the steemrohler has better track ends, fo shiz.

http://www.surlybikes.com/frames/ima...ler_frame4.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e211/gbae007/cog.jpg

the above is definitely true.

Why?

What "kind of riding" does dookie do...and...a why would a sputnik do it better?

Too "agile?"

I find the Pista remarkably stable and predictable, regardless of its quick handling.


Then get a larger frame or slide your saddle back or get a longer stem.

I have very short legs and a long torso and I have no issues with the Pista.

So what?
How far away from water does dookie get?

What qualities in steel would dookie like the Pista to have?
A decal?
I suppose Bianchi tells its Chinese manufacturers to just use whatever generic steel they find laying around.
They probably get it out of the dumpster.

The steel in a Pista does everything the steel in a Steamroller, or the steel in a sputnik does.
It holds the components in correct relationship to each other.

I've never heard anyone brag about a sputnik before.

I don't have a car, but my wife drives a Chevy Aveo.
It gets great gas mileage, and we don't really brag about that, since we didn't design the car, but we express our happiness with the overall cheapness of our car.

So, what makes a sputnik so superior?

Oh, I remember.

Dookie rides a sputnik.

I can't type that with a straight face. :)

Well, please excuse me while I go research the non-generic steel of the sputnik, and explore the mysteries of its profound geometry.

=====

The Jamis sputnik has a Reynolds 631 frame and a carbon fork.

As for the effective top tube length, I don't see much difference between the sputnick and the Pista.

Otherwise, the sputnik has a slack road bike head tube angle and typical road bike fork rake.

Yawn.

consumer edited by Mods edited by Mods

sorry you missed your meds today ken...maybe you should get somebody to help you with that.

i'm not shilling for what i ride or why i ride. the root of my comments were that with no input from the OP on the intended use for the bike (just 'classic' or 'hip'...both attributes not very high on my must-have-in-a-bike list), all i could offer was my opinion. it was not offered as gospel. just an opinion.

the OP got his back up (mildly), but then you got completely out of line. what the fuc|<? i'm still not sure what set either of you off, other than a clearly labeled personal opinion presented as such. get over yourselves.

if you'd like to PM me i'll be happy to address your specific questions, but i won't encourage you (beyond the next few sentences) in public. i ride a lot. i've worked in the industry, including providing fitting services. i've had my hands (and arse) on a whole lot of bikes. there are even some knowledgeable enthusiasts who value my opinion...fools perhaps.

i don't care whether you are one of them or not, but your outburst was awfully juvenile and your arguments regarding fit and that steel is steel are either a reduction to the absurd, or solid evidence of your relative ignorance of the subjects.

Oh yeah, he's obviously a consumer edited by Mods... and couldn't possibly have a passion for bikes.

Didn't mean to jump to conclusions there, dookie. I guess I made the age old internet mistake of reading too much into your post. It was a bit snide though, you gotta admit that.

My intended use for the bike will be mainly goofing off with a little bit of exercise and possibly commuting thrown in. It will likely never see the inside of a velodrome and might be setup with a freewheel much of the time.

I see.

Dookie can tell another adult male, from the safety of the internet, to "take a deep breath, big guy," or he can suggest I take my meds; but, interestingly, dookie can't handle someone demonstrating with a few questions and a yawn the fact that dookie doesn't have anything to say about the subject, except to take personal shots at his fellow forumites.

Act and write like a man.

Instead of making snotty remarks about other people and their tastes in bikes, tell us what YOU know about bicycles.

How much knowledge about bicycles has dookie shared on this forum?

He has told other people their bikes stink, but not why.

He has told other people to take a breath or take their meds, but he hasn't told us anything about bikes except that HE knows all about 'em and WE don't know nuthin'.

Really?
You sold bikes at WalMart and raised and lowered the saddles for the little boys and girls?

Or perhaps you attended Serotta's fitting school and have a Serotta fitting bike?

Credentials?

Degrees?

Too late to tell us about that professional fitting school you paid so much money to attend, because we won't believe you now.

Why don't you just blow it out your sputnik?

=====

I have a Bianchi Pista I bought in 2005.
I've replaced everything on the bike except the frame. :)

I keep looking for a frame and fork I like better, in terms of function (cause I don't care that much about how it looks), and, in the meantime, I use the Pista frame as a place to store parts and to learn about fitting.

