How often does your bike see the track or deliver packages?

Maybe they feel the same way :p

-Rob.

Yeah, I wasn't gonna go there, but hatin' on other cyclists? And judging them based on their ride?

It's different, though, those other cyclists aren't riding expensive fixed gears!

Hating on other cyclists? God, what a novel idea!

By the way, it happened on my (ex) work bike so I have delivered (food) packages with it, and it's seen the track as well.

Anyways, I'm sorry for being all bitter, but being in a college town has changed my perspectives a little. It's not really so much "snobbery" on my part when I'm expressing disdain over these people, it's more like basic ettiquette violations that either waste my time or put safety in danger (i.e. the people that swerve around in tightly packed areas of peds/cyclists, or go the wrong way through the bike lane, the former I see weekly and the latter almost daily). And the rack where my bike was trapped in happened on a huge bike rack where there's probably 40 spaces to lock up. I come back and two bikes just happen to be blocking mine in, WTF?

My ride sees it all. Track, street, up a Chinese Mexican delivers face...wherever. ha

I hate when they sandwich your bike. Never lock in Chinatown. LOL or Kitchen for that matter...they ruin it.

I feel the same way sometimes. Last semester I had to actually remove my front wheel and push the bike through the front of the rack to get it out because two MTB's were locked basically on top of my bike and after 20 minutes of wresting I was tired of looking like a fool. The spot was for 2 bikes and someone squeezed in a 3rd.

Def not cool to lock up on top of your bike. I just don't see how cheap mtn bike with wide bars = riding on the sidewalk and running over kittens. Bad parking and bad riding are bad. But the bike someone chooses to ride isn't relevant or directly related.

Delivering packages on a track bike in no way validates it (more than any other type of riding) for street use .


Actually, it almost always is.

The people with bad cycling ettiquette almost always tend to be on either 1) dept. store mtn. bike 2) beach cruiser or 3) old, totally unmaintained road bike, typically a Schwinn but could go any different way. Out of these three groups, the grand majority of people I see doing the things I see are on the dept. store mountain bike.

Believe it or not, bike choice can say a lot about a person: just as riding brakeless can either suggest an expert/veteran rider who doesn't think they need a front brake, or a hopeless fashionista who just likes the look, a department store mtn. bike can denote someone who doesn't necessarily care about cycling outside of the fact that they can get to a destination slightly faster than walking, and typically won't take the time to figure out basic things like the right locks and right ways to lock up a bike, the fact that lights are a necessity at night or the laws of the road, i.e. not riding on the sidewalk.

This is not an end-all generalization, but it is a decent rule that is typically compatible with reality. You could reverse this rule to our side of the fence and use it to denote that track bike street riders generally have tighter (not necessarily skin tight) fitting clothing or ride with messenger bags or messenger backpacks instead of racks, panniers, and baskets.

fantastic

And that they're hedge fund brats that blow stop signs and run over peds. I'm not trying to blow this into a hyperbolic debate, but I'm no fan of stereotypes based on appearance. The vast majority of genuinely bad cycling etiquette I see here is on single speeds, but the only thing I can tell from looking at a single speed is that it's a single speed. The only thing I can tell from looking at a janky bike is that somebody rides a janky bike.

This thread had me confused from the first post, and I've never recovered.

It's not that I'm trying to make all-encompassing stereotypes, it's that I'm observing what is happening around me and taking note. Read closely at the language I'm using.

Also, since we're in different towns I'm not surprised at the bad ettiquette you're seeing being different from mine. In Portland I saw a lot less of what I'm talking about above, and a lot more people on fixed gears running reds or whatever. In Eugene it's a whole different scene.

i dont get what the original poster's issue is. He doesnt like his current bars, thinks risers are too wide, but doesnt want to cut them, and doesnt like aluminum? He doesnt believe in stems rising either. strange.

BTW 17" is not too wide... If you want risers narrower than 17" (8.5" on each side), you'll just end up looking like a fool riding around with 2 hands together at the stem.

Truely you've never left SEA town. Risers are ALWAYS under 17 inch. 17 inch is wider than your pedals, no good. Plus, the wider = more crashes. you don't want flex with the stem, you want it tight.

When they first came out they were all just over 6" per side. that's 12 total, plenty.

Especially since no one ever uses more than one place on their handlebars. I dont even know why I have drops. Ha

You haven't read the thread - that's his sprinting stance.

This is the most baffling thread I've read in a long time. The OP sprints with his hands together - the most unnatural lung-constricting no-leverage position imaginable, hates aluminum handlebars, never uses more than one hand position, has had his stem and handlebar fuse together "stupid" fast, and doesn't want flex with the stem due to wide handlebars.

Also, when risers first came out they were all 30cm.

I'm going to pretend this thread has never existed because I'm feeling a dark void opening up in my mind that's threatening to crush my puny psyche.

Wow, i'm a big dummy. You're right . Please post a picture of yourself riding your bike with "risers" that have 6" of bar on each side.

honestly though, it's about the only semi-smart thing he's said. If you ride in seattle than of course you're going to need wider bars than someone like me that rides the flat flat streets of Richmond. I have about 6.5 inches of bar on either side of my stem and there's only one hill in town that makes me wish for a wider bar, and when I'm pumping that hill I'm not really thinking about the width of my bars. what has made me think about the width of my bars is when I'm splitting lanes and my bars just miss mirrors by an inch but the sides of my feet still scrape the wheels of the cars I'm passing.

the point is, you have different riding needs than someone in NYC or RVA. take that into consideration.

I snapped a chainstay on an 80's reynolds steel road bike frame.

It snapped about 1/8" away from the weld.

Just sayin'.

But the post emphasized disbelief at 12" risers. That has me a little confused as well: if there's any appreciable rise, is there room at the flats for your hands? Any bar of that length that I can recall seeing has been totally flat. So someone really should post a pic of such a bar to settle the point.

^^ Now I see it! Super-steep rise. Case closed.

This thread is amazing, I just wanted to throw that out there.

This