CSI:Just thought I'd ask, you did notice that the Deore XT bottom bracket you are looking at is a 70mm Italian thread ? What kind of frame will this be installed on? Let us know.

for those of you who don't think dual suspension road bikes are on the way, take a trip to your local college campus. I'll be 70% of the bikes i see on campus are cheap, full suspension mountain bikes which will probably never see a dirt trail.

*rolls eyes*

Cheapo MTBs have dual suspension because the expensive machines they are attempting to emulate have them as well.

High-end roadbikes do not, and will never have any form of suspension (and certainly NEVER rear suspension), therefore, China Inc./Wal-Mart will not attempt to emulate such designs, for they never exist.

About the only chance there is for roadbikes to grow springs is if you started selling cheap Mongoose MTBs outfitted with drop bars on Craigslist!

-Kurt

-Kurt

It seems like your attitude towards bikes and other things is much more emotional than it is practical!!!!

I mean, why do chrome and leather and spoked wheels make a great car? They might make a beautiful car (for you at least), but synthetic fabrics are cheaper and longer-lasting when well made, and solid wheels are MUCH cheaper to make. I think a Honda Civic is a great car: it's affordable and safe and efficient and enormously customizable. It is a great piece of engineering, not a great piece of art.

Similarly, why should bikes crafted by artisans always win??? The things I enjoy most about my bikes are that they are comfortable and handle well and carry my gear and allow me to go places. And above all I enjoy the fact that I know how every piece works and I can modify them almost at will! I don't want to ride on a piece of art. I don't want to ride a bike that looks nice if it rides like crap... if I did I would ride a big hunkin' beach cruiser. If I can make my bike look nice, that's a secondary concern.

Ease of shifting? Hah. I've had HG systems before, and I can name 1000+ reasons why I hate it - I'll just name a few:

*Extremely quick wear rate on low cogs (as if traditional freewheels didn't wear fast enough already), resulting in skipping chains, bad freewheels and worn cassette cogs.

*Those damn pins!

*It is potentially disasterous to use genuine friciton levers with HG - Light Actions only, or else your chain will be skipping all over the place

*Those damn pins!

*I've yet to get anything 8-speed HG to work right. 7-speed is fine, 8-speed? Forget it.

*Those damn pins! Not that I care - I bought 50 of them on eBay recently at fire-sale prices

Take care,

-Kurt

I'll grant you efficient and that it's a great piece of engineering (Until you try to work on it. Snap-in plastic parts, inaccessable engine compartment...).

As for customizable, well, so is Mr. Potato Head: No matter what you do with it, it looks ridculous.

Affordable? Probably, but I maintain that there are still better deals out there for those who don't mind tried-and-true, large, comfortable, older vehicles - the kind that have enough trunk space to do away with the Campagnolo team van. Just perfect when you spot that '82 De Rosa thrown out on the kerb...

You'll take back the part about it being safe once some vintage Detroit steel (any '70s Mercury or Lincoln comes to mind) T-bones you on the driver's side of your customizable, affordable, and effecient tuna can.

Forgive me for nitpicking - I'm in one of those Grocho Marx moods today...

-Kurt

I've not noticed any significant difference between wear rate of cogs on freewheels and cassettes. Why should there be any difference? The cogs aren't any thinner or thicker... is there some difference in their manufacture? To my knowledge, all quality cogs are forged, and then ramps are machined into them.

I don't use Shimano chains. I use SRAM or KMC. KMC are cheap and good. I agree that the chain pins are a pain, but since you can use any chain, who cares?

That's news to me. I've been using Suntour barcons with Shimano LX derailers and 105 cassette for well over a year on my commuter. Smooth as can be. My chain isn't "skipping all over the place". Why would it???

8-speed works for me in friction mode on my commuter, and in indexed mode with STI shifters on my road bike. I used 9 speed in friction mode on the road bike before getting the STI shifters used. That worked fine too. I've also used 7-speed Suntour bar-end shifters with Suntour derailer and an HG freewheel... that works too.