Last year I received a fitting from a world-famous bike-fitter.
He and his father have patented their fitting method.
It involves mirrors and lasers and computers and physical therapist assistants.
Speaking of phyiscal therapists, my personal phyisical therapist, who lectures nationally to other physical therapists (they pay money to listen to him speak), offered to pay for my fitting if he could sit in on it and watch.
People fly here from all around the world to get a fitting from this guy, scheduling months in advance (he has a long waiting list).
Maybe this world-famous bicycle-fitter participates anonymously on this very forum, and I have done dookie a terrible injustice.
Stranger things have happened.

Anyway, I like the Pista a lot.
I like its short wheelbase, including the short distance from the bottom bracket to the front axle.
I can't think of a production frameset that has a steeper head tube angle and a shorter rake.
If and when I find a custom frame builder I like, I will probably have him make a frame very close in geometry to the Pista.

For my other main riding bike, I have a Surly Karate Monkey set up as a fixed gear Ice Bike.

The Surly folks really thought this one out, as they did with every other frame they've designed.

Unhappily, it weighs too much to use year around, but it keeps me riding during blizzards, safely and comfortably.
Just me and the sand trucks.

=====

I have nothing personal against dookie.

It just so happens that internet bullies push my button.

When 14 year olds get on their daddy's computer and act like they know it all ("everybody has a stupid bike and doesn't know anything"), something just draws me to them.

Especially if they ride a sputnik.

I mean, how many people on this forum would even admit to owning a sputnik, let alone riding one?

=====

At my local bike shop, probably the best bike shop in the world, and much better than any bike shop dookie goes to, the majority of the mechanics ride some type of Surly frame.

I like Surly's.

Good features and built stout.

However, the Pista frame suits MY "special" riding style much better than anything else possibly could, and especially so compared to a sputnik.

=====

Hey, dookie, have you figured it out, yet?

Get it?

(nudge, nudge)

People: don't get ahead of yourselves, this is just a simple bike comparison.

Calm down Ken. Whatever "button pushing" there was seems to have been fairly mild by internet standards.

OP: Really, just go out and test ride them. You will figure out which one you like best.

Nah... I'm definitely a recycler. I fully expect that I will never buy a new bicycle again. I built my latest bike from an old frame, and I will build me next bike(s) the same way.

Just a note: that sounds like a cool job. I know I'd have a ton of fun selling bikes to kids.

EDIT: I know my comment will drawn in a sea of yelling - but I propose to you people: meditate for a moment about the coolness of bikes and the coolness of kids, and imagine a job where you make the latter happy by using the former. Bliss.

I have an '04 Pista that I love. It handles great and I have ridden it fairly long distances. The longest was a 50 mile ride and it was deffinately fine for that long of a ride. Otherwise it has served me well for alot of city miles.

The only downsides I see are that the current bike ('08) jumped in price and looks to have downgraded the componets (at least compared to what my '04 came with). Also, I don't like the fact that it has a 1" threadless headset. Tough to replace with anything midrange. The choices are either low end or something like a King or IRD. Nothing really in the mid range (as far as I know) Maybe the newer ones have a 1 -1/8" headset now, though.

Very few stock parts left on it now, but I do like the frame. Great handling/ride/weight. The only thing I would really consder swaping it out for would be a Bareknuckle.

I don't have any experience w/ the Steamroller.

To the person who sent me a private message: I don't read private messages.

If you have something to say to me, say it in public.

=====

I know that.

However, I have an interest in a certain type of behavior called relational aggression.

Relational aggressors love internet forums.

A number of people on this forum, and other forums, indulge in relational aggression as their normal pattern of internet behavior; and, for the most part, their fellow forumites learn to ignore them (or yield to them, and even join them).
I normally ignore them.

However, in this case, I saw three classic posts right in a row...one, two, three...absolutely classical examples of the genre.

So, out of curiosity, I tried a strategy I don't use very often, just to see how it might work in this case.

As a result of my strategy, I noted two things that fit the pattern I normally see.

First of all, the relational aggressor does not like seeing his own behavior come back at him; and, he either adopts the pose of "victim," pleads a misunderstanding, or describes the person who confronted him as overreacting.

Secondly, I noted, as I have many times, that although forumites will tolerate and even yield to the behavior of the initial relational aggressor, they do not tolerate the behavior of the person who acts out of character and otherwise confronts the relational aggressor.

