♫ It was born in a mad man’s garage
...The exhaust, it’s a deafening barrage
♪ But it's all right now, in fact it's a gas
...But it's all right
♫ That rocket bike, it's a gas, gas, gas

Whistleberries!

After a lot of noise in 2009, the Copenhagen wheel is finally coming to market. The self contained electric motor to add to the 26/27 inch wheel on your bike. Developed at MIT, and sponsored(whatever that means) by the Mayor of Copenhagen, it being manufactured in Massachusetts. They show a price of $950, but there are a bunch of motor size and other options so who knows. Rumor has it you can pre-order for $700.

This concerns me... Does that distracted riders. :eyebrow:

link and link.

This is the only one that I see as a potential problem because it might be adjusted during a ride, but the rest are for number crunching after the fact. Like reviewing data recorded on a black box for your car.

From Wiki:

I see a problem.

If it's working when you're not pedalling, it's a motor vehicle.

Folding bike beats marching...

I'm having trouble getting my head around this guy. He says he couldn't cut or force this bike lock in 5 minutes... that's good. But the next time he tried to use it the thing fell apart. But he says buy it anyway, a $125 lock, buy it anyway. WTF?

Weapons of mass invasion... Germans in Poland, 1914.

No more rear flats...

In strict adherence to the title of the thread:

Not a spoiler, but at some points, he brakes like I did when I was a little kid, by dragging my feet and screaming.

Next time go to your LBS. People would bring Huffys into the shop immediately after buying them cuz "it don't stop" "it don't shift". We'd set it up as well as we could and take their money but nobody was really happy about it. If you catch a huffy hardtail with a straight frame you have a serviceable around towner but don't ask it to do more.

There is no smile like the I just cheated gravity twice in 3 pedal strokes smile! I rode my old hardtail today in a vain attempt the push a faster rider. I was quicker than I have been but you really have to be all there when riding without rear suspension. I came into a tight turn a little hot and turned on the base of a tree, excited by that I hammered into a log pyramid built over a fall. I popped over the top but landed my over inflated rear wheel on the top log. I landed in a nose wheelie headed for a small tree but kept my hand off the brake and turned back to the trail. Its all fun when it works out.:cool:

WHEW!

Anti theft seat...

That's a pain in the ass.

very beautiful, all of it. The territory around 3:45, that's my backyard (a one hour radius of my backyard, though some of those trees are actually in my backyard). Anyone who visits me, I'd be happy to tour that area with you. It's some of the greenest, most majestic scenery I've ever experienced.

Excellent landscapes.

Attachment 57368

And WTH is going on with that seat?

And why is the kickstand hefty enough to lean the Space Shuttle on?

City rental bikes are designed to fit in a locking dispenser rack so that's what the weird bracket thing is. And they are designed to be ugly and weird so that they have no value if stolen. Also, the parts will fit no other type of bike on the planet.

.

Thank you, sirs.

The inch has gotten massively into Mountain Biking, last year for his birthday he got a cheap department store Schwinn with some money he earned and gifts from family. At first I forgot who I was dealing with (a 12 year old) and tried to talk him into buying a better (used) bike. He had his heart set on the
Schwinn and I eventually realized I was being a colossal buzzkill and what was important was that he loved this bike. So I zipped it and shared in his revelry.

This year we've gone on three rides together so far. It is tough because the mm "hates mountain biking" and the single parent thing creates complications that I'll skip explaining.

I'm trying to set up playdates to keep her busy so the inch and I can go for rides. Today she spent the day with grandma so the inch and I were able to go to this place that he's been telling me about for two weeks, after he went there with a friend.

Again, being relatively obtuse, I didn't realize how much he was looking forward to sharing the experience with me, I thought he just wanted to go biking. Despite some near disasters; we had to repair his shocks and couldn't get them back together because the bastard bolt wouldn't catch the threads. Success after an hour at 7 pm; his front tire got destroyed when his bike fell off his mom's car and the rim was sorely tweaked. I ended up clamping it in my vice and bending it back into shapish shape. Trued it as best as I could; we went to the bike shop - a little too high end - they don't really carry 26" tires these days, but they could order them. "Well... we're heading out to a ride and we have no tire at all..." The dude at the shop was so awesome, he found a tire that they had mounted on a rim as a repair that the owner never picked up and just gave it to us.

