It’s true of fine, flat, metalled roads but there’s research showing that fat tyres with lower pressures are better on rougher roads with uneven surfaces or gravel. The reason is that to pass over a bump a thin, high pressure tyre forces the bike to make vertical movement, requiring additional energy which you don’t get back. A big, soft tyre can deform around the uneven road surface and although this will result in increased rolling resistance you lose less energy to vertical travel.
We’ve already seen the movement to 25mm tyres in the pro circuit and rims have also widened, which changes the shape of the contact patch. I doubt that we’ll see fat tyres on cobbled sections any time soon since gains made on cobbles would be more than lost on the road, and I don’t think riders are allowed to swap bikes except for mechanicals, anymore.
The most important part of an aero fairing is the rear section, which gets the air pressure to work for you instead of only against you. This fact alone blows my mind.
and then there’s the velomobile, all human powered and dildo-shaped for optimal aero. mostly a Dutch thing, I think. Flat terrain and a culture or road-sharing with non-autos.
I dunno, I thought the Netherlands was like Denmark - loads of cycling-specific infrastructure but a driving populace whose bladders fall out of their arses if they see a bike on the ‘normal’ road.
Maybe I’m prejudiced because my one experience of driving in the Netherlands was utterly terrifying (although the motorway surface wasn’t full of axle-destroying potholes, like in Belgium).
I wouldn’t know firsthand, but it seems like all the velomobile pics on the internet come from the Netherlands, I was just assuming that was part of why. I knew a Dutch national that said he and all his buddies would ride to neighboring towns on “regular roads” when they were all highschool aged. Maybe they were just outliers?
Could be. I don’t know much about riding in the Netherlands - I was generalising from other European countries that I do know of. In Germany for instance, if a cycle path exists then riding in the road is forbidden unless you’re riding a ‘racing bike’ (defined by weight) because God forbid anything should inconvenience a car… The problem is that German cycle paths are often either the pavement (especially between villages) or next to/level with pavements, and demarcated ever so clearly with a slightly different pattern of paving (so people wander into it continually). It’s like the assumption is that if you’re on a bike, then you aren’t actually bothered about getting anywhere.
Added to that the laws around bikes in Germany are at best archaic and at worst utterly bizarre. A friend was stopped and fined on the spot in Leipzig because her front light wasn’t heavy enough…
While separate cycling facilities are a clear and effective way to improve cyclist safety in many situations, their over-use can lead to problems because road users don’t want to share. Not that this isn’t a problem in countries where cycle lanes aren’t well-developed, of course. I think the hard-liners on both sides have got it wrong. Separate cycling facilities should be applied in arterial routes and road sharing emphasised away from main roads. By making main roads more navigable, you can increase cyclist numbers and then the road-sharing problem should solve itself as people become more familiar with using the roads around other vehicles. Worst case scenario is where cycling facilities are put in running down obscure roads and away from other traffic. It doesn’t encourage cycling if riders are led down circuitous routes.
The 80s and pro cycling were kinda hilarious. The argument for and against aerodynamics was kinda considered woo woo. People were anti helmet (for good reason) and bicycle safety at high speed was learning to fall and roll, while wearing two jerseys to avoid roadrash. Pros smoked cigarettes to ‘open their lungs’ and other bizarre stuff.
I always see those rear farings as a compromise.
And I personally won’t be happy until I have a lightbike in the style of Tron.
Over the years manufacturers have done a great job in improving lighting technology, shifting technology, puncture resistance, and seat comfort. There’s been almost no improvement in ant-theft technology. If anything, there’s been a step backwards, since it turns out all those increasingly-hefty locks could be cracked with a bic pen, a hammer, a portable dremel, or some other device. Effective anti-theft tech should deter all but the most committed thieves, and protect cargo as well, so you can run shopping errands without taking everything with you into the store. Give me that (and maybe some decent power assist for that one bodacious hill between me and my office) and I’ll start commuting by bike again.
There’s no such thing as absolute security - if someone wants to take your bike, they can. While there have been some pretty bad flaws in the past, such as the Bic pen weakness that affects tubular pin tumbler locks, there are plenty of options. The key is to make your bike more trouble than it’s worth - so for example having 2 locks of different types - a chain and a U-lock, for example, and using them effectively. One additional security option that is worth considering (and is itself a bit sexy) is Atomic22’s system, which can replace all your bolts and skewers (or as many as you need to) with a fastener unique to you, and a tool to go with it:
This enables you to lock with a single good lock and not worry about any parts going walkies - in most cases a thief would have to cut a new screwdriver slot in the fastener to get it open. Even mole grip attacks won’t work because parts are chamfered to shed the jaws of a grip, and usually have a freely-rotating skirt so that the bolt can’t be turned in this fashion…
There’s some truth to that, but wide tires on a wide rim can’t withstand much pressure, so my experience is that assuming them to be sluggish is a safe generalization.
I have a mountain bike with smooth, good-quality urban tires on it. IIRC they are rated for maybe 45psi, which I always exceeded, and could because I built solid wheels with huge Phil Wood hubs and double-wall Mavics. If inflated to 60psi with mediocre wheels I am sure they’d blow the walls out. In contrast, most decent road tires can be inflated to 100-120 psi with no problems.
This is basically what I’ve been doing since I started bike commuting nearly 40 years ago. All the problems we’ve solved in that time - big and small - you’d think someone would have made a paradigmatic advance on the bicycle security problem. Or maybe I’m the only one who sees this as a problem?
I don’t remember the 80s really as I was a kid on a BMX. However the arguments about aero still go on! I’m fairly bemused by the predominance of aerodynamic tube shapes - mostly sub-optimal anyway due to UCI rules - since the bike only accounts for about 20% of the total aerodynamic drag, and aero construction only reduces drag on the bike by a fairly small amount, most riders would be better off reducing the drag they experience (i.e. fewer pies). Even in triathlon where much more aerodynamic bikes are allowed, the gains are negligible until the rider is going at pretty high speeds.
In any case, I reckon that teardrop shaped tubes with the resulting extra weight for a given diameter are less effective than we could get by adding features to trip the boundary layer and create turbulent flow, since the main source of aero drag isn’t frictional but rather pressure - the wakes behind the tube sucking it back, as I understand it. We wouldn’t need to dimple like a golf ball because the orientation of the tubes as they pass through the air is known. But dimpled head tubes might be a good start!
Funny, that; no matter how much money I spend on getting the lightest bike I can afford, they still ride as if they are 20 pounds heavier than the bikes I rode in the 80s.
If you’re trying to secure an object that is bulky but easily carried then options are limited. I think the miniaturisation of tracking tools might create a shift as stolen bikes would start become an easy way for police to locate thieves. However most systems rely upon bluetooth and apps to capture and relay location data, so they need a critical mass of users to be effective. Perhaps if there was an open-source standard for these devices, then clients of any given system could help all clients of all systems? Or if the necessary apps were preloaded onto customers’ smartphones so coverage was filled out? I can see lots of issues with tracking being a major mode of defence, though.
Some people have experimented with siren locks aimed at motorcycles, attaching to the disc brake. Some models can fit the chainring, but they have been ‘prone to false positives’…
Whatever starts making noise needs to be attached to the bike - no good if cutting a lock off makes a sudden racket, since the stolen bike becomes the best way to get away from the aforementioned siren.
