Bike Geeks

[SteveSklar]

can we talk about bicycles now

look at the bamboo and hemp tandem top behind the guy
http://velonews.com/photo/73561

[Ed Svoboda]

Bikes would be cool.

I'm still not liking my Giant OCR Elite 0 that I built last year. The Aluminum frame just beats the crap out of you after you've ridden vintage (although they weren't at the time you bought them) steel bikes. I do really like the SRAM Rival. Would do a compact crank again. Thinking about either finding a sweet steel frame (49CM) that is space for 130 or maybe going carbon fiber and putting all of the parts over on that frame.

[SteveSklar]

i've realized that my newest frame is a 2000ish prototype from Santa Cruz - full aero frame (built in Taiwan). well, it's not the prototype - I broke that one quite quickly. but the "2nd" generation which is still going strong. I have on it my 99 Campy Record and Mavic Carbone tubular wheels. nice ride .. a little bad on crosswinds though. super strong aluminum frame. Luckily it's a compact frame and a nice long carbon seatpost to soak up the road shock.

my newest components are on my 1997 Lemond special - yellow and purple frame - i put a triple Daytona group on that. both are 9 speeds.

after that i have my 1982ish Alan Sprint with Campy SR
then a couple team bikes - 1986ish Tomasso (blue & white) with modern campy 9 spd w/DT shifters and it's sister a Guerciotti track bike with Suntour Superbe Pro

an my MTB bikes too

i miss my LItespeed Classic - 1st gen back in 1996ish. polished frame. that bike was a cushy ride. luckily a friend has it so i see it from time to time

i've forgotten all my bike lore .. used to have a website to vintage campy & shimano lineage. now i can't remember a thing. and i haven't kept up to the modern stuff .. just look at the prices and say .. geez ....

[Gandalfe]

My bike has only ten gears. But....

It is a vintage Trek I purchased new in the 70's, I think, with a Reynolds 531 double-butted frame with Suntour components, ultra-slim, flat resistant tires, and a five star crank. I purchased a seat designed my a NASA scientist to reduce the incident of TB (aka tired butt) and moved the down-tube shifters which I had to have in my 20s to handlebar-end thumb shifters which is much easier for a 50+ year old.

Now the sad admission, I only ride this bike 4 to 10 times a year. I mo-ped to work because of a huge hill that leaves me too sweaty for work if I use a bicycle. So that leaves me working around participating in three to four bands a year, two that I run, and weekend activities. Still, the bike is a beaut, even if it getting kinda old. :geezer2:

[pete]

Someone stole my $50 Huffy 10 speed. I haven't replaced it. In 20 years.

[SteveSklar]

Someone stole my $50 Huffy 10 speed. I haven't replaced it. In 20 years.
was it the white special edtion model from circa 1978-80 to celebrate their involvement in the US olympics ??

[Ed Svoboda]

Wasn't that one of Ben's bikes?

My old Schwinn World Tour used to be a 12 speed. Now it's sporting 8 cogs in the back and downtube shifters as well as Shimano 600 components. It still weights a ton but I've got clip ons so my feet go in and out quickly. It's the ride around the neighborhood bike.

I've been tempted to just do a Waterford frame or maybe even a gunner. I have to spend a little more time on the new bike to make sure that I really do hate the frame. No carbon in the rear to soften things up.

[SteveSklar]

Gunner is Waterford if i recall

Shimano 600 with the old gothic script on it? That was my first true component group. until i broke a rear derailluer and crankset. then my pseudo sponsor thought my sprinting abilities might be a bit better than they thought and put DuraAce EX/AX on it for cheap. Frame was a Schwinn .... one was a SuperLeTour then the next was a Superior - i still have the head badge for it !!

my first sponsor was
Crawford Cycles from Clawson, MI
their .. err.. off the record slogan - which was imprinted on a few t-shirts was
Crawford Cycles - we put excitement between your legs

[pete]

Someone stole my $50 Huffy 10 speed. I haven't replaced it. In 20 years.
was it the white special edtion model from circa 1978-80 to celebrate their involvement in the US olympics ??
It was the extra-junky blue one.

