Originally Posted by lotek
From Sutherlands:
campy super record pista has a stack height of 33.7 and uses 25 5/32 ball bearings
(and stack height is lower for both upper and lower halves).
Campy super Record Strada has a stack height of 39.1 and uses 22 3/16 ball bearings.
interestingly that also goes against landrovers assumptions about "track" headsets. More bearings are used because they are smaller. This larger number of smaller bearings will actually deal with stress more poorly then the road headset.
Originally Posted by landrover4
I didn't say anything about riding in velodromes, or about skidding in them, so no, I won't jump on your sentence as you thought I might. If you go back and reread my post it should be clear that this was a discussion about track bikes vs. fixies and no where did I mention velodromes. As for the chainrings, of course the width of the ring itself gives it strength, not only the teeth of the ring. It's fair to say that the width of the chainring is also a factor in the width of the teeth, which are, of course, thicker on a track ring than on a road ring. Of course the whole thing is thicker.
I'm sorry I figured when we where discussing what a track bike was we were refering to bikes designed to be ridden at a velodrome. I see now you define a track bike as ""track bike" is built specifically around the concept of the fixed rear hub and the stresses which come with this type of use." which I guess has nothing to do with a track... In that case I take back what I said about the first two sentences of your post making sense. The entire thing is absurd. A track bike is a bike meant to be ridden on a track not any bike specifically designed to have a fixed gear.
Originally Posted by landrover4
In terms of skidding on a track, no indeed, 1/8 or 3/32 is the least of your worries there, but on the streets with track bikes we skid all the time, and having a 3/32 road ring suffer metal fatigue and fail is just not an option in traffic or going down a hill. With a "fixie" you can get away with a 3/32 road ring as long as you have at least one brake caliper mounted on the bike.
This can't be serious...