@tropo @Kimmo Sheldon left behind a wonderful trove of terms and knowledge.
I want to have a soft spot for him, but when I was young(er) and brash(er) he lit me up on a newsgroup for my “improper” use of the term “cogstack” instead of the more accurate “cassette” or “freewheel.” Precision is important, but there was a degree pedantry involved that was deliberately insulting, so that’s put me off him.
Regardless- there isn’t a better resource for getting acquainted with bicycling terms.
5 Likes
ssshh, they’ll come.
4 Likes
Speaking as someone who didn’t pay more than $1,000 for a CAR until I was well into my 40s, I’m pretty horrified at the prices being quoted as “reasonable” for a new commuter bike.
Bike theft is such a problem here that the price point has made my decision for me. I have a 30+ year old bike and a 15+ year old bike, and those will do me until I die!
Still, it’s fun to learn new things, even if I’m not likely to use the info.
6 Likes
It was a joke Rob ( @beschizza ) put in when the categories went up. Every time a Boing category topic went live about … basically anything to do with cycling, you were guaranteed to see a heated discussion about how cyclists breaking driving laws was just as dangerous as car drivers breaking the law. 
(Sometimes it was argued that breaking the driving laws on a bicycle was more dangerous or that car drivers were largely law abiding.)
Hopefully I’m not misrepresenting the anti-cycling view point too much but I doubt the anti-bike crowd are reading this thread.
Since I’m finally delurking … 
I have a cheap Mongoose crossover I bought probably 7-8 years ago ostensibly because I thought I might work my way up to commuting on it but my commute got longer (31 mile one way by highway, 34 by the non-highway route I built just to see if I could).
So this summer I plan to take advantage of my city’s greenways. It’s going to be a lot to build up to. I previously worked my way up to an hour and fifteen minutes hard riding on a stationary bike but I’m a bit out of shape in comparison to then.
I’ll never be a serious cyclist but I love reading y’all talk about your bikes. 
And I’m probably going to put slicks on my bike on y’all’s general recommendation.
6 Likes
Yeah- new bikes have gotten pretty expensive. I don’t like that I’ve mentioned several bikes, none of which has been below $1k. There were a few stipulations that made this difficult:
- New
- Road bike
Since “road bike” is traditionally drop handlebars, that makes the base price pretty high- if you don’t want puppy-chow level quality.
I think the frame of reference matters too: if this is a car replacement you’re still doing pretty well at $1500. If it’s a “toy” bike for noodling around on, that might feel like a lot more money.
I own a number of pretty expensive bikes. But I try to keep in mind that not everyone has gone deep down the rabbit hole of fetishism with bike tech- and so things that can feel pretty normal to me can seem totally bonkers to others.
Still.
If it’s your commuter bike, and it replaces a car, I feel the savings will support buying something nice enough to not constantly be needing maintenance or whatever. And that doesn’t suck to ride, because starting each day throwing a leg over some cantankerous POS won’t help you’re mood any.
7 Likes
Buying a new bike is kind of an expensive luxury. If you live in a place where gasoline is cheap and US$1000 cars won’t cost you three times that to run, the bike might not look like such a good value for commuting. Or somewhere where public transport is good and cheap, of course.
That said, as mentioned above you can get a perfectly good US$650-equivalent new road bike that should still be serviceable in 30 years like your old one, with minimal upkeep costs and fueled by calories alone.
That’s something like $2 per month plus a few accessories, upgrades and consumables like tires and chains. The $1000 car will not be that great an investment adding up 30 years of service!
2 Likes
The issue for me is traffic, condition of roads, very eclectic work schedule, and of course:
So biking is exercise, fun, and enjoying the lakefront for me, and only for about half of the year.
9 Likes
Bike-wise, that would appear to require a heated, electric assist velomobile based on fat bike gear.
5 Likes
If I remember correctly from my usenet days, I think Sheldon couldn’t hold a candle to Jobst when it came to being deliberately insulting. But I only really saw r.b.* because of cross-posting.
3 Likes
And a front-mounted snow plow!
7 Likes
Ah, but insufferable pedants can certainly have their redeeming features, often contributing significantly to our body of knowledge, I bet… Jobst for instance, scientifically demonstrated the uselessness of tying and soldering. 
I was thinking maybe you could go over the snow rather than through it, with fat enough tyres… same width of rubber as a car, but a tenth the weight.
3 Likes
9 Likes
Ha! you got a good story out of it, though.
“Never meet your idols.” John Waters told me that.
Also, never namedrop. Paul McCartney told me that.
7 Likes
I don’t disagree, and Jobst was certainly the authority on his subject. But when I think of usenet these days, it’s not so much the significant contributions to our body of knowledge which comes first to mind.
1 Like
No wait, here it is - scaled-down snowmobile, as a powerful (2kw?) e-bike. With the throttle running off power sensing cranks, like on the Specialized Turbo.
14 Likes
Found this while looking for the Specialized link:
BTW can you believe this vid only has like 1400 views in seven years OMG
9 Likes
Fuck yeah!
1 Like
it’s distressing. the used car market in the US is deflated because so many cars get bought here, and the new bike market is inflated because so few are bought, it’s still a niche market. people (reasonably) put a mental budget of ~$250 or less on a new bike, and the market supplies them with K-mart crap that breaks. but really, that level of cyclist is a kid who beats the shit out of a bike anyway, or an adult who does the “this year, I get in shape” NY resolution and sticks it in the garage. that’s really what the Wal-Mart bikes are for. I can’t find it now, but there was an industry magazine interview with the head of Murray bikes who was quite honest about that fact. Note how the Ikea bike upthread is US $650. Ikea is not known for being really expensive, even thrifty when permitting. A good bike pretty much costs that much ¯\ __(ツ) _ /¯
If it’s any consolation, no gas, parking or insurance adds up, and replacement parts are fewer, comparatively cheap, and a helluva lot easier to do oneself.
8 Likes
yeah, after the second one I visited, I just quit going to them. it’s just the same arguments over and over.
1 Like