So we made it to the trails, me on my 1984 Ross Mount Rainier, and him on his Schwinn Ranger. First of all, the trails blew my fucking mind. They were so well laid out and designed. It has been decades since I did any real mountain biking and the intermediate trails tested my reaction time and balance mostly. I also need to adjust to riding with glasses. I did not have them and realized that was a handicap.

When I rode there were no trails laid out like this, we just bushwhacked and made our own trails, following deer paths in the woods, hiking trails, dry river beds. (Old school technical) So this was a real treat to have somthing well groomed with a great mix of twists and turns, climbs and descents, rocks and trees and so on.

It was also about ten thousand degrees and eleventy five percent humidity. NO HEART ATTACK TODAY! W00T

But, in the bike shop I felt like Rip Van Winkle; I didn't even recognize the bikes as bikes. First, they are fucking HUGE. The tires are 27.5 and super bloated, the H Bars are about a yard wide, everything has disc brakes, there isn't a round tube anywhere in the shop, and everything has front shocks, and the choice is 'hard tail' or 'soft tail'.

I grilled the salesman for a half hour about the rationale behind all the changes. (We did not get into electronic shifting, I kept it at tube shape, H-Bars, disc brakes and the pros and cons of rear suspension.)

One thing I noticed about this trail system is that it was designed for today's bikes. There were a number of parts where a soft tail would have allowed me to bomb down the trail much faster (assuming I could react quickly enough) As it was I was able to negotiate it by not sitting down much and letting the bike move under me while I acted as the shocks. What we used to do with varying degrees of success.

I need to get up to speed with the world of bikes and I'm hoping Griff, you might be able to shed some light on the industry.

More specific questions will be forthcoming if you'd be willing to answer.

In the meantime, for budget reasons, I'm sticking with my vintage mountain bike.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I've ridden through the changes. A buddy got stuck with a modern FS (full suspension) that does not fit him by purchasing online from a lying sack o shit outfit that rhymes with liceloint but the other guy I ride with bought from the same and made out great. The cool part is the FS bike fits me so I test drove a modern high end bike last weekend. My takeaway is that disc brakes, which I don't have on my older bikes are amazing. You can make a lot more mistakes and get away with it on the modern FS bikes. They go through stuff we usually hop over. I still love the hardtail for climbing though and all that fancy gear is pricey to replace when you break it. My two rideable bikes are a full XT 1999 Rocky Mountain Race soft tail and a mid 2000's parts bin GT Avalanche hardtail. Those FS bikes are very forgiving for middle-aged riders. Both my riding partners at I think 54 and 56 recently went modern FS.

Get out of my head!

Seriously, I just went through this exact same thing. Except my son wanted a road bike. He had it all researched and was pointing to what I assumed was a POS Chinese bike from Walmart. I steered him to a local non-profit bike shop that teaches at risk teens how to tune up vintage bikes and then sell them. The non-profit vintage place had a lot of decent old high end bikes, that started at around $200-$250 and his budget was more like $150-$200. Plus they only had womens' bikes there that might fit him.

So he gave me the $169 cash and I bought him a bike from Walmart.com.

It's actually amazingly good for the price. But it's just like you say, the aluminum frame isn't round in cross section. All sorts of weird shapes. And everything is 700CC now, not 26".

Anyway, he fucking loves it. And it feels like it's decent quality. Shimano components. Shifts nicely. Brakes work well. Made by GMC, but GMC, if you read the box, is Shanghai General Sports Co., Ltd.
Attachment 57457

It's interesting, because I was trying to figure out just WTF GMC bikes is. I had seen this GMC bike referred to as a Kent in other locations. The deal is that Kent bikes sells bikes under its own name, and also licenses the names of Jeep, GMC, Razor, Cadillac, and Little Miss Match. They import their bikes from all over the world, but many of them come from China, produced by Shanghai General Sports Co., Ltd.