[SteveSklar]

good thing. they built the white one with too much stress .... so as soon as one of the tubes got a little bit rusty the frame would spring like a .. spring and break.

[Ed Svoboda]

The down tube shifters are the cool 600 script ones. The rest of the stuff is the later plain looking 600 (the gun metal gray with the three colors below 600).

Most of it was picked up NOS and I think it's one of the great groups that Shimano made. It's pretty solid stuff even all these years later. I have to say that the SRAM Rival stuff is pretty nice and works really well. I would have gone towards Campy but they've dummied down the middle of the line. Chorus is still quite nice but it's just a little more than I wanted to spend. I also have short legs and Campy doesn't make cranks in 165mm.

[SteveSklar]

i use 175 cranks
and i'm 5'6"
ride 49cm frames
short legs

just better torque, diff riding style and such but i get good results.

[pete]

Y'know, y'all should talk with Randy (Groovekiller). He's into biking.

[Merlin]

I ride a Brompton.

It's way geekier than anything you guys have.

Only problem is that I'll be living so close to work, it would take longer to get the bike out, unfold it, ride it to work, refold it, carry it inside and lock it up than it would just to walk to the theatre.

[Gandalfe]

Brompton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompton_Bicycle), dude you are an uber-geek. I had to laugh at your complaint about being too close to work. though.

[pete]

In case you (the gentle member or casual reader) wonder about this thread, the WF "staff" have an area where we talk about forum-related issues. This little conversation came up and Jim and I agreed that we should let other folks (like the aforementioned Groovekiller) take a crack at it.

Yes, it's non-sax. I refer you to the nice rules above this thread, in bright red and orange. Play nice.

Thanks!

[pete]

I ride a Brompton.

It's way geekier than anything you guys have.

Only problem is that I'll be living so close to work, it would take longer to get the bike out, unfold it, ride it to work, refold it, carry it inside and lock it up than it would just to walk to the theatre.
I watch TopGear on BBC America. There's a car called a "Peel P50" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_P50) that might suit. Make sure you check out the YouTube video.

Until wintertime. Which it should still be where you are, Merlin :).

[Ed Svoboda]

i use 175 cranks
and i'm 5'6"
ride 49cm frames
short legs

just better torque, diff riding style and such but i get good results.

Sounds like we're about the same height. My Miyata 710 is a 49 cm frame. I like the shorter cranks although I used to ride with 170's or 175's on my touring bike. I'm aiming for a higher cadence and less stress on the knees.

[SteveSklar]

back when i started getting into racing the local coach (Wolverine Sports Club) who was a world class coach back then put me on 165mm. i did nothing in races at that point except hang on to the back no matter how fast i tried to spin. after going back to 170s i was fine again. had to do with the legnth of the arm at the point of the chainring .... a 52 and 165 was too small a lever for me. at 170 it was pretty good to win a few races. at 172.5 i could time trail quite well (which i found out much later in life).

i have 165 on my track bike but i go with a small chainring and super small cog to get the larger lever from the crankset. on the Alan i have a 170 but a 50 large chainring for the same effect. the 175s i use a 53/39, except my triple which is a 175 with a 53, 39, 30 - that's a great little setup.

now i think what moped would i like to pedal ??

[Merlin]

If anyone needs further evidence of my geekiness...I have a home built recumbent.

[Gandalfe]

If anyone needs further evidence of my geekiness...I have a home built recumbent.Is it a Frankenstein bike with parts cannibalized from many, many bikes? :mrgreen:

[tictactux]

Is it a Frankenstein bike with parts cannibalized from many, many bikes? :mrgreen:
Tsk, tsk. Why use such ugly, negatively connotated words when you could say - without liying - "Built only from the finest hand-selected parts, carefully engineered to meet our demanding clientele's highest standards, custom-fitted for ultimate individual comfort and unsurpassed riding experience."
Ever checked a vehicle/instrument catalog? ;)

Uhm, sorry, occasionally I fall back into my old marketing job's language. :oops:

[Merlin]

If anyone needs further evidence of my geekiness...I have a home built recumbent.Is it a Frankenstein bike with parts cannibalized from many, many bikes? :mrgreen:

You bet it is!