Of course indexed shifters are more finicky to get adjusted than friction. In particular front indexing is a pain to get right. But once you get it, the indexing should stay perfect for months if not years. The most you'll have to do is fiddle with the adjuster barrel for 30 seconds if the cables stretch.

The Austin was a great car as long as you were willing to overlook the shoddy build quality, dreadful electrics and terrible reliability. All a Honda Civic offers is vastly better quality, wildly better reliability, the willingness to start and run every day year after year and handling and precision the Austin couldn't come close to on the best day it ever had.

Nostalgia can be very blinding.

Actually, I meant the wear rate of HG cassettes and freewheels VS. traditional non-ramped Suntour or Regina freewheels.


I've used KMC (I'll concur - it's great stuff at a great price!) and Shimano, but have yet to try SRAM (which I've heard is fantastic). KMC's splitter link is a very nice option, but I've yet to see them sold in bulk at a good price.


Suntour's original friction barcons are racheting - similar to Shimano Light Action. The rachets allow just enough restriction in the lever's movement to adjust the derailer accurately. Now, if you've ever tried it with a nylon-bushing friction shifter, you'll find that it's quite easy to spot the chain just offset enough to slide off-and-on the ramped cogs, causing some pretty hair-rasing chain popping. Trying to trim one is fruitless. With a racheting shifter such as the Suntours, trimming is simply a few, modulated clicks up or down.


8-speed works fine for me in friction too (racheted Light Action, of course), but I've yet to get it to work with the Ultregra barcons I'm currently using on my Peugeot. Same for the LX shifters on my Gary Fisher, but the jury is out as to whether the LX shifters are spaced differently for an IG cassette.

Those are Accushift bar ends, I assume? I have a pair in 6-speed (might be 7 - don't recall), but I had to run them friction, for they were hooked up to a Shimano 600 derailer/Sachs freewheel setup. Regrettably, I've yet to try out a 100% Suntour equipped machine higher up then Cyclone second-gen. I have an NOS Suntour Sprint 9000 RD on hand, but I've yet to find a frameset nice enough to justify mounting it.


Oh, I wouldn't say that indexed is more finicky then friction - just try setting up an '80s Campagnolo friction drivetrain sometime. Getting the RD set to provide friction shifts that are "just right" can be a chore.

No need to school me on adjuster barrels - I'm quite familiar with the process, and have done many 7-speed HG bikes in the past. The 8-speed setups are what have been driving me nuts.

Take care,

-Kurt

Substitute the Austin for some other more practical American car of the past known for it's reliability...don't drag the Brits and Lucas into the mix...

-Kurt

I've found myself concurring with you on a lot of topics lately, but here I must differ. The Nexus 7 is certainly not today's equivalent of the Sturmey-Archer AW. That would be one of the 3-speed hubs offered by the new Sturmey production, Shimano or SRAM. And that's only a functional equivalency. Certainly, you can get a modern 3-speed hub for less than $150! Really, it's difficult to draw a comparison. Nothing like the modern Nexus 7 and 8-speed hubs existed then. Nothing exists now, at least not in the United States, with the ubiquitous presence of the Sturmey-Archer AW on bicycles from the 50's through the early 70's.

As for the benefits and. disadvantages of internal gearing vs. derailer gearing, that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. My take on it is that the technology of gear hubs is undergoing a renaissance, and improving much faster than derailer tech is currently (which frankly has nowhere to go but refinements, at this point). Even with things at their current state, I think that internal gearing is a more practical option for your average cyclist. A Nexus-8 equipped do-everything bike is on my wishlist. Alas, I am currently a slave to the derailer, except for my (admittedly hideous slow and inefficient) AW-driven winter beater.

Okay, I understand why my comparison may have been slightly unfair... In the 70s, it was 3-speed SA vs. 10-speed Suntour/Shimano/Simplex. So I was trying to extrapolate today when you have 21-24 speed derailer gears, and 7-speed internal gear hubs. Possibly not the most useful analogy.

However, when I look around at internal-geared bikes from local shops these days, what I mainly see is Shimano Nexus and SRAM DualDrive (I think that's the name). So they're the most prevalent ones I see, even if overall they represent only a very small market segment.

