Could We Be Heading Into a "Roadie Dark Ages"?
10-04-20, 03:42 PM
#101
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Sure, and its not 3 x 10 either (im betting). The proposed setup has about 15(!) chain ring shifts from one end to the other not to mention the bottom gear is about equal to 34/21. The amount of front shifting would drive you nuts unless you ran it in manual mode, in case of DI2, to prevent it.
Bicycle Gear Calculator
Bicycle Gear Calculator
And as for the range, only the chainrings are prescribed; it'll work sweet with any cassette you like.
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Half-step triple, using double gear ~~~ 6400 STI rebuild walkthrough ~~~ Want 8/9/10s @126mm OLD? OCR. ~~~ Shimano cassette body overhaul ~~~ Ergopower Escape wear repair ~~~ PSA: drivetrain wear
List of US/Canada bike co-ops ~~~ Global list
10-04-20, 04:39 PM
#102
Senior Member
No it won't. It only provides half-step within the straight block, which cuts out earlier toward the low gears when wider-range cassettes are used. So for example, with a Shimano 11-speed 11-32 cassette, I'd lose the ultra-tight spacing when I go lower than 50-14. That would leave out a pretty huge chunk of my flat-ground riding. And I wouldn't want to go narrower with that 38-tooth small ring, since the low-end would start to suck on the steeper hills.
10-05-20, 11:54 AM
#103
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Incremental changes only as humans are not evolving that fast 
10-05-20, 12:14 PM
#104
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I think this is a long way off for road bikes. The added weight and bulk of a pump, valves, sensors, and controller, plus a battery to power it all, make it impractical except for maybe on an e-bike.
10-05-20, 12:54 PM
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10-05-20, 03:31 PM
#106
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*** This post is just a theoretical pondering of the future... Don't take it too seriously! ***
By "dark ages", I am suggesting that there won't be any significant changes in road bike technologies for many, many years to come beyond what we already have.
While I love new technologies, especially when it comes to my bikes, I also have a sensible-side that tells me that it makes no (financial) sense to buy a new bike every year. As such, I've gone over a decade in the past where I just rode the bike I had and wasn't tempted much to buy a new one as there just wasn't enough to be gained by purchasing a new bike. To me, it's just not worth spending thousands on a new bike if the only "improvement" is that it's a few grams lighter or a few seconds faster (over 1,000 miles if you ride at > 50 mph)
This last Spring I decided it was time to "upgrade" as there has been quite a few advances in the road bike world that allowed me to justify a new bike and were changes that I couldn't simply "upgrade" on my existing bike. Those technologies being disk brakes, an endurance frame (comfort), and electronic shifting (Ok, so I could've upgraded to electronic shifting, but the upgrade was not cost-effective at all).
So now I'm wondering what technological improvements in road bikes, that don't already exist today, could possibly come-along that would be justify purchasing a new road bike in the next few years... or even decade?
I think we've reached "peak aero" in terms of bike design as most road bikes are starting to look the same. If one really wants to be all-out aero, he/she should be riding a triathlete bike or time-trial bike, which we all know isn't practical for daily road riding so truth-be-told, aero isn't everything in road biking. We also seemed to have reach "peak lightness" in that unless there's some new space-aged material that comes along that is strong enough to be used on all bike parts (wheels, components, frame), new bikes will only be marginally lighter than existing bikes, if they're even lighter at all. While companies have experimented with different frame shapes for road bikes, the "double diamond" frame seems to be the time-tested frame shape that most bikes still use and I don't see that changing. Disc brakes are providing all the stopping power we need... and quite frankly, so did rim brakes. Electronic shifting has been around for quite a while and other than going wireless, hasn't changed much.
So what else is there left to "improve" on a road bike? Clearly the bicycle industry has shifted focus to e-bikes, which makes sense financially, but is yet one more reason why I'm thinking that we aren't going to see any significant changes in the road bike world for years, maybe even decades. Do you disagree? Where do you think there is an opportunity for relatively large changes in road bikes that would justify buying a new bike that is significantly better than what we can already buy today?
While concept bikes such as this one are fun to think about, the reality is that real life bikes still look a lot more like the bikes of 100 years ago than they do this future bike.
By "dark ages", I am suggesting that there won't be any significant changes in road bike technologies for many, many years to come beyond what we already have.
While I love new technologies, especially when it comes to my bikes, I also have a sensible-side that tells me that it makes no (financial) sense to buy a new bike every year. As such, I've gone over a decade in the past where I just rode the bike I had and wasn't tempted much to buy a new one as there just wasn't enough to be gained by purchasing a new bike. To me, it's just not worth spending thousands on a new bike if the only "improvement" is that it's a few grams lighter or a few seconds faster (over 1,000 miles if you ride at > 50 mph)
This last Spring I decided it was time to "upgrade" as there has been quite a few advances in the road bike world that allowed me to justify a new bike and were changes that I couldn't simply "upgrade" on my existing bike. Those technologies being disk brakes, an endurance frame (comfort), and electronic shifting (Ok, so I could've upgraded to electronic shifting, but the upgrade was not cost-effective at all).
