Old 10-03-12, 08:50 AM
  #64  
cyccommute 
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Originally Posted by Six jours
Mine has been going up every six months, as my neck gets worse and worse. So for me, threaded is better than threadless. That doesn't necessarily mean anything to anybody else, but does buttress my argument that threadless is not automatically better.
Your situation is unique. It doesn't apply to all that many people and is certainly not a reason to say that threaded headsets are better. Threaded headsets have lots and lots of warts that I've pointed out above. Their tendency to loosen is certainly a large one. I've never had a theadless headset loosen because of road/trail vibration.

Originally Posted by Six jours
Really? This is your argument, presented immediately after questioning how often someone might need to adjust handlebar height? Good times!
You could have at least read my post. I said that changing forks isn't something that you do that often for road bikes but that it is more common for mountain bikes. I didn't change the fork because I wanted more handlebar height. I changed the fork because I wanted a better suspension fork for the bike. It was an upgrade.

On the other hand, how often do you take apart your headset to do maintenance? If you have loose bearings and take it apart once or twice a year to service it, you are having to deal with the ease...or lack thereof...of the headset. For a threadless headset, that's a simple job which takes about about as much time as my fork swap did. For a threaded headset, it's much more involved and tiresome. (I have King headsets on everything so I don't take the headset apart except to change the fork.)

Originally Posted by Six jours
My post apparently didn't translate to Australian very well. I was trying to point out that ease of handlebar replacement was one of the advantages of threadless. I just don't see at as much of an advantage - I don't think the average touring cyclist is replacing his bars all that often.

At any rate, I want to make it clear that I'm not arguing that threaded is better than threadless in general, . I'm just arguing that the the supposed advantages of threadless are, for the most part, theoretical, and that threaded is still a perfectly useful technology. Denigrating a touring bike because the headset is not threadless is, IMO, kind of silly.
Not Australian.

Why not denigrate a touring bike for something that is, in my opinion, a wrong choice given the current state of the technology? If a manufacturer sold a touring bike with a 12-21 5 speed freewheel, I'd take them to task. If a manufacturer sold a bike that was outfitted for racks and fenders, yet has a racing bike geometry, I'd certainly take them to task. I've done that numerous times. I even find touring bikes with disc brakes worthy of denigration.
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