Wal-Mart Italian Road Bike for $1198

Tom Sherman wrote:

Chalo Colina wrote:

Madone frames, like all CFRP frames, are made from charred
polyacrylonitrile resin-- that's plastic, by the way-- in a matrix of
epoxy resin. Which is, y'know, plastic. Plastic is the least
marketing-termish thing you could call them.

I thought plastic referred to non-recoverable deformation, not a
material type. The correct term is polymer.

Almost every plastic material is not a single polymer, but a mixture
of polymer resins along with fillers to modify the properties of the
resin mixture. So you could say, "filled copolymer" most of the time,
specifying a filled single-resin polymer or unfilled polymers or
copolymers as the material dictates, or you could call them all
"plastics", just as the term "metal" refers equally to alloys, pure
metallic elements, unmixed combinations, or metal-matrix composites.

My point is just that characterizing a frame as being made from
"carbon fiber" is like saying another one is made from "scandium".
Both are actually composed mostly of other substances, and the most
generic terms for those mixtures are respectively "plastic" and
"metal".

Chalo

On May 4, 7:15 pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
landotter writes:



On May 4, 2:51 pm, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
Aeek writes: On Sat, 3 May 2008 22:40:29 -0700 (PDT), Chalo
wrote:

Madone frames, like all CFRP frames, are made from charred
polyacrylonitrile resin-- that's plastic, by the way-- in a matrix of
epoxy resin. Which is, y'know, plastic. Plastic is the least
marketing-termish thing you could call them.

I love my 08 Madone 6.9, its an awesome race bike.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's the main thing. shrug Who can complain?
Nothing beats a bike that's a joy to ride, as well
as a pleasure to just ~have~.

Which reminds me: I've gotta get around to doing
something about my heron-motif-edition Raleigh Twenty.
It's a beauty, but the stock chrome wheels are so
fubar'dly out of true. I dunno whether to keep 'em
(and the whole bike) stock & original, or stick more
practical alu-alloy rims on there. I'm still thinking
about it. Some decent steerer bearings wouldn't hurt
either, if I could replace the existing nylon bushings.
I've also thought about replacing the flexy front brake,
but that's part of what makes a Twenty a Twenty.

What makes a Twenty great is the frame and the rear hub, the rest is
mainly junky.

Steel handlebars have earned my respect.

The only thing junky on my Twenty is
the fat-assed aftermarket saddle.

The chainring with its fretworked herons
in the spokes is to die for. The pedals
are pretty with their relief herons in the
rubber. The paint is plum brown with gold
highlights here 'n there. The fenders are
sparkling chrome. If I obtained the stock
saddle, matching-coloured frame pump and a
S-A faceplate, it'd be like new out of the box.

Lots of BMX/freestyle rims are chromed aluminum. One of those might
be a better aesthetic choice for your Twenty than a polished or
anodized aluminum rim.

Chalo

SMS wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote:

With the addition of stem extenders and high rise, long stems
and many long seat posts available on the market, all my bikes
are quite comfortable.


That reminds me of the old Midas commercial where the competitor only
has one model of muffler, and the mechanic says "fit? we'll MAKE it fit"
and brings out a bunch of adapters and pipes.

What you're doing will work, but it's the wrong way of getting the bike
to fit.

Why is it "wrong"?

I don't see it as any more "wrong" than moving an existing
seat post up or down, sliding the saddle back or forward on
the post, or, in the days of quill stems, moving it up or
down, not to mention rotating an angled bar forward or backward
to adjust reach a bit more.

I've only had to buy an extra long seat post for that 54cm
dumpster queen I rescued, which is a way too small frame for
my 6'1" body.

Yet I've managed to ride it quite comfortably for up to 65
miles.

I'll agree that adding extra money to purchase a special long
seatpost or stem extender is more money needlessly spent if
one could have purchased a more appropriate frame size to
start out with.

However, I am of the opinion a three frame size range would
get most people properly adjusted on their bikes using the
seatposts/stems/risers/saddle positions the bike came with.

Just my opinion. Mike J surely sees many more types of
bicyclist/bike matching challenges than I do, so what seems
fine from my more limited perspective may not capture the
big picture in fitting issues.


SMH

ZBicyclist wrote:
Tom Sherman wrote:

Colnago describes what they did at
"http://www.colnago.com/en/catalogo2008/extremepower.php".


"The Extreme-Power was born to meet the demands of sprinters
Alessandro Petacchi and Erik Zabel of Team Milram and three time
World Champion Oscar Freire of Team Rabobank who all have a power
output of 180 kg
for each pedal stroke."

WTF? When did the kilogram (kg) become a unit of power instead of
mass?
Quick, notify the General Conference on Weights and Measures of
this
change!
Do people actually get paid to write this stuff?


Watts your problem?



Ohm no! I erg you to stop this before this gets out of hand.
Paul O.

--

Paul D Oosterhout
I work for SAIC (but I don't speak for SAIC)

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
With the addition of stem extenders and high rise, long stems
and many long seat posts available on the market, all my bikes
are quite comfortable.

That reminds me of the old Midas commercial where the competitor
only has one model of muffler, and the mechanic says "fit? we'll
MAKE it fit" and brings out a bunch of adapters and pipes.