So now I'm wondering what technological improvements in road bikes, that don't already exist today, could possibly come-along that would be justify purchasing a new road bike in the next few years... or even decade?
I think we've reached "peak aero" in terms of bike design as most road bikes are starting to look the same. If one really wants to be all-out aero, he/she should be riding a triathlete bike or time-trial bike, which we all know isn't practical for daily road riding so truth-be-told, aero isn't everything in road biking. We also seemed to have reach "peak lightness" in that unless there's some new space-aged material that comes along that is strong enough to be used on all bike parts (wheels, components, frame), new bikes will only be marginally lighter than existing bikes, if they're even lighter at all. While companies have experimented with different frame shapes for road bikes, the "double diamond" frame seems to be the time-tested frame shape that most bikes still use and I don't see that changing. Disc brakes are providing all the stopping power we need... and quite frankly, so did rim brakes. Electronic shifting has been around for quite a while and other than going wireless, hasn't changed much.
So what else is there left to "improve" on a road bike? Clearly the bicycle industry has shifted focus to e-bikes, which makes sense financially, but is yet one more reason why I'm thinking that we aren't going to see any significant changes in the road bike world for years, maybe even decades. Do you disagree? Where do you think there is an opportunity for relatively large changes in road bikes that would justify buying a new bike that is significantly better than what we can already buy today?
While concept bikes such as this one are fun to think about, the reality is that real life bikes still look a lot more like the bikes of 100 years ago than they do this future bike.
The ship made the world smaller, and the bicycle is an amazingly efficient machine..so LET IT STAY THE SAME!
**** I put the fact that he didn't say this, along with many things that he DID say, into a forty five suite for jazz orchestra
What did Albert Einstein say?
Riding a Bicycle"
And of course: the greatest Bicycle music ever written (setting of the story about a zen monk and his five bicycle riding students). I am not kidding: best bicycle music ever....
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10-05-20, 07:05 PM
#107
Member
A gearbox hub sounds to me like "No User-Serviceable Parts Inside".
The Rohloff hub is exactly that but it seldom goes wrong.
There are hubs out there with tens of thousands of miles on them still working perfectly.
One downside is that they are comparatively heavy and all the weight is in the rear wheel still you save the weight of the second chainring and a number of links of chain. Or you could go belt drive which is much lighter than a chain (and you can't use a belt on a derailleur system!
I am biased because I own two!
The Rohloff hub is exactly that but it seldom goes wrong.
There are hubs out there with tens of thousands of miles on them still working perfectly.
One downside is that they are comparatively heavy and all the weight is in the rear wheel still you save the weight of the second chainring and a number of links of chain. Or you could go belt drive which is much lighter than a chain (and you can't use a belt on a derailleur system!
I am biased because I own two!
10-05-20, 09:05 PM
#108
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One downside is that they are comparatively heavy and all the weight is in the rear wheel still you save the weight of the second chainring and a number of links of chain. Or you could go belt drive which is much lighter than a chain (and you can't use a belt on a derailleur system!
To be fair it's probably less inefficient than a dry or horribly dirty chain, so there's that, but still.
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Sheldon Brown's bike info ~~~ Park Tools repair help
Half-step triple, using double gear ~~~ 6400 STI rebuild walkthrough ~~~ Want 8/9/10s @126mm OLD? OCR. ~~~ Shimano cassette body overhaul ~~~ Ergopower Escape wear repair ~~~ PSA: drivetrain wear
List of US/Canada bike co-ops ~~~ Global list
Sheldon Brown's bike info ~~~ Park Tools repair help
Half-step triple, using double gear ~~~ 6400 STI rebuild walkthrough ~~~ Want 8/9/10s @126mm OLD? OCR. ~~~ Shimano cassette body overhaul ~~~ Ergopower Escape wear repair ~~~ PSA: drivetrain wear
List of US/Canada bike co-ops ~~~ Global list
10-07-20, 11:47 AM
#109
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This could be the post of the year. Angry or distracted, take your pick. This trend certainly doesn't help.
https://www.theweek.com/articles/929...an-truck-bloat
https://www.theweek.com/articles/929...an-truck-bloat
The real threat to my life that I feel everyday is not the blind spots from big truck grills.... it's the distraction. Not just from txting, but from the damn touchscreen devices themselves, both hand held and built into the vehicles
10 years ago I could TXT and drive very safely. I could hold my blackberry above the dashboard where I could see it and still see the road and everything moving around me.... and I could blind type on my blackberry tactile keyboard.
