JohnDThompson 

Maybe the Lambert/Viscount "death fork" and the AVA "death stem?"

Salamandrine 

Excellent! cool that you actually went and did this. You know I don't think I've ever seen anyone do a tire swipe from the side before. Usually it was the sweaty people in front of you on group ride. Looks scarier from that angle. No wonder people are scared. I've done it 53 million times without injuring myself, so personally I wouldn't worry about guitar fingers.

There was another rare but sometimes seen variation of tire wiping. Some people reached back and kind of around. That way always looked pretty sketchy.

Salamandrine 

I seem to recall the old Cinelli clipless pedals and the Cinelli unibloc cleats being referred to as suicide pedals and suicide cleats. Maybe it was death pedals and death cleats. Can't really remember.

T-Mar

In the mid-1970s there was a company called Shiba-Western that manufactured Lexan seat posts and saddle frames. These were briefly popular with the weight-weenie crowd until they started breaking. The company offered a lifetime warranty against breakage and quickly disappeared. Many riders used the "death" adjective to described them.

T-Mar

The Peugeot bonded aluminum Comete & Galaxie were called death frames by some cyclists.The frames were subject to two high profile recalls, the first for repair and second for replacement after the repairs reportedly did not work. The reputation may have been based largely on reaction to the recalls. Member MiamiJim was involved in destroying the returned frames and can't recall having seen any actual failures. Others frames with bad reputations were the Exxon Graftek and Teledyne Titan, though I don't recall particularly derogatory adjectives being applied to them .

seedsbelize 

I have top normal fds on all my bikes, except the one with Suntour Symmetric shifters. Crisp.

canklecat

I don't do rolling tire wipes anymore. I'm too old and not limber enough to use my foot like I did years ago. Nowadays I'd likely hook the spokes with disastrous sudden loss of forward momentum.

Besides tires are better than ever. I've found if they don't puncture immediately upon hitting broken glass, nails, screws or razor sharp slate, it'll wait until I stop to inspect the tires and wipe 'em safely. So far in every case the past couple of years if a puncture occurred at all it was immediate.

Cougrrcj

I'm surprised that nobody thusfar has made reference to suicide shifters on old motorcycles. Actually an H-pattern shifter down on the transmission case where one would have to ride with one hand on the handlebars and reach down behind the legs to shift.

T-Mar

See post #30 , 3rd paragraph.

John E

Does anyone else recall the "suicide" front QR skewer from Hi-E, circa 1973? Aluminum(!) shaft with a large cone nut on one side an a matching cone screw head on the other. These puppies did occasionally snap in use.

John E

Good point. Something like my old Campag. Gran Sport, which at least moves upward and outward, unlike its cheapo Simplex cousin, which moves straight horizontally.

The one cool thing about electric shift is that one can set up multiple shifters in parallel, so that gear changes never require moving a hand from the current riding position. That is a feat we cannot reasonably reproduce mechanically.

Cougrrcj

I hadn't gotten that far yet. I was quoting post # 26, just a few before your # 30

VictorVran

There is no feeling in the world like friction "suicide" shifting into top gear.
clack clack clack CLICK *silence*

88Tempo

My Fuji Finest has the same derailleur and switching between it and and my Tempo with Shimano 105 derailleur and DT shifters causes me quite a bit of confusion.

Salamandrine 

As long as this thread got bumped, I may as well mention that funnily enough, I realized I use a different form to swipe the tires -- at least for the back wheel. Never really thought about it since I learned how many decades ago. Perhaps I need to make a competing video.

At any rate I reach behind my leg. Easier for me. Also, you can even do this while still pedaling. Perhaps I need to make a competing video showing the other style of tire wiping.

RE the OT: if I'm not sure what gear I'm in, I look at my cluster. This would be the case whether brifters or DT shifters. So the whole idea of it being dangerous to look down makes no sense. Looking at the DT shifters is about like looking at where the front wheel is going. Hardly a suicide move. I almost never look at them anyway. Not like they have numbers on them telling you what gear you're in.

Salamandrine 

Time to wake up this thread. Didn't want to clog up the modernizing thread by getting too OT.

The fair point was made that you have to take your hand off the bar to shift using DT shifters, and there is an inherent momentary reduction in control. Yeah, that's true, of course, for a split second while moving your hand. In practice if I look down, mostly my hand is reaching over, not down. I do tend to have ape arms though, and ride with a slight bend in my elbows. To me, "reaching down" implies that my torso moves and I have to bend over. I don't. My torso remains stationary and only my hand moves.

A counter counterpoint: one should be able to let go momentarily and maintain control. I've noticed people nowadays often tend to be tight and stiff on their bikes. This is detrimental to bike handling, and I was taught in the old velo club system not to ride that way, but to instead be light on your bike. It should be possible to let go with one hand and still be perfectly comfortable and secure. For that matter, best to be able to let go with both hands and still be in control. People often hold onto their brifters too tightly. I think the hood position has become so comfortable and secure, that it starts to become a bit of a crutch.

