this thread has gone way too far.

DHC, i might be coming up to ATL for the midsummer whatchamacallit.

recommend me some cheap, close, lodging.

@OAT: You can stay with me or any of my friends for free. We are happy to have cyclists from out of town visit ... and hopefully we will be seeing a lot of out of towners for the event. My place is relatively small (a studio, if you don't mind the couch) but I can hook you up with one of my friends with larger apartments or houses no problem if you want/require (if you have several people coming) more space.

Also, I will be at the alleycat in Charleston this weekend. In the off chance you will be there also. And just so everyone knows, I will be rocking the 49/13.

haha, tell em! a few people from florida are going to be there, but im from south florida, so i might end up driving myself with girlfriend and dog, and maaaaybe one other rider, tops. even that would be a really tight squeeze in my element seeing as i dont have the roof racks.

i appreciate the offer, and if it is just me an my girl, we might hit you up, as long as your ok with my girls coming along....



http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3340/...edf91d.jpg?v=0

Yeah, I really do not see the point in people arguing with devilshaircut. He rides what he rides, so leave him alone. It is not like they have to ride the bike, and he was not stating his gear ratio is the best for everyone doing everything.

I thought I was being generous assuming you made it to the top of hills without dropping below 18. 24? give me a break. Let's take a moderate atlanta hill with a good run up to it. Say north from masquerade to freedom parkway. That's about a 1/4 mile at just under 5%. Assuming you hit the bottom at 35 which is generous and weigh about 140 you would have to average 630watts for 35s to keep your speed above 24. That's just under 10 watts/kg. That's pretty strong but within the range of possibility for 30s power of a naturally talented sprinter who rides regularly. However if we assume your rides involve more than just riding down and up north once it becomes clear you are either incredibly strong given your strict no training policy or have no clue how fast you ride. Your lack of a computer causes me to suspect the latter.


He rides what he rides but he keeps saying how he wants to start track racing and is taking the class next month. His claims that he is more comfortable and faster with 102gi means he lacks an essential skill to race on the track. The only way to remedy this is for him to work on his spin for the next month so that when he starts racing he has a chance.


Saying that you can only train for the track on the track or only train for cross on your cross bike shows you really have no clue what you're talking about. There are skills you can only get on the track or a cross course but for the most part you can build the pedaling technique and strength you need for either discipline on the road. Then again you refuse to admit you'll ever train so what should I expect. You better make those non-training miles count.

:d

Pwned. I ride a 53/19 which is only 75.3GI and honestly most of the time it's way to high for riding around the flats(much less climbing!) on my commute to school, especially compared to my road bike.

dutr3t is back, thought you got banned

Assuming you have a pretty weak spin and "spin out" on a downhill at 140rpm that's still around 42mph...

If you're regularly spinning at 100rpm at that gearing that means you're regularly cruising around at 30mph. Do you have any idea how fast that would actually be for a cruising speed? If you're just cruising at 30mph that puts you in the realm of competitive road riders who are up there in the CAT2s or so, which is ridiculous.

And I'm sorry, saying you run a bigger gear than Chris Hoy because you have to do stop and go and climb the occasional hill?


None of this even makes the remotest sense dude. Seriously

I'll see your 49/13, raise it two aerospokes & a brooks, and ride it on the street... brakeless.
wat

Dude, I didn't compare myself to Chris Hoy, so please read the thread before you bother to open your mouth. I know you'd like to think I am an arrogant prick and would make statements like that, but really that's just silly. And I *do* regularly ride around at 30 mph ... every ride I go on in Atlanta has at least one hill where 30 mph is standard. Even Atlanta Critical Mass regularly climbs hills steep enough to hit 30 mph (well above that if you were actually pedaling downhill) ... it's not even very steep imo ... but then again as has been previously mentioned, Atlanta is hilly. And yeah, I really wouldn't attempt a cadence of over 140 rpm riding brakeless in the street, but that's just my preference. :P I've already openly admitted that riding brakeless makes me ride slower than if I were to ride with a brake, so please spare me that also.

Anyhow, do I really need to state again that I understand what "reasonable" gear ratios are? I recommended 46:16 to the OP which is, as I've stated before, reasonable by any measure. I already know my ratio is high, thanks. But I like it.

Anyhow, I am going to take my ratio to Charleston and like it. Considering there is a 2 mile stretch of flat/no-stops suspension bridge the race will traverse (I assume 4 total if we traverse it twice.) I'm pretty sure I will be liking my ratio.

EDIT: But maybe I will put a brake on for it. Doubtful though since I don't have a spare one unless I strip it off another bike.