Yeah, 27 got replaced by 700c back in the nineties on road bikes plus a smaller 650C? size for women's bikes. It became a pain to get 27 tires but when I bought my last touring bike I switched over. Mountain bikes are in upheaval right now wheel wise. 26 was the standard, then they pushed 29s, then 27.5 (650B), and some super wide stuff. They seem to want to maintain them all at this point but I have noticed a reduction in choice for 26". Mountain bikes always seem to be rushing to the next great thing hence my stash of old XT parts. I can't begin to predict if any standard will emerge.

Have you tried one of the fat tire bikes? They look like they would bounce over any little bumps but would be a little soft in the turns.

My touring bike has 27" wheels and my racing bike has 700c tubular rims. I build my own wheels and even after 10K miles on them they are in great shape, I can't really bear to just change them out just because they are out of fashion.

Fashion and consumerism seem to be driving everything these days. I remember in the early 80s that most bikes hadn't had any significant changes in a couple of decades. Shimano led the charge, I believe, when they began changing their components every year; a cable anchor bolt from a 1984 rear derailleur would not fit on a 1985 rear derailleur. Shitty little things like that drove people to need an entire new derailleur when shops couldn't or didn't want to stock 97,000 different bolts, washers, nuts, pulleys, bushings, etc. Parts sales went up, repair revenues went down. Designs and styles also changed, but in terms of actual improvements there were few genuine improvements and a lot of different way to do the same thing.

Which leads me to many of my questions about the changes in today's bikes.

I have to go right now, but I'll continue when I return.

I swapped bikes with a fellow traveler for a short run on one of those. The tires soak up most everything so it is a cushy ride. It seemed to corner really well. They are heavy as shit for climbing though and are really inefficient for pedaling.


Yeah the intentional move to throw-away parts is really annoying and expensive. The front suspension fork and disc brakes are two actual improvements although I have not gone disc yet. My XT shifters circa 2000 are better than the same level 10 years later...

What about how huge the bikes are? My MTN bike frame is a 19 or 20 inch compared to my road frame which is a 24. It is sparrow-like compared to the newer bikes and I felt it was pretty tight on the course I rode the other day. I can't imagine being on one of those behemoths.

The handle bars were at least 8" wider. Also, what's up with the tubes? Do the big rectangular tubes make the bike frame lighter? I note that the manufacturers don't mention weight on their websites, they instead make some specious claim like, "Weights can vary depending on how the bike is set up..."

Yeah, OK but why not just list weights for frame sets by size? Like they used to? Whenever I see shit like that it makes me think they are being intentionally vague in order to hide the truth. If the information was a selling point it would be on their splash page.

Are these big tubes lighter?

Another thing the sales guy told me was that higher end bikes tended to have single chain rings in front and multies in back. Great for climbing (reduction gears) but I'm guessing coasting downhill and or very little movement on the flats- so essentially a specialty bike instead of a bike that could do OK on pavement.

So the trillion gear freewheels seem to be big, but after 6 gears does one need to cut the ratios that finely? It's not like humans are optimized for an extremely narrow range of RPM that we need so much gearing to compensate, or are we? Usually, it was a question of speeding down as fast as possible and then downshifting to the correct gear to power up the other side. I've only had one derailleur in my life that could reliably downshift under power and that was a Huret Duopar Titane. A sad day when that died.

Are new derailleurs better? Can you shift under power?

The bars are wicked wide. That doesn't work for me slaloming trees. The FS bikes do seem bigger to me. The kids are riding downhill pump style so weight and pedaling are generally not part of it. :rolleyes: They labor on climbs, burn gas, or push. The gear ratios are pretty good on a 2x10 and maybe even a 1x10 but I'd miss the big chain dump on the front when an unexpected climb pops up or the big ring if you get caught on a road somewhere. It does create a little clearance for log crossing.

