On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 18:48:00 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/14/2019 6:06 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 06:28:18 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Monday, January 14, 2019 at 12:22:03 PM UTC+1, Duane wrote:
Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, January 13, 2019 at 9:57:50 PM UTC-5, Mark J. wrote:
On 1/13/2019 4:35 AM, Tosspot wrote:
On 1/12/19 6:46 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/12/2019 12:11 AM, wrote:
Seriously, what is the point of these things? What problem do they
solve and is it worth the extra maintenance hassles for non-racing
riders?

Part of the point is "churning." Bikes and bike parts are a
super-mature industry, and bikes and their products last decades. (My
favorite bike is from 1986.) So the industry tries to come up with new
ideas every year, just to entice you to buy _something_.

Going back to the 1970s, it was "Ten speeds!" then "Touring bikes!"
then "Aluminum!" then "Mountain bikes!" ... and on and on, with front
suspension, full suspension, 6 speeds, 7 speeds, 8 & 9 & 10 & 11
speeds, carbon fiber, electronic shifting etc. It goes on forever.

Currently it's disc brakes, tubeless tires and "gravel bikes." For
almost everyone who rides a bicycle, the improvements (if any) are
almost undetectable. We are deeply into diminishing returns, no matter
what miracles the supposed connoisseurs claim.

I take issue.* Indexed ergo shifters vs downtube friction shifters, LED
LiPo lights vs dodgy glow worms, and this is going to cause trouble,
yes, hydraulic discs vs cable rim brakes.


I think Tosspot has nailed it here, though Frank's not wrong either, in
large part.

Yes, those of us who have watched cycling's new products for a while
(~40 years for me) know that there's a lot of useless junk that shows
up. There are also some great improvements, and some wonders. While we
will disagree about some (many) of them, let's admit that available
products today include a lot of great innovations.

But here's the thing - at first it was hard to tell which area of
"improvement" would really work. I think most of the categories of
improvements we enjoy today had early failures - hilariously so in some
cases, and they were surrounded by other "categorical failures", ideas
that really turned out to be entirely useless.

Here's a partial list (according to me) of big improvements I've seen
that weren't obvious in their first appearance:

Low-cost aluminum... cranks, derailleurs, etc.
I worked episodically in a Raleigh shop in the later 70's, assembling
new bikes. Right about then Raleigh shifted from lots of steel (or
plastic) Nervar, Simplex, Huret stuff to aluminum Sugino, SunTour, and
SR stuff. The latter was vastly easier to set up well. But there was
junk (plenty of it?) in the cheap aluminum component category. I
remember a cottered aluminum crank (!). In the earlier 70s, I doubt we
would have thought that low-cost aluminum parts could ever be good.

Quality clincher tires (first decent ones, then great ones).
When I started riding, no clincher came close to the quality, rolling
resistance, weight of sewups, pain-in-the-ass though they are. Then SBI
(Specialized Bicycle Imports, later shortened), IRC, and then Michelin
started selling very nice clinchers, and Schwinn's outsourced "LeTour"
tires were good too. Today I can get "handmade" non-vulcanized tires by
Challenge, Veloflex, or major brands like Vittoria that come pretty
close to duplicating sewup feel, rolling resistance, and (almost)
weight. Or I can get midweight vulcanized tires that are only slightly
heavier.
But some of the earlier attempts at "clincher reform" were, IIRC, pretty
crappy. One could easily have thought that "quality clincher" was a
pipe dream that would never take root.

Clipless pedals
This one is huge for me. When I had toestraps tightened enough to work
- and I kept 'em pretty loose - I still had killer problems with cold
feet in winter. With clipless, I have lots of room for shoe covers,
etc., not to mention other advantages. I know we don't all agree, but
the overwhelming adoption of clipless can't /just/ be marketing.
BUT OMG were there a bunch of poor, crappy, and even
disastrous/dangerous clipless designs early on. Sampson comes to mind,
or especially the Cinelli M71 pedal. I've forgotten the names of most
of the others, but they certainly gave the impression that clipless
pedals were crazy.

Indexed shifting
Again, we don't all agree, but the overwhelming majority of cyclists
seem to think that index shifting is a pretty neat idea. Despite some
real turkeys early on (Positron and Positron II, anyone?), turkeys that
"clearly" signaled that index shifting was an answer to a question
nobody asked, it turns out you *can* make a quality indexed shifter.
Who knew?