We explain (when we don't have the right size in stock, and
somebody
expects us to make something else fit) that we used to have an
alternative that worked for all but those too-tall for our largest
frame. A "rack" in our warehouse where we could stretch the
customer
to fit the frame. The problem was that we couldn't get adequate
sound
proofing to muffle the screams, and the noises would attract a
very
odd clientele to the shop.
Anything to rack up a sale, I see.

Stephen Harding wrote:

However, I am of the opinion a three frame size range would
get most people properly adjusted on their bikes using the
seatposts/stems/risers/saddle positions the bike came with.

The key word is "most" people.

ZBicyclist wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote:

However, I am of the opinion a three frame size range would
get most people properly adjusted on their bikes using the
seatposts/stems/risers/saddle positions the bike came with.

The key word is "most" people.

As I've said, there are always "outliers" in the person-to-bike
fit distribution.

Nonetheless, I find it difficult to believe that 2cm frame size
increments can't be mostly folded into the normal up/down
seatpost adjustment and forward/back saddle adjustment ranges
that come on any bike size.

Recently in my local paper, there was a story about some guy in
CA who builds custom bikes for high end buyers (mentioned several
prominent Silicon Valley types with big bucks). A basic one
speed bike might set you back $15K.

He only builds for people "he likes" and might change his mind
in selling you the bike if you visit his shop to see how progress
is going too many times! You get interviewed before becoming a
customer.

He of course gets custom fit measurements from his clients in
building the frame and made the claim that a mis-match of even
ONE MILLIMETER can cause physical damage to the rider. That's
how important proper fit was!

BS!

I'd bet there are fewer than a handful of people on the bike
riding planet (I'll throw in the bike riders of Alpha Gamma 5
as well) who have suffered physical damage to themselves due to
a 1 mm bike fit mismatch!

This guy is selling smug snootiness disguised as bicycle building
elegance and performance to make his money IMHO.

I think Mark Hickey got his bike sales model wrong. Instead of
selling a good Ti frame for reasonable price, he should have been
trying to sell outrageously priced frames along with as much aires
of arrogance and superiority as he could muster.


SMH

On Mon, 5 May 2008 06:50:16 -0700 (PDT), Chalo
wrote:

Tom Sherman wrote:

Chalo Colina wrote:

Madone frames, like all CFRP frames, are made from charred
polyacrylonitrile resin-- that's plastic, by the way-- in a matrix of
epoxy resin. Which is, y'know, plastic. Plastic is the least
marketing-termish thing you could call them.

I thought plastic referred to non-recoverable deformation, not a
material type. The correct term is polymer.

Almost every plastic material is not a single polymer, but a mixture
of polymer resins along with fillers to modify the properties of the
resin mixture. So you could say, "filled copolymer" most of the time,
specifying a filled single-resin polymer or unfilled polymers or
copolymers as the material dictates, or you could call them all
"plastics", just as the term "metal" refers equally to alloys, pure
metallic elements, unmixed combinations, or metal-matrix composites.

My point is just that characterizing a frame as being made from
"carbon fiber" is like saying another one is made from "scandium".
Both are actually composed mostly of other substances, and the most
generic terms for those mixtures are respectively "plastic" and
"metal".

Chalo


You know, with that kind of attitude you are NEVER going to get a job
in marketing.

ZBicyclist wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote:
However, I am of the opinion a three frame size range would
get most people properly adjusted on their bikes using the
seatposts/stems/risers/saddle positions the bike came with.

The key word is "most" people.

Three sizes is not enough for "most," which I would take to mean 95%.
When you go to five size (XS, S, M, L, XL), then you could get to "most."

XS 40-44 cm
S 45-49 cm
M 50-54 cm
L 55-59 cm
XL 60-64 cm

It's still a compromise though. You usually end up with a bicycle that
is slightly too small, then adjust it up, though most riders wouldn't
know that it wasn't an optimal fit. If you needed a 54 cm frame, and the
medium was really a 50 cm with seatpost and stem adjustments to get it
to 54 cm, that's too much of an adjustment. 2 cm wouldn't be a big deal.

When threadless headsets first came out, there was a tendency to always
cut the tubes to the shortest possible length. I think Delta liked it
because they sold so many of their funky extenders.

Stephen Harding wrote:
[...]
Recently in my local paper, there was a story about some guy in
CA who builds custom bikes for high end buyers (mentioned several
prominent Silicon Valley types with big bucks). A basic one
speed bike might set you back $15K.

He only builds for people "he likes" and might change his mind
in selling you the bike if you visit his shop to see how progress
is going too many times! You get interviewed before becoming a
customer.

He of course gets custom fit measurements from his clients in
building the frame and made the claim that a mis-match of even
ONE MILLIMETER can cause physical damage to the rider. That's
how important proper fit was!

BS!

I'd bet there are fewer than a handful of people on the bike
riding planet (I'll throw in the bike riders of Alpha Gamma 5
as well) who have suffered physical damage to themselves due to
a 1 mm bike fit mismatch!

This guy is selling smug snootiness disguised as bicycle building
elegance and performance to make his money IMHO.[...]

If the above reporting (by the referenced local paper) is correct, then
all this builder's customers are fools that are indeed being parted from
their money.

Here are reasonably priced custom geometry frames made in the US:
http://www.gunnarbikes.com/custom.php.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful