Originally Posted by
chagzuki
Those bikes look so unstable. 20" wheels are small enough for me, any smaller and I feel suspension is a must. I don't fancy flying over the handlebars.
This is a fallacy. First off, a bike is not a train, so endoing from a stuck wheel requires not only that the wheel get stuck, but also that the bike hold a straight course forward, which is much more unlikely than commonly appreciated for many reasons. Second off, two wheels are really a sort of suspension and especially with a tight cockpit (and really small wheels enable tighter cockpits) where the rider's weight can easily shift from front to rear because the front wheel can automatically bob up/down as weight shifts to the rear and vice versa.
You should try a small wheeler sometime. They're a lot better than they look. For a road bike the only drawback is the inherent technical challenge of gearing IMO.
Originally Posted by
bhkyte
I use match quality hockey skates indoors £ 300 and £60 for quality soft replacement wheels. As for outdoors I use 5 wheel speed skates which start at £300 ,my carbon fibre ones are about £500-1000 (when new) and were imported used.AS for replacement wheels in 82-84 mm and 84 plus hardness forget it. Import again. Maybe in the US skates are cheap, in the UK its too much of a minority sport.
Well how much does a carbon fibre bike cost? I like using rec skates outdoors with stiff ankle support, because it's easy to twist an ankle on potholed roads while darting through traffic and 80+mm wheels are a must for speed (explanation for nonskaters: larger wheels give more leverage pushing off so they're akin to bigger gears). They seem to be cheaper. Plus I'm now using
http://www.hypnoskates.com and they only come as rec style skates.
Sounds like you buy higher quality skates than you do bikes.
Originally Posted by
FolderFreak
You "average" 15mph on an 8" wheeled Carryme as a 48 gear inch singlespeed including starts and stops at intersections? .. that means you would routinely have to approach 25mph to achieve that kind of average speed.. and in traffic... nice feat .. would require frequent spinning at a cadence of around 175.. at 20mph, 140 .. at 15mph 105... maybe your speedometer is not calibrated correctly....
Don't need a speedometer cause the clock can't be cheated. I don't know what the top speeds are, but I've yet to see anything out run me in the city. If things don't seem to add up then I'm guessing you're overestimating the time lost accelerating from a stop with this bike because like I said there's no way to cheat the clock.