I'm not anti brifter though. Over all they are an improvement. Most noticeable in a fast paceline over very rough and winding country road (or washboard gravel). That's about the only situation where it becomes difficult to shift. Most of the time it makes little difference. The function of the old DT shifters is often unfairly maligned by people that have never used them. Not like I'm going to get dropped because of my shifters. Since I only rarely ride in pacelines these days, not much point at all for me.

79pmooney

+1 I still do when I don't have fenders on. Always use my fingers. I want to know what's there and feel if it came off. And like you, I've rarely been cut, Drawn blood maybe once in many tens of thousands of miles of sewup riding where one missed piece of glass was either big money or an hour lost (but a guaranteed 5 minute tire change in all conditions; rain, snow, darkness, inebriation, etc.).

(A warning it you try this and have a racing bike with a tight rear triangle, ie short chainstays - brush the tire just ahead of the seatstay, not down lower near the seat tube. On my Fuji Pro, my fingers didn't fit between the seat tube and tire. Just one too low brush would have left me with an everyday reminder. I used to make it a point of actually feeling the seatstay before I touched the tire.)

Ben

79pmooney

I look at DT shifters as being a lot like manual transmissions in cars. Yes, you pull your hand away, but that encourages an awareness of your driving (riding) and situation. I find with both, I am a more attentive driver/rider and that probably outweighs the hand issue by quite a lot.

Ben

Whit51 

63rickert

Yes, they do stop to take a drink of water.

Remember when handlebars broke with some frequency? Usually just the right side broke. The left end of handlebar was still in business and they never broke inside the clamp. I broke two I can remember and sure saw plenty of others break. This happened most often en peloton at 50kph or so. And nothing bad ever happened. We could ride our bikes. Ride home 50 miles holding a broken handlebar, operating the right brake lever even though it is unattached and even occasionally reaching down to shift - do that a couple times and it gets hard to worry about your bike being unstable while reaching to shift.

Raleigh74

Bandera

No, I do not.
In the 51 years since I've taken up cycling as a sport I've never seen a set of handlebars fail in service on the track, road, cross or MTB, although I have seen a few bend from crash impacts.( I even ride CF bars now on my "modern-ish" bike, and don't know anyone who had a failure who does.)

"Most often"? So a regularly occurring failure of a critical component at pace was regarded as normal like a tire puncture en peloton ?
Did your en peloton riders also carry a spare set of drop bars under the saddle to replace on the roadside like a flatted tubular with such a failure occurring with "frequency"?

It is astounding that anyone survived en peloton such regular catastrophic failures, or considered purchasing Cinelli bars and stems instead of what amazingly inferior "handlebars broke with some frequency".

En Peloton Rider 1: "Mon guidon vient de casser, encore une fois!"
En Peloton Rider 2: "C'est normal."
En Peloton Riber 1: "Oui, c'est trop dommage."

A try at humor in the "crawled to school through 10' snow of school" genre that just misses being actually funny, or even vaguely "period correct".

Cool story attempt, Bro.

Have you tried a variantion on the classic:
"Louison Bobet, Jaques Anquitil and a Duck walk into a bar in Roubaix" joke instead?

-Bandera

gugie 

I thought you all were crazy, then just yesterday one of my co-workers (young guy, PhD, maybe 30) looks at my bike parked next to my desk, looks at the shift levers and asks, "what are those for?"

Oh, and @Bandera, saw a guy ride into the transition area of a triathlon in Santa Rosa, CA once with one hand holding a broken off piece of handlebar. So, yeah, it happens. Funny thing is he rode the last 12 miles of the race like that, then got off to do his 10k run...

63rickert

They were always Cinelli or TTT that broke. What else would we be riding? And yes, it is a catastrophic failure by most definitions. Everyone survived.

Years later when I broke a Deda stem that was harder, but I did keep the bike upright and ride ten miles home. The stem had a bad and obvious manufacturing defect so I rode it over to the LBS thinking perhaps this could occasion a recall. Bike shop yawned and tossed stem into bin of broken high end stems. You've never seen this?

We were balanced on our bikes. What would happen was you'd notice something felt odd or loose and look down, see that the right side of bars was unconnected. Full compensation by left side had already occurred. No one ever panicked. It could take a minute to extricate oneself from pack but everyone knew what was happening and everyone cooperated. Only new guys were surprised and no one startled.

The notion that riding a bike requires superhuman ability is very strange. The notion that any part of a bike is immune to failure is very very strange.

cycleheimer

OK, I usually turn away from ads with photos of bikes with safety levers. Stem shifters are another red flag. However, my Moto GT was different. It was my size, priced right, had SunTour down tube shifters, and was definitely not entry-level. Done deal! I never had a problem with safety levers. In fact, I personally like them on some bikes. I just make sure the attachment bolts are snugged up. The levers give you more riding/braking options when it comes to hand positioning on the bars. That means you don't need to keep moving your hand positiong to actually use the brakes. Great for commuting, light touring and recreational riding. They do lack "snob" appeal, though. So, who cares? Most guys here have many bikes, including bikes that do have "snob appeal". Just make sure your brake pads are good.

The bike that made me into a Francophile! Motobecane ... c'est magnifique!