It's got some nice Reynolds tubing from an old Raleigh, the Campy headset from the same bike, wheels that I built myself (20" front with radial spokes; 27" rear), 4130 chromoly tubing that I got from an aircraft supply company, and the widest range gearing of any of my bikes, thanks to the 54/42/24 front and 12-30 rear cogs.

[SteveSklar]

recumbents are interesting

i recall riding last year near AnnArbor a recumbent was keeping up with me .. making it look fairly easy too :shock:

but luckily, when we got to the hills that was about it. I could climb like the dickens and he couldn't :lol:

but he kept trying to catch up in the flats :o

i recall in college an engineering group putting a full egg shape type shell on a bicycle. Boy could that go fast but very top heavy

[SteveSklar]

so what would a sax sound like if someone made one from vintage Columbus SLP tubing ?

[Ed Svoboda]

back when i started getting into racing the local coach (Wolverine Sports Club) who was a world class coach back then put me on 165mm. i did nothing in races at that point except hang on to the back no matter how fast i tried to spin. after going back to 170s i was fine again. had to do with the legnth of the arm at the point of the chainring .... a 52 and 165 was too small a lever for me. at 170 it was pretty good to win a few races. at 172.5 i could time trail quite well (which i found out much later in life).

i have 165 on my track bike but i go with a small chainring and super small cog to get the larger lever from the crankset. on the Alan i have a 170 but a 50 large chainring for the same effect. the 175s i use a 53/39, except my triple which is a 175 with a 53, 39, 30 - that's a great little setup.

now i think what moped would i like to pedal ??

I'm more of a masher than a spinner. For those of you who haven't followed that debate in the cycling world for the last ten years it goes something like this: Lance Armstrong is a spinner. He pedals at a high cadence which some testing says is actually more efficient. Prior to Armstrong coming on the scene a lot of the great riders were mashers. They used the biggest baddest gear they could and pushed the pedals with all that they had. I tended towards frog legs (massive thighs) as a young person and found it easier to stick in the top gear and ride everywhere.

Age is a terrible thing though and now I use all 20 gears on the bike (or so it seems).

[Gandalfe]

Age is a terrible thing though and now I use all 20 gears on the bike (or so it seems).I've never used more than 4 gears on my ten speed, having never ridden a bike with more gears than that. Somehow having more gears never made sense to me as an intermediate rider. Maybe it makes a difference to a pro? But I am not even convinced about that. A lot of the gears are close to duplicates of others to my legs.

[Ed Svoboda]

What I have found is that there is a more much narrow band of comfort for me in terms of how fast I spin the pedals. It's about avoiding knee pain more than being "efficient". Having a bunch of gears to choose from is nice from that stand point. I can normally find something comfortable.

[SteveSklar]

actually i'm a spinner too, I just spin with longer cranks.

alot of the pros nowadays use 175-180 crankarms

Miguel Indurain was a big gear masher in hills and TTing

[Gandalfe]

I pulled my bike outta the garage for the first time this year. That would be the moped. :twisted:

[Ed Svoboda]

My wife has been asking me when I'm going to get on my bike. I think there's a not so subtle hint about my weight from her. The other night I was snacking on some chips after I thought she had went to bed and she appeared to magically put the chips back in the kitchen. :grin:

I told her I would get on my bike as soon as I had all of the various large piles of stuff moved around the yard. Moving 5 cubic yards of wood chips counts as cardio in my book.

[Gandalfe]

My wife has been asking me when I'm going to get on my bike. I think there's a not so subtle hint about my weight from her. The other night I was snacking on some chips after I thought she had went to bed and she appeared to magically put the chips back in the kitchen. :grin:This made me laugh. Those wives. :grin:

[Ed Svoboda]

My wife's a dietitian which makes it all the more fun. My six year old knows the difference between starches, fats, protein, and carbohydrate though. :lol: