Don’t forget this one:
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I feel sorry for the riders - it’s great to have enthusiastic fans, but they shouldn’t have to deal with this.
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Yeah, I know about those; in fact I worked on some just today.
But they actually do move down the brake track as they wear, since they’re still attached to the same pivot. They just move much less, and don’t change angle.
Although granted, they probably won’t move far enough to require adjustment if you set them at the top of the brake track.
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XTR, eh? Swanky.
I’ve got a set of the XT versions of those on my trail bike right now. Lovely brakes.
Unrelated: found this in the stash today-
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GEL 280, eh? If it’s carbon aerogel it should be much, much lighter than plain old carbon fiber. Gotta love that quirky French tech.
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I particularly enjoyed him running-- without his bike-- after that mess on Mont Ventoux!
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I… I just don’t get the oval-ized chainrings. I grew up through the much-maligned BioPace chainring era, and oval chainrings just always look… wrong. To me. Also: Hey kids, get off my lawn!
Couple of things about that bike surprise me (besides the chainrings):
25mm tires? I’d have thought 23’s…
175mm cranks? Huh. Climbing, I guess.
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Those do look weird.
I like how the commentators said they were contrary to sponsor wishes (and that he was the only one on the team who could get away with it).
you probably already know this, but the argument for the revival (the hearsay I read on the internet, anyway) was that the bio-pace engineers were right about giving a performance advantage except that they installed them wrong, the long axis of the oval on biopace rings was in line with the crank arm but the new system has got it “right” and aligned that axis perpendicular to the crank arm.
anyway, I don’t know if what I heard is true or if the advantage is real in any event, but that’s the explanation I heard.
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“Perceived” advantage can, in fact, be a real advantage.
So if it’s working for Froome (or, if he thinks it’s working for him), that’s really something.
You won’t find me using them, though.
Heck, the last road bike I bought (a very long time ago) came with the then-new-school chainring setup of 39/53. I hated it, and ripped the 39 off to be replaced by the properly sized 42. Because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I may not be the most forward thinking bicycle user.
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My brother had a mtb univega in the late 80s with biopace when we were kids, I just didn’t like the uneven feel. Would be interesting to try a bike with them in the new “correct” orientation.
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Non-round chainrings take a bit of getting used to, but I’ve always thought they make sense. But yeah, Shimano did Biopace wrong; they had some harebrained notion about the momentum of the knee or something, whereas it makes perfect sense to lower the ratio where you’re making the least power, smoothing out your power delivery. In fact, I came across a study a while back that tested them, and found they could be good for a few percent. But they don’t do much at all until the high/low ratio is above 1.5:1.
As for 25mm tyres, it seems the extra weight is worth it, since the pros have been using them instead of 23s for a few years now. Perversely enough, they’re supposed to be more aero. And a wider tyre actually has less rolling resistance than a skinnier one, because a shorter section of the tyre is deformed for a contact patch of a given size. Also, the handling is better.
As for 39/53 instead of 42/52, I’m not a fan of having to shift to the big ring a cog earlier, but it makes sense; it was introduced when 8s came on the scene, to reduce the ratio overlap between rings and make the most of more cogs to increase the range.
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How about RPMs? Seems the ovals would be better at low RPM, but a nuisance if you’re seriously spinning. I could almost see it as a benefit if the smaller chainring were oval, and the larger round.
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I’ve ridden everything from 19mm to 30-something-mm on road bikes. The “old” standard used to be 23, but I’ve always liked 25-28- assuming you could take the weight penalty. More comfortable at a minimum, and in a race the length of the TDF, I’d assume comfort really does matter.
My problem with the 39 was the chain angle imposed when I was at my “normal” cruising year. For me, around here, 42 x 17 is the jam, and I wanted my gear back. Gear range was never much of a thing, either, as I was nearly running a straight block on the back. Ah, to be young a dumb again.
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corncob for the win. 
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I’ve only ridden Biopace BITD (which I rotated), which only has a slight ratio, so I dunno how this new generation of rings spin… I’m inclined to think it shouldn’t be much of an issue though, since it should make for a more natural motion, with a faster fore/aft movement than up/down.
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Pity triples are out of favour; they go great with a corncob.
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It was a teeny bit too hilly in the Northeast for an 11-19 8 speed block- at least, if you weren’t only riding relatively flat crits. My normal back end is an 11-21 or 11-23 with a 42/53 in the front. Fixie gets a 44x18, which is almost exactly the same ratio as my favorite 42x17 but with a better wear pattern. Single speed mountain bikes get a 32x16, and hardtail freeride bikes get a 34 x 11-32 (except when it’s in skatepark mode, when the cassette swaps to an 11x23).
I’ve been seeing a huge proliferation of the extended range cassettes- stuff with ranges like 9x44, which just seems… nuts. I dunno. Hills here tend to be very steep and pretty short. I’ve been pulling the granny ring off my bikes since forever, and I’ve found a low gear of 32x32 or 32x34 (on 26" wheels) to be enough. If I need anything lower, things aren’t going well for me. Besides, I like single front rings- clean and all that, but adding all the rotating weight of a cogstack that big seems… counter productive?
Again: there’s a good chance I’m just a grumpy old stick in the mud.
And I totally get that elsewhere in the country where the climbs are long and grinding that having that sort of range is killer.
Also: why aren’t people running any sort of bash ring these days? Did we stop riding over tall shit?
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The current groupthink has steadily been moving recently towards considering 25-28mm tires well worth the small weight penalty over 23. Seems like by going wider you can have a bit more comfort and (maybe) more speed because of three factors people are starting to consider more seriously:
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Wider tires allow for less tire pressure, which is known to be more comfortable. But less tire pressure also avoids suspension losses of energy by bouncing around non-perfectly-smooth real life riding surfaces.
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If you switch to wider but don’t lower the tire pressure the comfort should not change, but instead you’re supposed to get less rolling resistance and better handling. Which, if true, is a nice double advantage for racing.
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A bit-wider tire mounted on a bit-wider wheel rim should be more aerodynamic than a thin-tire-thin-rim combo. This is counter-intuitive because the larger frontal area should be more of a wind sock, but seems like a nicely matched transition between rim shape and tire shape matters even more for reasons that are very complicated to calculate.
Of course, we’re talking tiny, tiny differences that might or might not be entirely meaningless and/or psychological for everyone not competing in Grand Tours. But when is that not the case in “enthusiast” cycling circles, right?
Personally, I think fatter tires look cool and feel nicer to ride on, so I’m glad the pros are going in this direction and so is everyone else. If nothing else, it means nicer tires in wider widths being made available at all price points. Oh, and frames that actually fit them. A few more years and we might go back to 80s levels of tire-size practicality.
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