It is, but I've managed a bruise right on both ischia from not spotting where some new pavement had sunk almost 6" at an expansion gap, and frogged my right hamstring with it from catching a curb edge while leaning hard on a left turn. Starting to think I might need to adjust the old suspension seatpost away from the fully clamped down position just a bit to soften stuff like that.

thanks for the rec. however, if you havent tried bar tape. WOW. my bike came with the grips shaped like the Ergon grips but not at all comfy. I took them off and wrapped one layer of cork tape around the bar. too thin. I wrapped a second layer and voila! wow. I think Im even going to double wrap my road bike bar its so comfortable.

I dont use the bar that much though. I have extensions and I try to be on those as much as possible as thats the most comfortable hand position.

I think it depends on the grip brand, also. My wife's bike has grips sort of like Ergons, "ergonomic" style or whatever, and they're not nearly as comfortable as the actual Ergon GP grips.

I like classic WTB solid rubber grips... they are not particularly padded or shaped. Go figure :D

ahhh so that's what the WTB on my 26" disc wheelset stands for. :P

question guys- is there such a thing as a car-loud horn for bikes?

https://www.mec.ca/en/product/4013-5...d-Cycling-Horn

Or something similar.

Buddy of mine has one after his accident.

The Airzound that many people use and recommend is a much higher pitch than most car horns, and single tone. If you want to really sound like a car horn you will need some sort of dual-tone setup, probably battery powered. I've seen people rig up stuff. Check out the Traffic Droid in the UK on YouTube, channel name "sonofthewindsinc", he rides with 5 or 6 cameras, and has a custom setup dual-tone air horn attached to his handlebars with a push button near the right brake hood.

There's a guy I've seen a couple times commuting in my area who has a whistle that he blows when he's entering hairy intersections.

thanks guys. I definitely feel like drivers will be more aware with a loud horn .


Im not really at risk being a tall 300 lber on a bike that's almost as tall as a Honda civic - They definitely see me :D


but you just never know

ok guys, Ive been commuting on my mountain bike and I just love it. its very comfy and still pretty quick.


but I wanted to also start going on group rides with my road bike and have learned a lot about tire pressures and rolling resistance.


so I put a conti gp4000 25c on the front, and gp4000sii 28c on the rear(really a 31c)


with my weight, I can pump the rear to 120psi and get the 15% drop. cant do that with a smaller tire and the bike wont fit a bigger tire.


here is the problem - the rear tire fits everywhere but my out of true wheel makes the tire touch the brake boss in a couple of spots, ever so slightly.


so my question is , if I took the rear brake off and ground that boss down about 1mm I should have all the clearance I need.


would it be unadviseable to have a bike without a rear brake?

I'd true the wheel before doing that, or else swap front and back tires. It's advisable to have some redundancy in brakes.

absolutely. didn't have the spoke wrench but will grab one today. hopefully that will fix it.


there is no way that the 28c tire will fit in front . not gonna happen :)
someone said that putting the same tire on a wider rim will make it shorter. does anyone have insight on this?


thanks

I'd expect it to be taller on a wider rim.

Shouldn't be. As the tire beads spread farther apart, the height of the curved arc of the tire's cross section would have to get shorter.

lol no way man! Buy a spoke wrench and learn how to true your wheel! The only question is what size; you could get a 3-way, but those usually really cheap and you might end up rounding off your nipples.

I recommend (a) watch a couple utub videos on how to true a wheel and see how easy it is, and (b) ride to a LBS, tell them you want either a Park SW-40 or SW-42, whichever is the size that fits on your spokes. It'll cost probably about ten bucks.

For a 300lb rider on a bike that accepts max 25/28mm tires, that's a context that is very hard on wheels, so a spoke wrench and a little practice is a good investment. Hopefully you've got at least 32 spokes in the back, 36 would be preferable. Front wheels don't bear as much load, and don't need asymmetric dishing for the cassette, so they are usually less problematic (unless you crash into a curb or something)

check this thread:

That is surprising. It would only hold true to a certain point, though. If you tried to put it on a wide 29er rim it would have to be shorter at the center. Just think of a section of folding bead tire when folded flat, it's as short as it can be, and the beads are as far apart as they can be.

Your road bike is going to be harder to make work for your weight than it was on the MTB.

I don't think truing the wheel is going to make the tire fit. I think it's probably just too big for the frame. People around here like their big soft tires and so we sometimes talk about how much clearance is really needed... although opinions differ, "almost none" is not a favorite answer.

You could probably overfill a GP4000sii 25 or some other true-to-size 28 with no trouble. It will just be a tiny bit harsher.

After a certain point, it would get shorter at the centre. However, that would be a very wide rim for a tyre width. Like 23 mm wide inner rim bead width with a 23 mm tyre.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014KITUPS

Three separate 4-sided spoke wrenches for $10. Had this set for about a year, with no issues.

That looks really good, wish I had known about those. I've always wondered why there's no Park SW-41.

update guys: after truing the wheel the best I can it looks like I have about 1mm clearance.

edit: decided to not use it. will be selling the bike since the mtb does pretty much everything I need.

my road bike unfortunately didnt pick up 2mph. its actually abt the same speed as the mtn bike, and thats without the shocks locked out. I do have to confess that on the mtb I now have conti 4000 s ii 28c on the front and may swtich to that on the back as well as it rolls so well.

most gain I got was on one ride on the drops about half the time I gained 1.2 mph over the mtb but normal riding no gain.


this is good news for me because now I know that I can do the hottern hell 100 on my mtb with no real speed penalty. and I'll be way more comfy, stable, ride a bigger tire over the chiopseal etc etc