They reckon all the problems Boonen has with gears slipping has nothing to do with the frame flexing, 11 sprockets or Campagnolo equipment. Apparently he buggers around with the barrel adjusters during races, is a dud mechanic and farks the adjustment up!

:eek:

Repeat after me - "Retail is for loooooseerrrrrssss."

For 9k I could do a full custom Tephra Ti frame with Reynolds carbon stays, full Dura Ace, Zipp 303 wheels..........what a joke.

Who spends 9 grand just on a frame, forks, stem and post!? The Time stuff is nice, but not that nice. In fact, the Carbon-Ti composite design I want to do for my own next personal roadie would only be 5k for the frame, forks, stem and bars. That would leave a customer 4 grand for parts!!!!

I was juts reading in procycling mag today about "Chicken" Rassmussen & how he is a mechanical perfectionist and drives the pit crew nuts. Apparently Cadel Evans is the same - he even banned certain T-Mobile mechanics from working on his bike! Something to do with their MTB backgrounds and actually having to know what goes where on the bike when you bust something out on the trail in the back woods.

Or more likely, they're anal retentive freaks who also check to see if they've left the stove on three times before they leave the house.

Maybe...although by the looks of Rasmussen I'm not sure if he eats, so the stove wouldn't get much use :eek:

http://www.celluloidcycles.com.au/ is a film festival for the melbourne riders, RMIT theatre. I will be going, "Sunday in Hell" big screen. You got me.

"No chainstay cross-brace eliminates stress-risers "

What's is that Thylo?

P.S. When I get that $9k, I'm coming to you for the full custom. :)

Generally speaking we don't put that little cross-tube between the chainstays just behind the bottom bracket, but it depends on the material and other factors.

$9k is a lot of dough. I dunno why anyone would spend more than $6k on a bike ;)

*Note to self this morning* If you want to wake up in a good mood, do NOT switch on morning telly.

stress risers, as described by the "when metal lets us down" page :

Stress is also concentrated at — and magnified by — any geometric discontinuities in the part, such as corners, holes, notches, threads, scratches, nicks and pits. Such discontinuities are commonly referred to as "stress risers" and are almost invariably where fatigue cracks begin.

damn - clicked too quickly, the link to the helpful metals page - http://www.avweb.com/news/maint/184271-1.html

ahhh, cool, got it.

Yes $9k is a lot. All of mine together probably cost that much. If I get that much spare cash it'll be part of a $1m lotto win so it won't bother me :)

LOL, both of my bikes cost me a total of about $3k (I must have some Scots or Yorkshire heritage, I know of Nottingham and Danish.) However if I won lotto I too would be off to the bike shop for a spending spree like no other.

I don't wanna think about what the retail value is of my three bikes. Probably about 16k. :eek:

Naturally my cost is somewhere more in the vicinity of 3 ;)

http://www.velonews.com/tech/report/...es/9662.0.html

Here ya go Nev. Isn't rotating weight a personal favourite issue of yours? :)

That's what I love about Engineers. They have no concept of the big picture.

What interests me the most with most "bike discussions" is how small the numbers are. 6 watts over 10 seconds accellerating from 20mph to 30mph....Switch from a 1100g frame to a 1500g frame, save 0.7% percent of total rider+bike weight.....etc.

There's no doubt in my mind that there are improvements to be made, but honestly, 99% of us pedal like the spastic buckets of meat we are, which probably negates all the absolutely minute improvements we might make by a factor of 10. Or more.

For me (and this is funny coming from a guy who has zero motivation to ride at the moment) the biggest improvement you can make to your riding is, well, riding more.

+1
FWIW, after not being on the roadie for about 4 weeks (but training on the MTB in the hills) I found I was going like a train when I got back on the roadie. The effect seemed lessend going from a month of dedicated track training onto the roadie.

Yeah I found that. Didn't take long to get my road legs back and start going like a poof on the roadie again.

thanks http://www.musicianforums.com/forums...lies/thumb.gif

so, I put some 175s on last night, and I felt fkn FANTASTIC!!!
What was I thinkin with them 180s??!! :(

Think of the less rotational weight you have with the 175's :p

Plus you have less rotational weight with the 175's

I'm only around 5'8"-5'9" but I was riding 175mm cranks because they came on the bike & I had no idea they even came in different lengths when I bought it!

Now I've got 170mm but I changed bikes at the same time so I can't really determine how much difference (if any) the shorter cranks make.

too right :)

I might even try some 172.5s today. Rob Crowe can ride at 80kmh into a headwind; he uses 172.5, and he's 6ft3!!!



some of the rec.bicycles.tech heroes have been arguing over that Velo News article

http://www.cyclingforums.com/t327415.html

hmm, I'm 5'11 and my bike came with 172.5's... I think I'd be worried about 'em digging in (cornering) if I went longer cos I think I'm real close now.

im 5'8, short legs tho and i have 170's on my old MTB hardtail and 172.5's on my new MTB and roadie. the 172.5's make a massive difference in feel as far as being able to to power down.

it feels quite foreign now when i rdie the 170's. one thing that ive been curious about is willt he 170's given they have a shorter, more compact rotation help improve pedal stroke? i osmetimes feel that my pedal stroke is improved after using them

Totaly off topic, WTF is a compact crank? is it where you run a smaller inner ring or inner / outer ring on the front?

Nev, I'll swap ya a case of Draught for your DA 180's :lol:

Man, are the forums rooted or what. C'mon Gardner, get ya sh¡t together!

HA! :) That's just the beginning of the whole confusing issue -- some people think it's simply a matter of leverage, but there are so many factors that it's rediculous!! The main conundrum is that the seat has to lower, so the knee is in a weaker (more flexed) position, therefore, some of the potential leverage advantages are negated.....etc, etc.......bigger circles require more work, etc...yada yada. I've been a bit obsessed by this for nearly 2 yearsnow, and I can tell ya the whole thing is overrated, and long cranks aren't worth the extra stress on the knees



from Sheldon Brown:

Compact Crank
"A double-chainring crankset with that permits the use of smaller chainrings than will fit with the common 130 mm B.C.D. (bolt circle diameter). Most "compact double" cranks use the old standard 110 mm B.C.D. which permits the use of chainrings as small as 33 teeth (more commonly, 34 or 36 teeth.)
Compact crank sets usually come with a 50 tooth chainring, and will normally go with an 11 or 12 tooth top sprocket in back.

110 mm B.C.D. double cranks with full-sized (52-42, 52-40, etc.) were common in the late'70s and early '80s, but they had become nearly extinct for double chainrings. The rebirth of this format, with smaller rings, was pioneered by Tyler Hamilton who used one of these in the 2003 Tour de France"


the rings are so small that the bolt circle diameter has to be made smaller!!
I never heard of compact cranks or triples on a road bike until I got onto this forum -- what is it with these Yanks and their granny gears??!! :) Must be all them mountains :p

yeah, I was wondering if you knew any big red heads who need some long cranks :)

You probably paid double what I can get them for though, huh?