I completely agree with you that internal-gear hubs are undergoing a renaissance and are likely to make great strides in the next few years. I find derailer bikes are pretty clean and convenient once you learn how to avoid their few shortcomings: keep your drivetrain clean, shift down BEFORE you come to a stop, etc. But I'd like to try a modern internal-gear hub as well. I found an SA 3-speed in my grandma's basement and it still works great

i would hardly call a rivendell atlantis a poorly riding, unreliable piece of art. rather, it is a finely crafted, incredibly well behaved, under load and sans load, bike, that happens to be drop dead gorgeous. that is good design.
I'll maul this but: buckmister fuller said something like: if i design something that works but isnt beautiful i did something wrong.

in defense of british cars: they were never ever designed to be driven (on a daily basis) the vast distances that amerians drive daily. nor were they designed for our climate. we pushed them well beyond thier limits, and failures abounded. perhaps a better analogy would have been wood floors, or italian hiking boots or hell, wool jerseys.

by the way, this isnt a nostalgia issue, its an issue regarding everything we come in contact with, and choosing a beautiful way or an efficent/cheap/lite take your pick way. people rarely argue for beauty, so we get shopping malls, chromeless cars, mass produced music, effiecent but ugly and demoralizing housing... we have the power and the money to do the right thing, but we turn a blind eye, cause it costs more or its slightly less convienent or its not the hot new thing or it might be precieved as retro. i'll say this: i have a rotary phone, and a normal one. i call companies when i need help with my computer or phone bill or whatever, and using a rotary gets me to an operator fast, and the touch tone is next to worthless. and it takes longer to call, but it has a real bell that rings when someone calls, and its fun to dial. i also think gravel roads are charming, not annoying, and i think mtn bike trails should stay unpaved...

I assume it is the excess weight of your AW-equipped machine, and not the AW that is slowing you down.

Ever tried mating an AW to a machine of Reynolds 531? Talk about a sub-20 pound rocket - on upright North-Road handlebars.

I have also built another 3-speed (Shimano 3C) road machine from a cheap-o Ralegh Grand Prix, and I must say, even though I went the cheap route and built it up with a spare pair of steel wheels (25 pounds all together), it is a very enjoyable machine to ride. The ability to shift while stopped is always a plus as well, if you happen to find yourself in traffic.

Take care,

-Kurt

^
+1 on everything, down to the rotary phone (welcome to the club - I have a Kellogg 1000 Red Bar. Darn thing is missing the ringer though).

Take care,

-Kurt

Big picture: clinging to cup-&-cone bottom brackets is going to become an expensive hobby as the parts get rarer. When your classic Dura Ace or XT spindle has pits...? I'm a foul-weather rider and have better things to do than keep tearing my bottom bracket apart in a bid to keep my Precious from getting contaminated and developing pitting. Cartridge unit, out of box, grease its threads & cup, big ratchet, Slam, Bam, Boom, cranks on, ride. And ride and ride and ride and ride and ride and ride. Remove after 4/5 years to install new type of crank on new type of BB.

+1
Couldn't have said it better!

WOW, and I thought I was a luddite.


Tim

No, actually I didn't. I have an English threaded 68mm shell. I was just using this as an example because this is the only time I ever reall see that size or style out there. As most of the op's said sealed BB's seem to have taken over. I would have thought that loose bal BB's would be a give away. Obviously, I was wrong.

Tim

That's funny. Exactly which internal AW parts are you planning to drill?

I didn't "drag" the Brits into the mix, ridelugs did.

As to "more practical American car of the past known for it's reliability...", I can't think of any. The current (and very recent) American cars with their vastly improved build quality and reliability are a defensive response to the Japanese invasion that started in earnest in the early '70's. They showed the consumer he didn't have to be on a first name basis with the Service Manager.

how is wanting something to work and be beautiful being a luddite? again, just 20 years ago, they went hand and hand, at least in the bike world. why not now? i again i ask, why not now?

Planet cage, gear ring, planet pinions (yep!), possibly the driver, and maybe a few tiny holes in the pawls.



-Kurt