I've done some bitching about what's become of one of my favorite trail networks because they won't get off my yard groomed some of the best climbs for high speed downhills then throw the bikes in a shop van for work free cycling. There are some hardcore xc kids out there but the bulk market is for all mountain bikes. The money being spent for a quality xc bike is pretty insane. I've been plotting building up my '92 Jamis as a kickass xc bike but my head tube is not compatible with modern suspension forks.

What brand bikes are you seeing with the rectangular tubing? The bikes I'm seeing tend to be ovalized except for the chain stays which they claim are stiffer.

The derailleurs seem pretty reliable when new but after some wear?


http://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb...t-ride-review/

I asked my buddy about his 1x. He misses the big ring except when log crossing

Some of the guys I rode with used their big rings to climb over the logs. They'd approach the log, pop the front over and line up their pedals so the left pedal was up and then use the teeth to grip into the log and go over that way.

This was Vermont and we were bike mechanics so parts and repairs were relatively cheap. We customized our bikes for our riding styles. Mostly what we'd do was go out into the woods and see how long we could bike without touching our foot to the ground. It was follow the leader and the leader would choose the course as he went. (no stinky girls allowed!)

One course was about 200 feet of a dry creek bed. Stones the ranging in size from grapefruits to basketballs. No more than one person made it per ride, but eventually all of us had one perfect run, if I recall.

As for the rectangular tubes, the inch tells me they are on Giant bikes.

Damn. Maybe I'll keep my frame and just update the wheels when they finally die. I'm not sure I can get brake pads anymore for my dia comps.

Are they the posts or the threaded. I think you can still get the post type new. You can ebay for NOS (new old stock) to dig up needed parts. They're out there.

If you're comfortable on your old bike I'd say keep her running at least until you know what you want.

They're posts for the cantilever brakes. I just checked and it looks like the new pads will fit, I need to check the diameter of the post to be sure.

I'm pretty happy with my bike, my son is badgering me to upgrade. In any event, a new bike is at the end of a long line of expenditures. A very long line.

I just searched your bike on google images, truly old school cool.:cool:

I have plastic clip on fenders now, I don't remember what happened to my Bluemels, I also swapped out the steel bull moose handlebars for a straight-ish True Temper CroMo bar, Also swapped out the pedals for Wellgo platform pedals, and of course lost that POS saddle for an Ideale P-39 That just keeps getting better with age. The current tires are MIchelin Country Rock road tires.

I was retro 35 years ago; I was the only guy still wearing wool and chamois cycling shorts, and for the record they are better than lycra *coughemporersnewclothescough* by far.

Mine didn't come with a shoulder strap nor braze-ons to accept one.

http://mombat.org/MOMBAT/BikeHistory.../1184Ross3.jpg

How crazy has mtb gotten about gear?

http://www.evo.com/how-to-choose-a-mountain-bike.aspx

So don't tell Pete but some dude from Ithaca wrecked on my favorite trail system and has like 15 broken bones and a gofundme page...

Be careful. :angel:


Or have fun, ride fast, and take chances. :devil:

That sounds really painful. I wonder how the extraction went.

How about a sticky thread, "Things we're not telling Pete"?

Piece by piece.

Thing is she will occasionally read cellar...

Word is extraction by four-wheeler. My buddy and I have a standing DNR. Um... don't tell Pete.

Need to stay on the fenceline.

Hi Bruce.

Dude!

You've been collecting some good shit. I've never seen this fence rider. I want to know more.

Don't know any more about it, I spotted it in a collection of late 19th century inventions.

Gives new definition to 'riding the rails'.

According to Caroline Rochford's book, this was a short lived single track human powered railroad.

Attachment 57697

And Wikipedia has this entry on it
Attachment 57698

Tall Bikes

If I hadn't sworn off German girls I'd be in love.

One capable of doing that to an innocent bicycle would be scary.

Pothole...