Bikes are the coolest invention in the universe

Bikes have been too race bred, I think… Gorgeous slim frames and light weight parts are great when every second counts.

They suck when you wanna ride in the rain regularly. Or to the grocery store. Or with people. Or want to look up.

I like bomb proof.

With race bikes as the iconic image of a bike, we end up making practical sacrifices for fashion.

Chain guards are an example … Bikes lose a ton of power due to chain inefficiency. They get dirty… they go from being about 95% efficient to being 80% efficient. That’s a huge difference. Sealing the whole system would keep it working at peak efficiency. But chain guards are dorky.

Pedals. Damn. Those things continue to annoy me. The power gained from clipless shoes and pedals is enormous… Up to 30% more power from pedaling and being able to pull back and up. But clipless shoes are expensive and finnicky, and suck as shoes for walking.

Instead bikes focus more time and expense on lightweight components. Shaving grams off parts. Using carbon fiber and other exotic materials as prices go up.

If we actually focused on drive train and pedaling efficiencies… We’d find ourselves in the bizarre world of heavier bikes being faster, more comfortable, and far more reliable and practical, for almost everyone concerned… except the super teeny demographic of people competitively racing bicycles.

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Kickstands too - people don’t seem to have them where I was in the UK, but they’re really useful and should really be on any non-racing bike, IMO. I also think bikes shouldn’t be so rigid about the shape - while the normal shape is probably going to be the cheapest option, many others are more efficient or allow you to carry more cargo. At the very least, the top tube isn’t necessary for a lot of city riding. Hub gears will also prevent a lot of problems from dirt.

The post office uses bikes like these - there are lockable cabinets around the neighbourhood for them to refill their bike with post, so they’re not limited to one load per trip:

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I just want to lie down.

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Then there is a kind of inbetween


This bike though it looks like racing touring bike it isn’t really. It’s a tank. Not too heavy and solid enough to take the abuse of riding in a city without blinking I have one that needs some fixing up, like new tires, tube, naval jelly work, checkover in general as it’s been sitting about for quite awhile so lots of new bits but the frame and gearing still look and work fine.

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Shaq actually gets custom bikes. Cannondale made this abomination for him in the 90s just for the photo op, no doubt:

but now a sensible person has made a bike framed around 36" wheels for him, and it actually fits him

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Aside from price; carbon fiber’s failure modes are…not something you want to be sitting on(effectively, the stuff exists in two states of matter: ‘solid’ and ‘vicious cloud of flechettes’, with phase transitions being effectively instantaneous); especially since the difference between ‘heroically strong carbon fiber’ and ‘low bidder carbon fiber’ is pretty subtle visually; but exactly the sort of care, attention, process relaibility, and careful inspection that get tossed right out the window first when competing on price).

Metals have their own exciting ways of failing; but welding atrociously shoddy enough to keep steel from being able to support a human is often visible; and vaguely adequate work is much more mature than good carbon fiber fabrication is.

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I’ve been thinking we’ve needed a bike thread for a while. post your sleds, y’all.

here’s how she came to me – fully stock, rust around the lugs, straight off of Craigslist:

Miyata triple-butted cr-mo: the realest of Japanese steel, and in my size!

most recently:

Still about half stock: frameset, wheels (different freewheel), crank, FD, stem, shift levers all original. no real tech to comment on, but the front rack, a Surly Nice, has the highest load rating available @ 70lbs. I’ll refrain from rambling about the many upgrades and add-ons but I’m happy to field any specific questions.

I also have an 1989-ish aluminum Trek 1400 that I’ve been neglecting but served me extremely well for years.

it’s so beautiful, it’s a shame the seatpost they chose looks like a lump of extruded shit 0_o

I really dig that headlamp idea. having to upgrade the whole stem seems a lot to ask, though. we need that placement as an option on all models, imo.

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Lugged frames. High flange hubs. Never low spoke count wheels. * Phil Wood. Chris King.

* Okay, maybe 24 or less if you’re doing a time trial or track racing, but that’s a whole other matter

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I love the low rider shopping baskets. Performance and utility.

Agreed on the light although the stem they offer is a 6-degree one so pretty standard. I guess the problem with offering it as an aftermarket add-on is that it would depend upon bolt placement being standard.

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OMG, that looks awesome. I want one!

Edit: $5,150. Perhaps not.

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I love 80’s bike boom frames.

I’ve got an 82’ Bridgestone 700. It’s a Centurion bike. It’s made for these crazy bike races in tight packs around corners.

They’re still great frames!

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Isn’t this off topic?

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The wheels totally make the bike go from neat to really cool.
edit this should really be a reply to @grimloki and while not technically a BIke, it is human powered and based on the same technologies.

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I bought my current bike at a hipster bike store (the only kind around my college hipster neighborhood) and had to push really hard to get a bike that (a) wasn’t a fixed-gear and (b) had a kickstand. As a guy who just rides on bike trails and city streets to go to the store or have a casual bike ride, I’m baffled as to why kickstands would be looked down on or something that has to be added aftermarket on nearly every bike these days. And I’m just as baffled by fixies. Why is coasting on a bike looked down on?

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I agree to a point. I think that the way that high level sport cycling informs the bikes available to the public is pretty daft: it’s as if 50% of cars bought by men were F1 cars or a cheaper, slower version of the same style. There is a trade off though and plenty of examples of a ‘race’ affectation being better for more mundane uses. For example, an upright riding position such as required by your roadster in the first picture would create so much wind resistance that the average healthy male could sustain 20mph for about a minute. Change nothing but the position to a more bent over one, and you quickly reach a point where 20mph can be sustained indefinitely. So for commuting a ‘sport’ posture has obvious advantages.

I agree with you on chain guards and chain efficiency is a really interesting subject. Well adjusted chain transmission is extremely efficient but efficiency rapidly drops off as cleanliness, adjustment, and wear is accounted for. I’m interested to see whether shaft drives could be a good substitute, sacrificing peak efficiency for lower maintenance and greater robustness. Chain guards obviously limit the kinds of gears that are possible (one chain ring and presumably hub gears at most) but still have plenty of potential - French style porter bikes are a good example of a sporty style of bike (although load bearing) that usually has an enclosed chain.

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Fine, because I really want a recumbent bike/trike and a new unicycle (I gave mine away before leaving China). If I had the money and space, I would probably have at least seven different kinds of unicycle/bike/trike - and no cars.

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It’s a cult that’s grown up around fetishising mechanical simplicity. That said, fixed gear has an advantage in urban traffic that you can modulate your speed continually with your legs rather than brakes. Some people really love the sense of connection that they get.

I’m happy with a freewheel. It means I can go down hills easily.

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This is what I was riding up until recently… a vintage Raleigh three-speed with an encased Sturmey-Archer hub. Loved it but it started to fall apart.

Oh, good point. I can totally see that, actually. Hmm.

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