Google maps on blackberry could be scrolled and zoomed one handed without looking. The maps in my 2005 CLK could be scrolled and managed from a scrollstick that was in my hand without looking.
TODAY, I have to hide my iPhone out of sight, and I have to look at it to type at all... so it is far more distracting from the road because it requires my ENTIRE attention to use, and it draws my vision down such that peripheral vision can't even be useful, which makes it extremely dangerous to use.
And the car manufacturers are putting the touchscreen below the sight line too. 100% of my attention is required to interact with the map or to change the music.
I'm not worried about big truck grills.
I'm worried about being killed by a g****n touchscreen.
Last edited by nycphotography; 10-07-20 at 05:16 PM. Reason: fix the typos
10-07-20, 12:12 PM
#110
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Ugh. Yet another unnecessary policization into right vs left in order to whine politically about something that isn't even political, or really even all THAT relevant. And I ride bikes on the road.
The real threat to my life that I feel everyday is not the blind spots from big truck grills.... it's the distraction. Not just from txting, but from the damn touchscreen devices themselves, both hand held and built into the vehicles
10 years ago I could TXT and drive very safely. I could hold my blackberry above the dashboard where I could see it and still see the road and everything moving around me.... and I could blind type on my blackberry tactile keyboard.
TODAY, I have to hide my iPhone out of sight, and I have to look at it too type at all... so it is far more distracting from the road because it requires my ENTIRE attention to use, and it draws my vision down such that peripheral vision can't even be useful.
And the car manufacturers are putting the touchscreen below the sight line too. 100% of my attention is required to interact with the map or to change the music.
Google maps on blackberry could be scrolled and zoomed one handed without looking. The maps in my 2005 CLK could be scrolled and managed from a scrollstick that was in my hand without looking.
I'm not worried about a truck grills.
I'm worried about being killed by a g****n touchscreen.
The real threat to my life that I feel everyday is not the blind spots from big truck grills.... it's the distraction. Not just from txting, but from the damn touchscreen devices themselves, both hand held and built into the vehicles
10 years ago I could TXT and drive very safely. I could hold my blackberry above the dashboard where I could see it and still see the road and everything moving around me.... and I could blind type on my blackberry tactile keyboard.
TODAY, I have to hide my iPhone out of sight, and I have to look at it too type at all... so it is far more distracting from the road because it requires my ENTIRE attention to use, and it draws my vision down such that peripheral vision can't even be useful.
And the car manufacturers are putting the touchscreen below the sight line too. 100% of my attention is required to interact with the map or to change the music.
Google maps on blackberry could be scrolled and zoomed one handed without looking. The maps in my 2005 CLK could be scrolled and managed from a scrollstick that was in my hand without looking.
I'm not worried about a truck grills.
I'm worried about being killed by a g****n touchscreen.
10-07-20, 10:11 PM
#111
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So now it's allegedly a political choice to point out that rolling coal in a pedestrian-crushing behemoth is in fact pretty crap, because the crooks clinging onto control and steering us all off a cliff for the sake of their kleptocracy don't want us to be making any progress in public debate, let alone recognising who the real bad guys are. Maybe if more of us recognised that facts are facts regardless of tribalism, we could manage to do more than argue about the arrangement of deck chairs on a sinking ship.
Good point about touchscreens though. I realised years ago that a Palm Pilot makes a crap universal remote; same problem: you have to look at it.
__________________
Sheldon Brown's bike info ~~~ Park Tools repair help
Half-step triple, using double gear ~~~ 6400 STI rebuild walkthrough ~~~ Want 8/9/10s @126mm OLD? OCR. ~~~ Shimano cassette body overhaul ~~~ Ergopower Escape wear repair ~~~ PSA: drivetrain wear
List of US/Canada bike co-ops ~~~ Global list
Sheldon Brown's bike info ~~~ Park Tools repair help
Half-step triple, using double gear ~~~ 6400 STI rebuild walkthrough ~~~ Want 8/9/10s @126mm OLD? OCR. ~~~ Shimano cassette body overhaul ~~~ Ergopower Escape wear repair ~~~ PSA: drivetrain wear
List of US/Canada bike co-ops ~~~ Global list
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10-07-20, 10:21 PM
#112
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Not needed.
Driverless cars will have really good bike detection systems and amazing brakes. I should be able to ride straight through any intersection with them screeching to a halt inches from my pedals.
I see this as actually being a big problem.
Driverless cars will have really good bike detection systems and amazing brakes. I should be able to ride straight through any intersection with them screeching to a halt inches from my pedals.
I see this as actually being a big problem.
