Old 09-05-09, 05:21 PM
  #12  
meanwhile
Senior Member
 
meanwhile's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 4,033
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 0 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Originally Posted by trinamuous
You got me on the tires meanwhile. I should have been more specific. The stock tires of the 7.2 FX are treaded and have a max PSI of 85 (or close). So, the new tires, narrow or not, improve performance by effect of the smoothness and increased pressure. Right, no, kinda?
Probably, but not *quite* certainly. Some moderately treaded tyres are faster than some slicks, because tyre compound is such an important factor. Eg Schwalbe rate their new treaded Marathon Extreme as being faster than the slick/semi-slick Marathon Plus, but the Extreme is very expensive and uses an exceptional compound.

If you really want fast tyres I'd suggest Sport Contacts or Marathon Supremes. (The later are fast and exceptionally puncture resistant and high mileage - but pricey. They have more wet grip than the Contacts too.)

I suppose I should look into cutting the bars at some point. The grips are pushed in by 2-3 cm due to the bar ends, so if my arms are spread it is not by much at all.
The best way to cut bars is with a plumber's pipe cutter - very cheap off ebay.

Do the fancy expensive cranks do anything besides reduce weight?
No. But some people are willing to spend crazy money to save weight. You'd be surprised how many people buy carbon frame racers without first achieving your understanding of what they're buying. To be honest, I think most of them don't understand the basics - if you read the bike physics page on wikipedia and understand air resistance a little better (ie that it's a speed cubed thing) you'll be ahead of 99% of them.

The other thing that will help with bike speed is frequent powertrain cleaning.
meanwhile is offline