v1k1ng1001

Out in PA I can think of 5-6 instances where Trek and Gary Fisher frames (sub $1000 aluminum) failed under larger riders at the bottom bracket over the last 4 years or so. I was actually in the shop last spring when a 300 lb. guy came in with a Gary Fisher; the chainstays had separated from the bottom bracket shell! It was the ugliest frame failure I had ever seen. I have to think that this is not coincidence.

If you're going to buy aluminum from one of the big companies, I'd stick with Specialized. I've tried my best to kill my old M2 mountain frame over the last 10 years so that I can justify an upgrade. It rides like it's brand new.

Wogster

Indexed Brifters were a bike shops dream, because bikes then went from needing annual service in the off season (your basic $45 tuneup, with maybe some brake pads every couple of years). To needing almost bi-weekly adjusting and for people unable to do that adjusting themselves, it meant another shop adjustment, so now you ended up going to the bike shop, twice a month, even if the shop does the adjustment for free while you wait, you still end up looking at the accessory wall, and 90% of people end up buying something. Different then when you used to drop the bike off the first week of January, and picked it up when they called (no hurry guys, I don't need it until the middle of March).

Of course for those of us who can do the adjustment ourselves, we can avoid the shop visit, I need to goof with mine on the weekend. Works perfectly on the up shift, but drags a little on the down shift.

Nice thing about the LHT is that in the future if you decide to do some touring, you can swap the tires, add a couple of racks, some fenders and your good to go. Probably do it for under $200....

Most younger folk are more likely to be more familiar with the trigger shifters found on flat bar ATB/MTB bikes then brifters, but the indexed trigger shifters are just as fiddly.

v1k1ng1001

I never had downtube shifters or bar end shifters. Closest thing I had was friction thumb shifters on my Bridgestone mountainbike.

So I understand the advantages of friction shifting but I don't think that's a good argument against brifters. Like you said, once you figure out the barrel adjuster, it's not that big of a deal to tweak your shifting. As far as I'm concerned brifters are better because they allow you to shift without moving your hands in two positions.

The real knock on brifters, I think, is the cost and possibility of mechanical failure (at least you can work on the campy stuff). If nothing else, they tend to accumulate dirt and become sticky after a few years. If I could get the same bike with bar end shifters for $100-$200 less, I'd probably do it.

Wogster

I think shifter wise, it's what you get used to, in the 1960's ALL shifters were down tube shifters, in the 1970's they added the centre of the bars shifters, but 90% were still down tube shifters, these were all friction shift. Bar-ends were probably developed soon after, and saw the first real attempt at deraileur indexing, but like brifter type mechanisms it occurs at the shifter, which means you have a 2m or so run of cable, which is not straight requiring great precision, and that makes the whole mechanism complex.

In some way I think that an electronic system would work better, and be more precise, and make the shifter/brifter much more reliable, in that it would just be a pair of switches. I have an idea of how to build it, I just need $50,000,000 to develop it

jiminos

i have a friend who rides a long haul trucker... i'm thinking about getting one next spring. they are gorgeous. they ride great. they are reasonably priced. yada-yada-yada....

be,

jim

v1k1ng1001

You mean like this?












https://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?...006/news/03-09

tpelle

I'm not sure I understand your point. With any shifter you have to move your hands to whatever position the shifter is operated from. I suppose the only type of bike that would not require you to reposition your hand is one that uses flat bars, like a mountain bike - but of course with that type of bike you only have one position for the hands anyway.

When I ordered the Trucker I had misgivings that I would like the bar-ends - it just seemed like an inconvenient place to put the shifters and I wasn't sure how convenient it would be to reach down and back like that. In practice I found that it took no time at all to get used to them. It really is a natural-feeling movement.

I guess what I'm saying is that the shifters have to go somewhere, and on a road bike with drop bars it's probably going to require a hand movement to somewhere to accomplish a shift. The bar-ends turned out, for me, to be in a pretty good place. Others may hate 'em. Each to his own.

I do like being able to determine what gear I'm in just by glancing at the position of the handle, or even just reaching down and feeling what position the handle is in. The front shifter is a pure-friction shifter. The rear, however, is a "ratcheting" shifter, where the handle "clicks" into discrete and definite positions. However, it can be quickly and easily switched to a pure-friction mode just by turning the "nut" at the center of the shifter. This gives one the ability to continue shifting if the system gets seriously out of adjustment - say, after a crash that mislocates the rear derailleur.

A case in point is that, just before I took my bike in for its tune-up, I was hearing a scraping/crunching (hard to describe) noise from the area of the bottom bracket, and I reported this to the LBS. It turns out that the front derailleur had not been adequately tightened onto the seat tube during assembly, and had rotated so that it was scraping on the big ring in certain gears. However, I was still able to shift with no problems, as the friction-shifter for the FD allowed me to naturally compensate for the mis-location without even being aware of it. Try that with a brifter.

Halthane

Yeah I saw that during the tour, i guess a couple teams demoed it it. Shimano and Campy both have prototypes out being tested by protour teams. Figure a couple years before we see it, but i think it will be a pretty solid thing. Those stepper motor based servo systems are pretty solid.