I could go on. Brifters, LED/LiPo lights, aluminum and carbon frames,
bicycle computers, nylon saddles (that's reaching back many years), and
yes, disc brakes, etc. - and all those advances coming on the scene with
many poor early designs, and surrounded by junk we still laugh about
that never amounted to anything. But if we could tell which inventions
would blossom when we first saw them, we'd all have invested in Intel
and Microsoft in the 70's and be rich now.

So even though I agree with Frank about "churn" in large part, that
churn turns out a few not-immediately-recognizable innovations that most
of us are glad about. A sort of Darwinian evolution, if you will.
While the industry may be super-mature, it ain't done yet.

Mark J.

I can remember when BIYCLING magazine had an article about NOT needing 15
gears on a bicycle. They stated in their article that 10 gears was more than enough.

I've tried clipless pedals but had problems getting out of them at times
and then falling over and getting scraped up a bit. Therefore I went back
to toeclips. For most of my riding I don't even have to snug up the
straps let alone tighten them up yet my feet stay on the pedals.
Besides, toestraps have LOTS of other uses. I've used one to keep a
dressing on a cut on a leg. I've used them to secure a jacket and tights
to the underside of my saddle after the temperatures rose to from quite
chilly to quite warm. I've used a toestrap to secure an extra water
bottle under a saddle. I've looped a toestrap around my handlebar and
stem and used it as makeshift bottle holder to hold a cup of coffee. I
used 2 toestraps joined together to hold something to the rear rack on a
bicycle. Hard to do any of that if you have clipless pedals. LOL VBEG ;)

I can remember too when downtube shifters sometimes would wear, or at
least the innards would, to the point where it was nearly impossible to
keep in the gear one wanted.

I think pneumatic clincher tires with separate tubes, decent derailleurs
and decent index shifting are 3 of the major innovations that caused
bicycling to grow as much as it has in North America.

I like my Campy Ergo 9-speed shifters on my touring bike. The left
shifter is ratchet and thus it's dead simple to trim the front
derailleur. I find I shift more often on hills with a load with the Ergos
t han I did even with bar-end shifters. However, I still like my downtube
shifters that i have on some of my other bikes. I especially like my
top-center mounted Dura Ace AX shifters and my top-center downtube
mounted Suntour symetric shifters (?) because they can be shifted front
and rear with just one hand at the same time.

In winter I really like my Lyotard MB23 platform pedals*. They're Frank's favourite pedals.

For me and for many others even 7 gears in t he rear with 2 or 3
chainrings is plenty. I like Shimano 9-speed clusters because I can set
them up with 7 cogs for most riding but with 2 larger cogs for bailout
gears. I use a Campy Ergo 9-speed shifters and rear derailler to shift my
9-speed Shimano cassette on my touring bike.

Some folks who are really into fitness riding or fast-paced group riding
probably love more gears because the increases in effort between gears
isn't as great as it is in 7, 6, or 5 speed cassettes.

Again a lot of bicycle innovations are different horses for different courses.

At least now we have a lot of equipment choices that can be used to give
us the customized bike we WANT or NEED for OUR style of riding.


That last sentence says it all.



--
duane

Something the 'dinosaurs' will never understand and claim everone is a victim of marketing. When I bought my first serious roadbike I had the choice between 3 saddles: junk, crap and doesn't fit.....

Lou

Yet, Brooks was marketing saddles in 1888. A saddle that even today
people pay rather astonishing amounts of money to own and ride.
The B-17 was introduced in the 1890's and is still marketed today.
That is nearly 130 years that folks have been buying that particular
saddle which would seem to indicate that it is not considered as
"junk, crap and doesn't fit".

We host touring cyclists through Warm Showers. Brooks are probably the
most common of the saddle brands under the cycle tourists that arrive here.

Having said that, Brooks don't happen to work for me, except for my 3
speed about-town bike. We're all different down there.

Yes!

Bontrager, which seems to be a TREK brand, has a thing that you sit on
which is suppose to "measure" you and allow the selection of a saddle
that fits perfectly. Having already bought a large of saddles that
didn't fit I tried it out and bought a brand new Bontrager's saddle...
it didn't fit :-(

Luckily I bought, years ago, a second hand bike with a saddle that was
a perfect fit and that had the brand and model number stamped on it. A
Velo V-1205. Unfortunately Velo saddles don't seemed to be common here
so I've only been able to buy one more, second hand.

I could of course, order a Velo 1205 from Andrew but by the time
postage and duties were added in I could probably buy a Brooks :-)


Cheers,
John B.