Man every time I think you couldn't possibly be more of a joke we get another gem. So not only do you ride in stop and go traffic with hills on a 102" you do it brakeless? I thought the 102" was only good cause it let you power up short hills. Now it's good for a 2 flat miles on a bay bridge? I guess you're going to keep above "30mph" right? Better pray for the wind to switch every time you have to cross.

Obviously a high gear is also good for long, straight flats (not to mention no stops), not that we have many of those where I come from. But that is something I am pretty sure everyone can agree with.

And yeah, I do it brakeless. It's not hard. I'll say that again. Riding brakeless is not hard (i.e. it requires no skill). I don't see why everyone makes brakeless riding sound difficult or dangerous. You can do it, pretty much everyone here can do it. If someone rides with a brake, that is fine with me. Frankly, it is just people like you who flame and tell other people how they should ride their bikes.

In case you are wondering, I do have other (fixed gear) bikes with brakes, so yes I know the difference between with and without brakes.

This bike we are talking about is a Cervelo P2T track bike. I am pretty sure putting brakes on it would be tarck worthy, actually.

My friend Bobby found a pic of me on my bike:

http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/wp-con...chain-ring.jpg

I think one of us doesn't understand the meaning of tarck cause I'm pretty sure putting a brake on a bike that will only ever see the track infrequently(if ever) is decidedly not tarck. Riding brakeless with any gear ratio when you have to worry about cars and hills is kind of dumb. There is just no good reason to greatly increase your stopping distance and remove any reasonable redundancy from the system. That you can't see why doing so with 102" is much worse shows how clueless you are.

Er, that is the bike I am taking to the track next weekend.

Like I said before, run the two ratios yourself or stfu. If you honestly think it is "dangerous" to ride that ratio then you are just kidding yourself. I am speaking from personal experience, having ridden all of the aforementioned ratios and this is what I like to ride commuting now, not to mention for the race this weekend.

I could almost take you seriously if you were just flaming about brakeless riding in general but by your rhetoric you almost seem to suggest that there is some definitive ratio where riding brakeless ceases to be feasible. Pretty sure such a line doesn't exist, dude.

EDIT: Can I just mention that I am not advocating this ratio to anyone else? Pretty sure I've said that like 5 times now.

Left turns only on that one, I'm guessing?

Hah, right? Chainring strike is the new pedal strike.

riding that many gear inches just kind of shows that you are kind of a tool, and riding 100+GI and trying to skid stop is a bad idea. You can keep babbeling on, but anyone with half a brain knows that you run too high of a gear, and probably can't spin it past 60rpms.

Despite it being a crazy high gear, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt until you said that it was brakeless *and* better for hills.

OK since you clearly don't understand let me be very clear. At some absurdly low gear ratio riding brakeless is basically as safe as having two brakes. As the gear ratio increases not only does top speed increase making it more dangerous but how long it takes you to stop from a given speed increases quadratically within reasonable bounds of gear ratios. This relation is especially cruel when hills are involved because the force of gravity is subtracted before the squaring.

Once again I know you're not recommending this ration but I am recommending against it:
a. Your spin sucks. If it didn't you wouldn't think this was a good idea. That is going to kill you on the track and since you refuse to train you need to work on your spin during all your normal rides if you ever want to race.
b. You are probably mistaken about what gear will let you climb fastest. Even with your inability to move your feet it is pretty unlikely that you are achieving max power at 50-60 rpms rather then 90 or so.

Do what you want but realize your ratio is absurd. It's the type of thing that makes people who have some clue how to ride a bike laugh at you be they strangers like us or your friends when you're not around.

devilshaircut - You need to quit your job and find a sponsor because if you can cruise around at 30 mph and climb any hill at this speed you are the most athletically gifted rider ever.

I have ridden 100 GI... it's good for the salt flats but you are going to get your ass handed to you if you try and race that gear on the track... Merckx was running 93-93 gear inches when he set his hour record which was just over 30 miles.

My friends think I am a freak as I have rocked 80 plus gear inches on climbs that have them spinning out in their granny gear and can spin those cranks in excess of 160 rpm on descents... I have come close to pulling down a sub hour 40 on a vintage fixed gear running 75 gear inches.

But I don't climb hills at 30 mph as I cannot generate that kind of wattage...

In the days when people raced fixed gear bicycles on the road the gearing was sub 80 gear inches and the best of them could pull down a sub hour 40... solo. This is still impressive.

And I just didn't hop on my bike and do this... it took 10's of thousands of km of riding and a lot of hard work to get up to what I considered to be a fairly competitive riding level.

??

I've done a sub 40 hour plenty of times.

My ratio took me to 1st out of town and 4th overall at the Suicide King Alleycat over the weekend. :)