Ironic, eh? :)

As for the dookies and dutrets of this world, they do not offend me.
They have my compassion.
They do not choose their life path and cannot see the reality of it.

Interestingly, the above doesn't mean the rest of us have to suffer the dysfunctional behaviors of relational agressors as our own afflictions.
Morally, we have every right, and maybe even a responsibility, to poke 'em, twist 'em and steer 'em to the benefit of the community.

Now, if it bothers someone that I have used this thread as my own private laboratory, I hope you really don't like it: after all, a significant percentage of the participants on this forum wear their bikes as a costume, and I just can't bring myself to care about what people who wear bikes as costumes might think about what I do.

"Gosh, I hope I have the right type of stem and cool tattoos so people will like me."

Oh please, please, please tell me this offends you. :)

=====

Another thing about relational aggressors, they behave differently in different cultures.

When I visit Southern California, I see relational aggressors cutting in line and then embarrassing anyone who questions them on their behavior.
I haven't seen this anywhere else.
For example, when I visit the Northeastern inner cities, I see very few examples of public relational aggression.
I think Northeastern inner city folk have special social skills for dealing with relational aggression, and they don't let this behavior gain any momentum.

Interestingly, when Californian relational aggressors come up here to Oregon and try cutting in line, Oregonians hand them their butts.

Don't misunderstand me: most Californians come to Oregon and become Oregonians themselves within about six months.
I mean, really, most Californians come here to get away from California, and not to bring it with them.

=====

I didn't know fixed gear bikes existed until I read Sheldon Brown's discussions of fixed gear bikes.
I immediately plugged into it.

So, in preparation for getting my first fixed gear bike, I joined this forum.
We had a different crowd here, then, and I learned a lot about fixed gear bikes from this forum, before I even saw a fixed gear bike in real life.

I miss absntr: he taught me a lot about fixed gear bikes and life in general.
I mean, he didn't teach me, but I learned a lot from his posts.
He and I also had bad bicycle accidents about the same time: I lost a month of work while the docs reinflated my lung, and I think absntr spent a few days in a coma.

I also found it then, as now, both humorous and amazing that a subculture exists concerning fixed gear bikes and bike messengers and the whole pretend life style.

So, anyway, as I wrote earlier, I hope you don't like it.

Please, have a tizzy fit for my entertainment.

If you don't make me laugh, you'll make me cry. :)

=====

Final word before I leave, perhaps for good:

I loathe cars.

Loathe.

I have attended well over a thousand fatal automobile accidents.

I gave away my car years ago, and I will get in my wife's car only on special occasions.

I will probably never own a car again, in this lifetime.

Did I mention I loathe cars?

I've also shoved all my geared bikes to the back of the garage and now ride only fixed gear bikes.

I can't imagine ever buying another geared bike (with one exception).

Presently, I ride my bike 24/7/365, day and night through any and all kinds of weather.
Sometimes nuthin' moves out there except me and the snow plows.

I love it.

I see fixed gear bikes and riding fixed gear bikes as God's special gift to me (and to you).

I started a six month chemotherapy treatment in October (a month and a half left to go), and I have continued to ride despite the effects of the drugs.
My doctors can't believe I find the will and energy to do it, but really, I can't NOT do it.
If I didn't ride, I would die.

A man in Indiana makes a four-wheeled two-person pedal car called a Quadracycle...actually, a QuadraSport:

http://www.quadracycleinc.com/showroom/showroom.html

I've thought of buying one.

A lot of people on chemo lose their sense of balance, not to mention their strength and energy.

If I had a QuadraSport, I could take other chemo patients, and even really old folks, for a bicycle ride, and then they could feel like a rider, and not like a passenger.

=====

So, you know, dookie and dutret, and any of you other bad boys, come to Bend and look me up in the phone book.
I'll take you to the best lunch you've ever had.

But watch out: I'll mess with your brain.

Verbosity is the word of the day.

BTW, good luck with the chemo.

Best of luck with your Chemo, Ken.

Back on topic... I'd go with the Steamroller, personally. I've always liked Surly stuff. It's not the best (or lightest), but it works well and its built to last. I've had a single speed Karate Monkey for quite some time and it's still one of my favorites.

Good luck with the rest of the chemo Cox! I've watched two people go through it. It's pretty impressive that you're still riding.

Steamroller = so much sex.