tomato coupe

Got it.

elcruxio

I actually found this kinda funny

But yes, kinda. The fastest tubular tire on the planet (vittoria corsa) has a rolling resistance of 8.9 watts at 132psi. The 40mm wide rene herse snoqualmie pass extralight tubeless has a rolling resistance of 11.6 watts at 50psi. That is a difference of 2.7 watts. And the 40mm tire is going to be on a different planet of comfort compared to the tubular tire. Like riding on clouds whereas the tubular at 132psi is going to feel like riding on rims pretty much.

Now I prefer long distance riding over compensating for something with the big boys, so I prefer to be comfortable and fast instead of being miserable and slower. Because let's face it. That tubular is going to slow right down the second you hit something rougher than track parquet. That's impendance for you.

georges1

Well I rode in the mud with 26inch wheels and 3*10 but it wasn't much an issue for me because I have ridden several times in the mud and rain neither was it prior to the introduction of 27.5 inch and 29 inch wheels as well as 1*11 or 1*12. The older GT LTS,Trek Fuel,Specialized FSR, Cannondale Raven and other well known full suspension models can still bevery efficient machines. Many MTB championhips were won with 26 inch wheels and with 8*3,9*3 and10*3 speeds during thirthy years whether it was cross country ,downhill and enduro, so saying that the old bikes aren't good on a technical terrain isn't entirely true.

PeteHski

We all ran 3x 26" mtbs back in the day. Dropping chains was a regular occurrence for me on technical terrain. Mud/clay was also a big issue. The universal move to 1x over the last decade was, for me, a revelation - along with far better geometry and dropper posts etc.

georges1

You can't generalize it for everyone. All depends what terrain you are running, how fast you can ride and about geometry, the konas from the mid late 90's early 00's,the specializeds from the late 90'-00s,the giant from the 90's early 00's, the meridas from 90's early 00's, the cannondales from 90's early 00's, bianchi from 90's early 00's, the GTs from 90's early 00's and other had a pretty agressive sloping or ultra sloping geometry , when I see what looks like geometry on modern MTBs it is less agressive as it was on some MTBs of the past. I never had a chain drop whether on technical terrain or trail and also the way your front derailleur was tuned set up mattered a lot. The 1*11 and1*12 is only a 6 years old trend,where as 3*10, 9*3, 8*3, 7*3 were there long enough to prove the validity of their conception and their use through decades.

PeteHski

Why are you even talking about this? BTW 1x11 dates back to at least 2014 (as I had a 2014 bike that came with it). I've been riding mtbs for a few decades so I don't need a history lesson, especially not with rose-tinted specs!

PeteHski

I guess the modern Pros are simply not committed enough to performance then. Have you taken a look recently at what tyres most of them are racing and winning with?

elcruxio

The DH bikes (slackest of the slack) of the late 90's and early 00's had head angles of around 68 degrees. My sport hardtail of 2013 had a head angle of 69 degrees. Some current gravel bikes are nearing that 68 degree mark.

and the DH bikes of yore weren't ones using triples. Typically triples were for bikes with head angles around 70ish degrees.

For reference my current MTB has a head angle of 65 degrees (current DH bikes have angles of 63). Were I to attempt to ride the trails I ride at the same speed I ride them now, with my old 2013 mtb, i would probably die, and there would be absolutely no way the chain would stay on even the two chainrings it had.

Old rear mechs with their loose springs just could not hope to achieve what modern clutch mechs and narrow wide chainrings can.

As to the validity of the 3x system throughout the ages.. Well it was on mountain bikes for three (four?) decades. Once the 1x narrow wide came out, for some reason in a handful of years all mountain bikes of note were being sold with 1x and people were converting their old bikes to 1x like there was no tomorrow.

So I wonder. If the 3x was so great, why did the change happen so fast?

smd4

Why don’t you prove to me that rims with more metal are lighter than those with less metal.

PeteHski

The question was how big the effect was.

Incidentally, if ultimate performance was the goal, it would be carbon, not metal.

smd4

"Comfort?" Is that what this is about? When I talk bikes and tires, I'm usually referring to racing bikes. "Comfort" is why I have a very nice couch, and a king-size bed. Both very comfortable.

"Like riding on clouds?" Sorry--that's not what I want out of a high-end racing bike. Has anyone ever ridden in a high-performance race-car? They aren't very comfortable. That's what Cadillacs and hybrid bikes are for.

mstateglfr 

I am genuinely surprised anyone pushed back on my comment. Dropped chains on 1x is simply so well known that it didnt seem controversial to point it out. USA wont the Revolutionary War, water is wet, and 1x has a long and well established history of dropping chains. Just realities I though all of us knew and accepted.

Chain guides exist because of chain drop. The fact that there is little chain drop now when a chain guide is installed simply means the little component is doing what it was made to do. That doesnt mean chain drop isnt an issue.
This isnt relegated only to DH bikes- CX 1x and Gravel 1x drivetrains have long been the subject of threads and articles addressing the issue.
The internet is littered with pics of people's bikes that have chains stuck on the front due to drop. Its littered with pics of chains mangling bottom bracket shells and paint.
Any number of google searches similar to '1x chain drop' will give you hours of reading on countless message boards and sites.
Clutch derailleurs are popular on 1x in part because they help retain the chain on a 1x crank.


Tech has improved greatly and 1x has fewer dropped chains as a result. Thats kinda the point though- dropped chains led to some of the current tech in order to solve the issue in the first place.

As for bigjohn's comment about 3x, an FD helped keep the chain on the rings.

big john

I never said old bikes weren't good on technical terrain, I said new bikes are better, a lot better for most of us. I can do things on my newer bike that I wouldn't have even tried on my old bikes, and I'm 68 years old. I rode 4 different hardtails and 2 full suspension 26ers, all with triples, before I got the bike I have in 2018.

