advise me
to just get a new bike, in which case I will be looking
for something in the $2000-$3000 range unless someone
convinces that spending more will make a big difference.

At 55, you're in my age class; I would say "don't even think about it"
to any suggestion of spending silly-big amounts of money on a new
bike. The young bucks with the big muscles will run away from you
even if you get a lighter and newer bike, and yours isn't all that
heavy anyway. Weight is the biggest difference in the newer bikes.
There's less of it. Second comes the increased gear count; 20 speeds
(double front sprocket, 10 rear) is common but hardly obligatory, and
not all that essential outside competition.

My questions a

Is there any new technology that justifies me starting with
a new bike even if the old one is repairable?

Only if your ego requires the ShinyNew factor as a motivator to get
out on the road.

What the heck happened to all the spokes? How does a wheel
work with so few spokes?

Over 90% of this is fashion; in competition, the reduced spoke count
provides a tiny reduction in drag, but at the expense of fragility. I
call such wheels "squirrel dicers" in recognition of the fact that
arboreal rodents can much more easily get trapped in the wheel of a
moving bike (with dire consequences for the bike and rider) when the
spoke count is low. They still do exactly the same job as the older
36-spoke wheels; be round and roll.

Shifters; I have "fingertips" at the end of my bars, but the
new shifters look different. Do the new ones work the same?

This is the one area where newer tech may be worth having in my
opinion. A good combination brake/shifter lever set is a joy to use,
but bar-ends are still common and some riders like them. The
combination levers ("brifters") come in several flavors and do not
have a single mode of operation; each major setup group operates
differently, and none are like bar-ends.

Tires; do they still make sewups, or should I just figure on
getting new wheels?

Sew-ups can certainly be had, but the range of selections available
for that type of wheel is not as great - or as economical - as the
modern clinchers. Flip side: You may have to swap your brake
calipers to some with a longer reach in order to use the modern 700c
clincher rims. Road-bike tire selections for anything but 700c are
sparse.

Frames; Is the carbon fiber really worth it? I googled and saw
that there are bikes with aluminum or stainless available. Are
they any good? (I am 6' 1" and weigh 220 Lbs)

Stainless? That's unusual. Chrome-moly (which isn't stainless) is
still occasionally seen at the low end, aluminum is the common
material for midrange price levels, and carbon frames are all that's
found at the upper reaches of the market. Carbon has utility issues
for some people; it's not as robust in the hands of the incautious
rider (or the uneducated acquaintance, college student, etc.) and can
be damaged by offenses that steel will ignore and aluminum seldom
notice. (Things like being clamped into a bike repair stand
improperly, or getting leaned against or bashed by the large heavy
object that just fell over in the garage.)

Weight; I never "got" the idea of spending big bucks shaving off
a pound or two off the bike for someone like me who could stand
to lose a few pounds. I am not going to be racing anyone. Is it
feasable to get something stiffer and heavier but still high
quality, or are all the really well-built bikes super light?

The better question is "are all the really light bikes well-built?",
and the answer is "Not always enough so for everyday use."

Thanks in advance for helping an old fart get back up on two wheels...

BTDT, and I ride a 20-year-old Trek with a steel frame which I've
updated somewhat...when I ride a roadie at all. My more usual bike is
a chrome-moly steel-frame hybrid with a suspension fork and 1 1/4"
wide tires built with a combination of mountain bike and other
components.

Oh, and don't worry one way of the other about the lycra shorts. Wear
'em proudly if you're of a mind to, or wear what you want if you
prefer something else. The main rule I espouse is "Do what works for
YOU."

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

On Jan 20, 2:49*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
(repeating a well-explained nodule of knowledge):
Half step plus granny made sense when rear dropouts were just 120 mm
apart and you had only 5 or 6 cogs. *But wider dropouts made room for
more cogs. *Very importantly, cassettes (as opposed to freewheels)
made axles capable of spanning that width without cracking. *And index
made it possible to space the cogs closer, since it wasn't necessary
to find each cog by "feel." *So instead of double shifting to fine-
tune your choice of gears, you can get the same fine-tuning shift with
one easy click. *It really is better.

If I could amplify, you can get lots of one-tooth gaps in a ten-speed
cassette.

Here's a TinyURL link to Shimano's site, with cog selection table:

http://tinyurl.com/4ft52z

(Ultegra)
Cassette Sprockets Combinations
11,12,13,14,15,16,17,19,21,23
12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,21,23
12,13,14,15,16,17,19,21,23,25
12,13,14,15,16,17,19,21,24,27
Junior Gearing
13,14,15,16,17,18,19,21,23,25
14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,23,25
15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,25
16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,25,27

("knock yourself out, dude"!)

So, you can choose some kind of crank-- double, Compact, triple-- with
rings selected to suit you, in combination with any of those available
cassettes. Lots of close ratios, and "forget the duplicates"; that's
not an issue with so many ratios available.

30/42/52 is common to Campy triples and I believe Shimano also. A 30t
'ring with a 27t cog is a pretty low gear; a rider in decent shape
should be able to climb most anything with that in relative comfort,
if not trying to keep up with faster others.

I do prefer repairable bar end shifters to unrepairable STI (snip).

Campy makes repairable brifters. Springs, carrier can be replaced in
just a few minutes (like, maybe ten minutes from "on the bike to back
on the bike", I've seen it done) by someone familiar with "the drill".

I've heard rumor that Shimano did some updating on their brifters in
acknowledgment of sometimes short service life.
If bar ends float your boat, no problem here g.

One irony is that brifters make double shifting a lot easier than
downtube shifters (and bar ends for me). I double-shift occasionally
as group pace and terrain dictate; it's fast and sure with Ergo
because of the ratchets, and also because your hands are in a good
control position. I found myself double-shifting the triple without
thinking first (whoops! Sure hope I don't dump the chain here!) but
again, the ratchets take care of putting the chain where it needs to
go, and I stopped worrying about it. No doubt the deep inner cage of
the Racing T derailleur helps there, too.

"rbr likes returning riders" --D-y