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#51
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
wrote in message
... Where did you get this queer notion that a simple bicycle must be expensive to be any good? Have you been reading too many bike catalogs and believing all of the advertising? Apparently so. It's not that a simple bike needs to be expensive to be good, it's that a cheap bike often is no good. Take a look at these http://www.sterlinghouse.co.uk/beatcredit.php?tfoid=9 Some people have - and their tales are pretty damning. I hear Walmart bikes are notoriously similar. Move up out of that lowest end cheapness and you'll get into something which is not expensive, yet will be ok. And that's what Peter was saying. |
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#52
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
On Jan 16, 8:32*am, Peter Clinch wrote:
wrote: On Jan 15, 7:30 pm, !Jones' Sock Puppet wrote: On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:00:42 -0800 (PST), in alt.war.vietnam You can buy a $70 bike at walmart, target, kmart. they'll ride fine and can be used to commute. Oh, in today's market, methinks I'd budget about $500 or so for a decent commuter. *Then about half again for the racks, fenders, and panniers... those accesories ain't cheap! Jones- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - So you would pay $750 when you could pay $70. *The world is full of crazy and queer fools. A $70 might ride fine for, oooh, whole days before it starts showing why it cost $70. *If you want something that rides fine (a value of "fine" that is *much* finer than the $70 Bicycle Shaped Object), and continues to ride fine, and doesn't cover you in a stream of cack when the road is wet, and carries luggage comfortably mounted on the bike rather than uncomfortably on you, and doesn't have the wheels go out of true any time you hit a big bump, etc., etc., etc. then you'll pay the higher price. The point of money is you can throw it at things to make them better. I guess your car of choice is a 20 year old Yugo or the like? *After all, they're really cheap, and they go. Pete. -- Peter Clinch * * * * * * * * * *Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 * Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 * * * * * * *Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net * *http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/ Many years ago, when I started riding , I had a sears bike. It was one of those cheapie $50.00 bike. For around campus and city commuting it was more than fine. In fact, tons of students rode and ride those bikes for their entire careers. Of course I graduated to fancier bikes. But I made cycling into the sport that I like. But, I've seen people with dept store bikes that they ride quite a long time. Once you tasted bike shop stuff, you may not want to go back to department store stuff. But it still works. |
#53
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
In article ,
!Jones' Sock Puppet writes: Actually, I kinda *like* men in tight, black panties... but, my question has always been: How do you wear that stuff in public and keep a straight face? Generous crotch-stuffing. And they're called "shorts," not "panties." I hardly ever see male riders in tight, black panties. But then, I don't visit that part of town (good bistros & patio/al fresca dining, but too much car traffic. And too much "club" music, and not enough good ol', boot-stompin' rock 'n roll.) You forgot to address the leg-shaving thing. Some of those triathlon guys could use a little armpit maintenance, too. There /are/ these Andiamo[tm] undergarments than can be worn under more conventional (and modest) shorts or whatever. Or you can be like me, and develop a tough ass by only sitting on hard chairs, and avoiding soft sofas, recliners or anything that makes you grunt with effort when you try to extract yourself of it. Keep a straight face? Try doing a 60+ miler in your Fruit Of The Looms & Levis, and keeping a straight (i.e: non-grimacing) face. Actually, I could pull it off, 'cuz I'm such a skinny guy and the clothing seams aren't in the wrong places on me, and I don't sweat much. But anyone whose thighs slap together as they pedal won't stand a chance. Think zinc. cheers, Tom -- Welcome to Vancouver East. Expect no mercy. I'm really at: tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca |
#54
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:56:20 GMT, in alt.war.vietnam Ryan Cousineau
wrote: In fairness to the company (if not the rep's math skills) you'd have to know how many of the seats were used successfully. With that information, you can calculate how much of a pilot's life each seat saves. I think that it was based on the point at which the seat would become so expensive that their prodouct would lose out to their competitor. I recall that it was a pilot's survivors who brought the suit claiming that their "save rate" could have been increased had they been willing to have spent the money. The defendants' position was: "True, but your loved one wouldn't have been sitting in one of our seats had we done so." My older brother was killed in one of those seats in a level-flight ejection from an F4 in late 1967, so I watched with some interest. EscaPack won. Jones |
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
In article ],
Ryan Cousineau writes: In article , !Jones' Sock Puppet wrote: On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:32:24 +0000, in alt.war.vietnam Peter Clinch wrote: The point of money is you can throw it at things to make them better. I don't disagree completely. My point is that there is a fairly wide range of acceptance. I would suggest that a $200 bicycle is much better than a $100 bicycle; I would flatulate further that this principle applies to many consumer devices from kitchen mixers to electronics. As the price grows without bound, the marginal gain tends to flatten... i.e., adding another C-note to the $500 bicycle doesn't give me as great of an improvement as it did with the $100 machine. The point of inflection of that marginal curve is somewhat subjective. OTOH, it certainly exists in all things. Consider an ejection seat in a high-performance aircraft: you can't get a 100% save rate... most of them run about 60% to 70%. If I'm willing to double the cost, I might push that up to 80% (just guessing); however, the air force would go buy my competitor's seat! Actually, there was a lawsuit over just that against a company who built the "Esca-Pack" ejection seats back in the early '80s. One of the lawyers asked a company rep: "How much is a pilot's life worth?" He replied: "Sir, a pilot's life is worth 72,395 dollars and 72 cents." That was the calculated point of marginal inflection beyond which they couldn't sell their seats. Jones In fairness to the company (if not the rep's math skills) you'd have to know how many of the seats were used successfully. With that information, you can calculate how much of a pilot's life each seat saves. This whole thread is oh so obviously an invocation of Fabrizio. But I guess he's too busy, training in the Bolivian Andes or some other far-flung & exotic place, like Pitt Meadows, or Maple Ridge (which used to be known as: Haney. That was before Maple Ridge became exotic.) cheers, & long live the Wild Duck Inn, Tom -- Nothing is safe from me. I'm really at: tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca |
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
wrote:
Once you tasted bike shop stuff, you may not want to go back to department store stuff. But it still works. Not disputed. But while "works" is an acceptable value of "rides fine" for a lot of people it's also possible to see it as "minimum acceptable level" while "rides fine", rather than just "rides", is quite a bit better. Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/ |
#58
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
In article ,
Peter Clinch writes: wrote: A $70 bike can ride quite well for quite a length of time. Its apparent you do not understand the bicycle is a very simple machine. Nothing complicated about it. Indeed, but just because it's simple deosn't mean it isn't subject to being better if you spend more on quality mechanical engineering. Ball bearings are about as simple as engineering gets. That doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained from using higher quality ones. You can make a very cheap one that runs quite well. Where did you get this queer notion that a simple bicycle must be expensive to be any good? It's not a case of "must", but having ridden a lot of cheap ones in my time, and quite a few expensive ones, it's direct empirical evidence that the expensive ones ride better for longer. Have you been reading too many bike catalogs and believing all of the advertising? Apparently so. No, just riding the things. Anyways, in the latter/post days of the so-called "Energy Crisis" and the ensuing Bike Boom of the '70s, I amassed a considerable fleet of Apollo road-style bikes imported here from Japan. As I recall, their retail price was well over $200 Cdn at the time. I was paying $125/month rent for a basement suite, and my salary was around $500 canadian bux/month. Those Apollos were good bikes, and many of them are in service to this day. I never bought a new one. People would buy one, use it for less than a month, and then decide they didn't like riding, and sell it to me for less than half-price. Eventually hey started giving them to me. I ended up giving most of them away to friends. Vancouver is replete with cheap (or free) nice bicycles. A lot of 'em are old-school, but they nevertheless go. And that's all we need. cheers, Tom -- Nothing is safe from me. I'm really at: tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca |
#59
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
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#60
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How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?
In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote: In article ], Ryan Cousineau writes: In article , !Jones' Sock Puppet wrote: On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:32:24 +0000, in alt.war.vietnam Peter Clinch wrote: The point of money is you can throw it at things to make them better. I don't disagree completely. My point is that there is a fairly wide range of acceptance. I would suggest that a $200 bicycle is much better than a $100 bicycle; I would flatulate further that this principle applies to many consumer devices from kitchen mixers to electronics. As the price grows without bound, the marginal gain tends to flatten... i.e., adding another C-note to the $500 bicycle doesn't give me as great of an improvement as it did with the $100 machine. The point of inflection of that marginal curve is somewhat subjective. OTOH, it certainly exists in all things. Consider an ejection seat in a high-performance aircraft: you can't get a 100% save rate... most of them run about 60% to 70%. If I'm willing to double the cost, I might push that up to 80% (just guessing); however, the air force would go buy my competitor's seat! Actually, there was a lawsuit over just that against a company who built the "Esca-Pack" ejection seats back in the early '80s. One of the lawyers asked a company rep: "How much is a pilot's life worth?" He replied: "Sir, a pilot's life is worth 72,395 dollars and 72 cents." That was the calculated point of marginal inflection beyond which they couldn't sell their seats. Jones In fairness to the company (if not the rep's math skills) you'd have to know how many of the seats were used successfully. With that information, you can calculate how much of a pilot's life each seat saves. This whole thread is oh so obviously an invocation of Fabrizio. But I guess he's too busy, training in the Bolivian Andes or some other far-flung & exotic place, like Pitt Meadows, or Maple Ridge (which used to be known as: Haney. That was before Maple Ridge became exotic.) cheers, & long live the Wild Duck Inn, Tom Sadly, The Wild Duck is now closed and gone. However, we still have the home pub of the late Bill Werbeniuk, the Jolly Coachman in Pitt Meadows. Fabrizio was more of a Chilliwack guy, -- Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/ "In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls." "In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them." |
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