Of course championships were won on 26ers because that's what they had. Mountain bikes started as 26ers because 26 inch wheels were available. When the mtb pioneers started with modified Schwinn Excelsiors 26 was what they had to work with.

The difference in courses is also dramatic. Old downhill race courses were not like they are now and enduro racing in it's present form didn't exist several years ago. And modern cross country race courses are a lot more technical than they were back in the 90s.

You can argue that there isn't a lot of difference in road bikes over the last 30 years and there is some truth to that. A good rider might be faster on a modern road bike than on an older one, but a good rider might struggle to even complete a modern enduro course on an old mountain bike.

PeteHski

Okay I think this is blown way out of proportion. My 2014 gnarly enduro bike indeed had a chain guide and clutched mech etc. It probably needed it when being smashed over rough terrain at speeds I wouldn't have even survived on my 2004 3x bike (which was actually converted to a 2x and bash). Moving on to my 2019 trail bike with 5" travel, it has a clutched mech (why wouldn't it?), but no chain guide. The chain has never ever fallen off while riding on technical trails. Contrast that with my previous 3x and 2x mtbs and dropping the chain with a hurried downshift, along with irritating chain slap was par for the course and thankfully now resigned to the history books!

big john

This is news to me. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that this has not been my experience. My 1x has never dropped the chain, never had chainsuck, and always shifts when I want it to. I did google that term and this is the first thing I saw.
"

• Less chain drop on off-road riding – while well set up multi-chainring system doesn’t drop the chain every day, it can be said that modern 1x systems are a bit more robust when it comes to not dropping the chain when jumping over bumps (and shifting)."

I did remember that my friends who have 1x road e-bikes had trouble with dropped chains with the stock front rings and a switch to Wolf Tooth rings fixed them. But earlier I was talking about mountain bikes, I'm not a proponent 1x for road bikes.

elcruxio

Based on your earlier comments it has been well established that you would rather feel fast than actually be fast. I on the other hand prefer to be fast and comfort plays a big role on that. It's also pretty well established that vibrations cause fatigue.

In order to minimize fatigue from souces other than energy spent moving forwards one would do well to minimize vibrations caused by road imperfections. If you want actually be fast that is. But you don't, so...

As a bit of an offtopic, don't people typically learn context and its effect on word meanings in primary school? As when the discussion revolves around for example bicycles, the term comfort has a slightly different definition than if the discussion was about say, pillows. Just musing here...

rosefarts

Now we’re talking about problems that all bikes have?

My mountain bike has never dropped a chain. I’ve beat the crap out of it and I never shy from the roughest things I can take it through. Oh, it’s also a hardtail. It ought to get shaken off on the daily.

In the 90’s, my chains fell off all the time. Then sucked into the frame. Trek, along with some other companies sold their bikes with a standard chain suck guard. Derailleurs didn’t prevent anything.

I had a 90’s retro mod 1x gravel bike that dropped chains until I looked super close at the chainline and chain length. Once I adjusted, it never happened again. It has happened once in a couple years on my new gravel bike, pretty bad washboards etc.

In the real world, chains fall off sometimes. I have never had a 2x or 3x bike that doesn’t occasionally drop the chain. Usually in a shift. Perfectly adjusted and meticulously cared for, doesn’t matter. High end and low end. Whether I’m the mechanic or it’s someone qualified. It just happens. And from my observations, it seems to happen a lot more 2-3x than on a 1x.

So for pages 29-34, maybe we can get back to rim brakes, before ultimately devolving into politics and religion.

big john

After hundreds of posts, (thousands?) on dozens of rim vs disc threads, I thought we were tired of brake discussion. But, by all means, let's get back to the topic.

smd4

Actually--and perhaps I haven't "established it" enough--I have zero interest in how fast I go.

Consider this "feeling" established.

smd4

Why do you think I mentioned hybrid bikes? Duh.

elcruxio

So you're not interested in comfort. So it doesn't matter to you how stuff disc frames and forks are. Check.

Ypu're also not at all interested in how fast you go, so you shouldn't be at all interested how heavy or unaero disc brakes make your bike. Nor should you be interested about the extra weight rotors or clincher rim hooks add.

You're again not interested in speed so rolling resistance shouldn't interest you at all.

So far what I'm gathering is that you just want a bike that has hard narrow tires that cause as much vibrations as possible. Hmm...

smd4

What? "What does "how stuff disc frames" even mean?

I'd love for you to tell me exactly, in MPH, "fast" is.

Waiting...

Eric F 

It's a typo. It should be "stiff", not "stuff".

elcruxio

Context clues are your friend when attempting to understand text with potential typos. You see in the qwerty keyboard the letters I and U are right next to one another. Now it is possible that a finger presses the wrong button and that is in fact what we call a typo. If a written word seems wrong, it is helpful to see if one of the letters could be exchanged with a nearby letter in the qwerty keyboard to find the correct spelling.

In this context as there was discussion earlier about how stiff disc forks supposedly were, it should not have taken a huge leap of imagination to deduce that the word stuff was misspelled and was meant to mean stiff.

This is again a skill I believe should be learned in primary school...

You'll need to help me here. Do you mean to ask what "fast" is in mph? I'm sorry, I only work in metric. In kph, fast is... well it would depend on the conditions wouldn't it?

Is 30kph going down alpe d'huez fast? Not really no.

Is 30kph going up alpe d'huez fast? Well old chap I do believe it indeed is!

Any other questions?
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tomato coupe

I think they covered this on Sesame Street the other day.