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Mark Weaver wrote:
... I bought one of those for my kid. Heck of a deal, IMHO. Frame seems fine, components are the same as on low end LBS bikes. My kid (like a lot of 13-year-olds) doesn't take care of things very well, leaves the bike out in the rain, often forgets to take a lock, etc, so I was happy to be able to get a pretty decent bike for such a small sum.... When I was 13, my bicycle was a Peugeot P-8 purchased new from Andrew Muzi/Yellow Jersey that cost ~$260 (IIRC). This was a small fortune (for me), and you can be assured I took care of it. When I outgrew it in my late teens, I passed it on to a relative who commuted on it for 10+ years, until it was destroyed by a pick-up truck driver running a stop sign. Otherwise, I expect it would still be in use 2+ decades later. This was the low-end of the Peugeot range, but the ride, handling, weight, braking and shifting performance made it much more enjoyable to ride than the ~$80 hardware store "10-speed" it replaced. -- Tom Sherman - Near Rock Island |
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#42
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PSB wrote:
Ron Hardin wrote: I generally get 6 years before that happens, and the current one looks to be going strong for more years yet. I was hoping you would ring in Ron. The thing about the Huffy I was looking at has knobby tires. The Schwinn didn't have knobbies. What do you recommend Ron, knobbies or slicks? Thanks. Rolling resistance comes from distortion of the tire and the surface. A steel wheel on a steel rail has the least rolling resistance. Knobby tires have significantlly greater rolling resistance than a smooth tire. Likewise high pressure tires have less rolling resistance than soft tires. The most important thing is to get a bike that fits. If it has knobby tires, change them to something smoother. I love Avocet Cross tires 700x35 for general purpose riding and touring. The inverted tread has low rolling resistance on a smooth surface, and has some grip on dirt roads and paths. They are a little bit on the expensive side though. If you are commuting, you do not want knobbies, unless you are purposely trying to increase your calorie burn. Oliver -- Cheers! OliverS When replying personally, remove "_nospam_" "When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race." HG Wells |
#43
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Ron Hardin Wrote:
Every 10k miles or so, replace BB chainwheel chain and freewheel together, when the chain finally starts popping off the chainwheel startups. Huffy sells replacements over the phone. meb wrote: Uh, when you replace that many parts at once isn't that approaching the price of a comparable new bike? Sounds like unless you've got a cheap source of parts, at 10k miles it's time to put Huffy to pasture and get a new Huffy/roadmaster/schwinn unless the faithfull steed has become part of the family. Might even be cheaper to buy a second as a parts bike. Nobody else has chimed in on this issue, but often with a commuter you have to deal with rain, salt, snow so it's nice to have a bike on hand that you don't dread getting weathered on. Also, there may be locations you travel in wherein you want a bike the theives don't target. -snip- Yeah. I was spending way too much time, attention and money on that sort of thing until I built myself a winter fixed. Now it's a chain a year, brake pads every 3-4 years, tire now and again, but no angst. Just celebrated ten years last month. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#44
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Mark Weaver wrote:
I bought one of those for my kid. Heck of a deal, IMHO. Frame seems fine, components are the same as on low end LBS bikes. My kid (like a lot of 13-year-olds) doesn't take care of things very well, leaves the bike out in the rain, often forgets to take a lock, etc, so I was happy to be able to get a pretty decent bike for such a small sum.... Tom Sherman wrote: When I was 13, my bicycle was a Peugeot P-8 purchased new from Andrew Muzi/Yellow Jersey that cost ~$260 (IIRC). This was a small fortune (for me), and you can be assured I took care of it. When I outgrew it in my late teens, I passed it on to a relative who commuted on it for 10+ years, until it was destroyed by a pick-up truck driver running a stop sign. Otherwise, I expect it would still be in use 2+ decades later. This was the low-end of the Peugeot range, but the ride, handling, weight, braking and shifting performance made it much more enjoyable to ride than the ~$80 hardware store "10-speed" it replaced. That series was robotically fillet brazed and successfully sold in good volume at $199 to $259 - a price where European lugged frames were prohibitively expensive at the time. (Production later moved to ProCycle Canada) These are sought out by the thrift store cognoscenti. Their unfiled joints don't look all that sharp but since Peugeot used a heavier down tube and a much lighter top tube , combined with a classic geometry, the handling and 'road feel' are exceptional. A 'category killer' new at $259 and once again among the '$20 used ten speeds'. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#45
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A Muzi left his web site link, and I wandered over to his
photo of the day. http://www.yellowjersey.org/daily.html It's quite the winter cycling photo! (because this may not be the picture at some later point, I will describe it: an upside-down iron is substituted for the saddle. The iron is connected to an auto battery, which is where the rack trunk would be on my bike.) |
#46
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In article ,
OliverS writes: Rolling resistance comes from distortion of the tire and the surface. A steel wheel on a steel rail has the least rolling resistance. Knobby tires have significantlly greater rolling resistance than a smooth tire. Likewise high pressure tires have less rolling resistance than soft tires. The most important thing is to get a bike that fits. If it has knobby tires, change them to something smoother. I love Avocet Cross tires 700x35 for general purpose riding and touring. The inverted tread has low rolling resistance on a smooth surface, and has some grip on dirt roads and paths. They are a little bit on the expensive side though. If you are commuting, you do not want knobbies, unless you are purposely trying to increase your calorie burn. Knobbies do make a pleasing 'buzz' on asphalt. Sure, they'll slow ya down and (heaven forbid) allow other riders to pass ya sometimes. But if you don't care, it doesn't matter. And there may be some shortcut scenarios where knobbies come in handy. Even in urban environs. One of the worst thing about knobbies is not being able to run a sidewall generator on them. They can interfere with fenders, too, on a commuter bike. cheers, Tom -- -- Nothing is safe from me. Above address is just a spam midden. I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca |
#48
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In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote: In article , OliverS writes: Rolling resistance comes from distortion of the tire and the surface. A steel wheel on a steel rail has the least rolling resistance. Knobby tires have significantlly greater rolling resistance than a smooth tire. Likewise high pressure tires have less rolling resistance than soft tires. The most important thing is to get a bike that fits. If it has knobby tires, change them to something smoother. I love Avocet Cross tires 700x35 for general purpose riding and touring. The inverted tread has low rolling resistance on a smooth surface, and has some grip on dirt roads and paths. They are a little bit on the expensive side though. If you are commuting, you do not want knobbies, unless you are purposely trying to increase your calorie burn. Knobbies do make a pleasing 'buzz' on asphalt. Sure, they'll slow ya down and (heaven forbid) allow other riders to pass ya sometimes. But if you don't care, it doesn't matter. And there may be some shortcut scenarios where knobbies come in handy. Even in urban environs. But slicks are soo much nicer to ride on! And better cornering grip. And better wet-pavement grip. I have a set of Tioga City Slickers, which are pretty cheap, available at MEC, and they even have gumwalls to satisfy the purists. The tread is a minimalist road pattern. Even on packed gravel, I would opt for the slicks over knobbies. About the only urban surface a knobby can traverse that a slick cannot is a muddy slope long enough that you can't just power through by accelerating before you hit the hill. That's a pretty rare thing, even when making shortcuts. One of the worst thing about knobbies is not being able to run a sidewall generator on them. They can interfere with fenders, too, on a commuter bike. I love knobbies when I'm playing in the mud. But one of my Boxing Day finds was a nice rear wheel for $15, which will soon hold the slicks for my mountain bike, causing quick-change happiness for planned urban stupidity. -- Ryan Cousineau, http://www.wiredcola.com Verus de parvis; verus de magnis. |
#49
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Wrote: On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:47:35 -0500, PSB wrote: Learning toward one or the other for buying a new dept store bicycle. I know what to look for when it comes to assembling them. The bike is going to be used as a commuter. The Huffy's are about 30 dollars cheaper and both have Shamino gears. Just curious if I should spend the 30 bucks more for a Schwinn or not. If you are going to reply that I should buy from an LBS, save your bandwidth. So which would you recommend? Dear Dyslexic PBS, I doubt [modest cough] that you will hear from anyone who has wasted more time and bandwidth here extolling the glories of such value-for-money steeds. (I also doubt that anyone will recommend either brand.) But I'm pleased with my $60 Fury RoadMaster from Walmart and its fifteen fierce Shamino gears. http://tinyurl.com/2tohm As far as I can tell, the Fury rolls four miles along its daily route with reasonable splendour, gnashing its teeth as befits its name. Most two-wheeled objects with pedals do the same. Carl Fogel Do 1/2" shaft clipless pedals exist? Are they in a price suitable for Fury/Huffy/Schwinn one piece cranks for those occaisions one is setting the commuting record? -- meb |
#50
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In article ,
Ryan Cousineau writes: Knobbies do make a pleasing 'buzz' on asphalt. Sure, they'll slow ya down and (heaven forbid) allow other riders to pass ya sometimes. But if you don't care, it doesn't matter. And there may be some shortcut scenarios where knobbies come in handy. Even in urban environs. But slicks are soo much nicer to ride on! And better cornering grip. And better wet-pavement grip. I agree so much, I opt for slicks, myself. All I'm saying is knobbies aren't totally unusable on pavement. I have a set of Tioga City Slickers, which are pretty cheap, available at MEC, and they even have gumwalls to satisfy the purists. The tread is a minimalist road pattern. I finally parted ways with my Cheng Shins, after 8-10K kilometers. I went looking for a new pair of the same, but ended up instead with IRC Metros, from The Bike Doctor. $11.69 each. They at least look similar to the Cheng Shins. .... About the only urban surface a knobby can traverse that a slick cannot is a muddy slope long enough that you can't just power through by accelerating before you hit the hill. That's a pretty rare thing, even when making shortcuts. IME knobbies traverse wet, grassy fields better than slicks, which can go kind of sidewindery. But there might be the matter of divots. cheers, Tom -- -- Nothing is safe from me. Above address is just a spam midden. I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca |
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