I'm sure that is all single step stuff (push the button once motor moves once) but if you put a computer with a digital integrator between the controller and motor you could set it up to make adjustments at both ends automatically to make for ideal shifting, just build a table accounting for derailer position in three dimensions from the crank, could be pretty sweet.

Wogster

Yeah pretty much, the FD batteries uglyness seems to be the sticking point, I wonder if they could simply put it somewhere else, for example a long narrow casing beside a bottle cage, this could in fact power both the front and the rear, add an ASIC and you could ieliminate one shifter, the shifter is connected to the ASIC, which knows the gear order, so the next gear in line could mean upshift the front one, and downshift the rear 2 positions for the next gear in line. A return signal to the shifter would confirm that the shift was completed to update the display, which could show up to 30 possible gears. The ASIC could be programmed to eliminate cross chain gears (not recommended to use anyway), and duplicates. A port on the control unit (battery case), could supply gear information to the bike computer, which would make it possible to compute cadence without a separate detector.

bdinger

Wow, great input, everyone!

My plan is to sell the 7.3 FX as soon as I get it back. I'm going to strip the Brooks saddle, my lights, and some other things off it before I sell, but it's off to the "for sale" lot. I'd love to keep it, but I just know I'll never be able to trust the thing again, as much as I enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong the FX series are simply awesome bikes, fast fast fast and fun, but how I can trust something that has caused me this much grief?

So the plan is to ride the wheels off the Hardrock, and save up for a LHT. Hopefully won't be too long . I figure that will be my last bike for a long, long time.

And the barends do look interesting, as I futz with constant deraileur adjustments currently.

andymac

Bdinger - sorry to hear about the bike.
Don't take this as an insult or a troll, but the first thing that came to mind when I read this was that not so long ago you were recommending this bike regularly. I am sure I have been guilty of the same thing, being enamored with a new purchase and singing it's praises before going through what could be considered a reasonable "testing" period.
I know I recommended a Dew Deluxe as a good buy only to have the rear rim on mine crack the following week, it had about 1500 miles on it at the time. I am not sure what a reasonable test period is but it seems to me that on my bikes serious problems don’t tend to happen until they are past the 1000 mile mark. Perhaps I should only be recommending a 1996 Marin Muirwoods as mine now has over 25,000 miles on it so I guess it is tested.

tpelle

Man! We're talking about bicycles, here! Not the Space Shuttle! There's a lot to be said about simplicity.

If derailleur-shifter adjustments are such a pain, why not go with a geared hub? Until I bought my LHT and the WONDERFUL bar-end shifters I was seriously considering getting a frame and fork, and building a road bike with a 7 or 8 speed shimano geared hub with a double or triple chainring and front derailleur.

What I had in mind was something like the Surly Singleator combined with a geared hub and a double or triple chainring - whatever device used, it would have to be spring-loaded to take up the chain slack produced when shifting to a smaller chainring. I don't know if the Singleator does that. This setup would give you the ability to have two or three "ranges" combined with the trouble-free shifting of the geared hub.

But then I got my LHT with the bar-end shifters, and all shifting anxiety went away!

Halthane

I expect they would likely do a downtube mount like what they did with computer mount for the "coasting" line.

The problem with single sequence shifting is that it makes making very large jumps quickly difficult. ie. I climb in the middle ring, and on a number of the hill i climb the downhill isn't as steep as the up so I can simply shift the big ring straight up and have very ideal gearing. So a pure sequential gearing system might be problematic.

Halthane

Trust me... nasa guys would make it much more complicated... you'd need a checklist to change gears...

I don't mind the adjustment, really I don't, but you know... if you can make it the same weight give or take, i'd pay 100-200 bucks to never have to adjust or replace shifter cables, and have perfectly precise shifts every time. Surely some will argue it can't be that precise... but they've been building high precision micro stepper servos for a long time. and they use them on things like the space shuttle where death and destruction are a real risk.

Pinyon

I have to say, that this is one of the very, very, very rare times that I've ever heard of a Trek aluminum frame cracking without doing something like hitting a car, or hitting a stationary object while going over 30 mph.

Hell, I hit a deer at 32 mph on my old Trek Aluminum this past May, and the frame is still solid as a rock. The heavy steel front forks, front rim, handlebars, headset, and saddle were all crumpled and a total loss, but the frame came out of it just fine. I put a new front-end on it, and ride it every day. That means...let me do the math...I've put about 1800+ miles on the new front end so far. I check over my bike all the time too, and there are no warps, cracks, or anything like that.

I say give the new bike a chance. Especially if they send you a new frame from the factory. I'm sure that they will really check a replacement out before they send it.

Wogster

Which is why it should probably be user selectable, so you have a front shifter, but can turn it off, via a switch in the controller,.

Halthane

Makes sense... though your gonna make the controls real complicated real fast... good idea though. Would definitely dumb down shifting for those that don't get it. Not sure if that's a good thing though.

Wogster

I'm not so sure the existing system is simple, it's just been around long enough that people think it's simple. For example a geared hub is not simple, look at an exploded diagram for one, it's a very complex piece of machinery, it just looks simple from the outside. An electronic shifting mechanism replaces a fairly inaccurate mechanical linkage (cable) with a highly precise stepper motor, the only real issue is power, and that could be obtained using a battery, providing they can use little enough power to make the battery last long enough. If your battery lasts say a year, you could just swap the batteries in the off season. Otherwise you need to simply carry spares, or have a battery detector built into the unit.

bdinger

Believe me, I understand completely. From now on my mouth is shut. I'll recommend it as a fast, fun, comfortable ride with the caveat that I've gone through three wheels and a frame. That is, until I sell it. I'm definitely done with it, it was a great bike, but I just don't trust it. My Hardrock Sport? I trust it. A year and a thousand HARD miles have earned trust. I've never (*knock on wood*) actually broke anything on that bike, and I've tried. BELIEVE me, I've tried.

Moral of the story? I have no idea. But you bring up a good point, I'm keeping my mouth shut from now on until at least mile 2,000, or considerable abuse to merit the thought that it will last to mile 2,000+.

Halthane

Said something like 12 hours of battery life in the blurb I saw during TDF. Get two good sets of rechargeable batteries, keep on in the seat bag. For non racing use they could easily adapt the dyno-hub in the coasting system to run the system (racers wouldn't want the extra weight or the extra resistance regardless of how small), the advantage of that is you could set it up to easily mount a dyno powered light. Great for marketing (get the matching lights only $2xx), and to be honest I think it'd further improve safety if you had a lot of people getting bikes that came stock with a good set of hub-powered head and taillight.

Wogster

Seems reasonable, the issue for racers is that batteries can be heavy as well, so if your hub generator is 300g and means the battery only needs to be 100g versus needing a 500g battery without the generator.

What I would like to see is this, you have a tube mounted battery.controller unit, this is connected to the hub generator, to provide power it also contains a pulse line to get the count of wheel revolutions, from the generator. One aspect of duties is to power the shifters, it also has connections for up to 4 lights, two have amber coloured lenses and flash one faces forward and one rearward, then you have a fork mounted white front light, and a rear mounted steady red light. Now here is where it gets interesting, you have a bar mounted "head" unit, this displays speed, distance, trip distance, gear, range, cadence, time and trip time. There are 3 switches, one to reset the trip odometer, one to turn on the amber flashers and one to turn on the head/tail lights. Turning on the head/tail lights also turns on the flashers, lights could also have an auto mode, where a light detector will turn the lights on/off when the light level reaches a certain level.

The controller contains a memory module, like a camera memory card, some like the SD cards are quite small, this card contains a log of all the trips, and programming information, it can be plugged into a card reader and accessed by computer, to program it, with wheel size, gear teeth etc.

A couple of ASICs could supply all the computer needs for such a system.

adrien

I know it wasn't a roadie, but...your experience is an example of why I thought the beefier frame of a cross bike would make sense for a big guy. Back in the 80 (last time i cycled with any regularity) I actually cracked an alloy frame and bent a steel on right behind the BB, and used to break cranks all the time (I have lots of torque). Don't get me started on wheels...

When I got back into biking i got a rockhopper comp. Nice bike -- ended up needing a new rear wheel after 1500 miles (velocity aerohead). Got the spped bug again and started the work commute (40 miles return) a couple days a week and wanted to reward myself. Ended up with a JTS. Not saying it will work out, but I've been hammering on it for 10 months and have put about 2,000 miles in with both roadie wheels and some more cross-specific stuff in the winter.

So, what's the plan for the wheels? That LHT would look really nice with black Deep-Vs with conti 28 on them...just keep in mind that the Deep-Vs are narrow, and most people wouldn't go much bigger than 30s on them.

Wogster

I think AL was a good material for bike manufacturers, it's cheap, fairly easy to work with and light weight, but I am not convinced it's a good material for bike riders, it's harsh riding, and does fail at welded joins, unless the welds are perfect and the heat treating (to add strength) is done perfectly, after the welding is complete. No matter what, the weakest point in any metal is the welded joint, and since Aluminum suffers from stress fracturing, it's most likely to fracture at a weld.

Now most sub $1000 frames come from China, and lately we have been seeing some big quality issues with Chinese manufacturing (just ask the folks at Mattel ), so maybe it's poor quality welds, or poor quality control at the Chinese contractor that welds the frames. This may not even be Treks fault, because, as typical in Asia you hire a company, they sub-contract out and you have no control over who they sub-contract out to.

v1k1ng1001

I agree. Don't forget how effective the weight weenie marketing was in the mid to late 90s.

Halthane

Hug generator would be out for the racer mostly because of the drag that it induces. It's not that much but it would definitely be more than even a few hundred grams of extra battery weight. I rode a bike with a hub generator not long ago and while it wasn't much you could definitely feel it when you turned it on, definitely more than adding a hundred grams or so.


That would be very cool, if they could get the cost and reliability appropriate. But therein lies the rub If your going to go this far you might as well put sensors on the brakes and make the tailight two stage