Remember how I said I might pop by to flog an Outside column or something? Well here you go!
Also, I was on the radio yesterday and you can hear the show here. The best part was probably around halfway through when someone called to ask about helmets.
OK, bye!
--Tan Tenovo
Bon Jour mes amis. Podium
ReplyDeletePodium?
ReplyDeleteYeah, they're all perambulations of the Euclidean ideal, diamond frame safety bicycle with 1 1/4" tires. Gears and clampers are nice too. Surprisingly difficult to find a good old, rim brake cross frame bike in the shops anymore though. They keep moving the goalposts or something. Hillybikes and LWB in one end zone, UnobtanimumEagle and Crabon Fraiche evil chamois Hangers in the other.
ReplyDeleteA fully rigid mtb with gears is as close to reasonably usable for any ride as any other bike IMHO. Happy Chanukah!
ReplyDeleteIt's just ridiculous for the city to even consider requiring helminths.
ReplyDeleteW E E D !
ReplyDeleteYou are not wrong, but I certainly *feel* like I've been on the wrong bike before, like the time it wasn't supposed to snow and it did and I was sliding home on 23s. Yeah, I've seen the old pics of folks doing the Monuments in the snow, but I am not Bernard Hinault.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of bar ends, I've never understood the purpose of them on mountain bieks. Looks like something extra to fall on and hurt yourself.
Happy Holidays
"New levels of proper fredness" fixed it for you.
ReplyDeleteHuskerdont, the purpose of bar ends was to provide a spectacularly entertaining way to crash when you hooked one on a tree at speed. Currently, the purpose of bar ends is to alert people that you are a time traveler from 1996.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have found that a 1970's ten speed with a single speed freewheel is a perfectly adequate mount for sucking at non-irreverent (or quasi-irreverent) singlespeed cyclocross. I don't think I could suck more effectively on a purpose-built machine, although it might have better brakes.
Muury Krampuss. Which list you runnin'?
ReplyDeleteIn 1973, I was wrenching at one of those stores they called a "bike shop", and realized the box I was about to toss out to the dumpster had not, in fact, been opened. Inside was the lightest bike we had in the store, a Raleigh Pro track in my size. I talked the shop owner into letting me pay for it over the summer and for the next two years it became my main ride, as it was the only performance bike I owned. I rode it everywhere, being car-less, and quickly realized that it was the perfect bike for zipping across Albany, in spite of the hills. Being both young and perpetually late, I was always in a rush. The fixed gear (48 x 14!) required spirited climbing to avoid getting bogged down; the tight, responsive geometry aided acceleration from stops; quick steering helped in tight situations; and the single gear allowed me to concentrate on traffic, as the bike essentially disappeared beneath me. The fixed gear also made it easier to balance at intersections, and the hassle of getting back into the toe clips when you can't coast is a powerful incentive to stay clipped in. Decades later, when fixed became a fad, I fully understood why so many people agreed that track bikes are not the "wrong" bike for the city, at all.
ReplyDeleteOne of my most memorable rides on it was leaving Nyack after work one evening and riding to Albany with one of those French armband lights strapped to my left knee. No reflectors, no helmet, no water bottle, no backpack, just the moon, a couple spare sewups, a Campy peanut butter wrench, and a road all to myself.
@Steve B, The cobbled together fixed gear crap I saw, where the chain kept popping off and the hipster operator was too cool for brakes, resulted in some pretty ungraceful acrobatics.
ReplyDeleteagree
ReplyDelete99% of the time my 'any old bike' is your bog stock road bike from 2001 or so
though on my main one, i may have lowered the gears some and put mt bike brake shoes on it or something
wle
Thanks for the grounded view of bike consumption as always, Snob... Do you ever need to make awkward conversation with Outside’s review team at office parties or whatever? I am perpetually struck by the disconnect when you write that running what you have is rad, and they write that 5k is the least you should expect to pay for a “good” mountain bike (adding that All City’s 30 lb monster cross was a “surprisingly popular” review bike at only 2500). I mean, i know i shouldn’t feel surprised by them wanting to ride and review dreambikes, who wouldn’t? but i do kinda wonder about the schizophrenic editorial line choices, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteHave a great last few days of 2019, everybody!
Hey, I like bar ends on my mountaining beikcycles. Being a roadie at heart, the extra hand positions are nice.
ReplyDeleteMy first cyclocross bicycle was a early-80s steel Trek road bike with caliper brakes a teammate sold me for cheap. 25mm Specialized Tricross tires would just barely squeeze into the frame. After one season a local frame builder brazed on some cantilever mounts so it stopped slightly better and clogged with mud slightly less. Only the top 2 guys had actual cyclocross bikes, which back then meant the screwed and glued aluminum Alan. Everyone else was one some bastardized road bike and we liked it. Now get off my lawn.
From what I remember of my time wrenching at shops and riding single track in the 90s, the first step in applying bar ends to any mtb was to cut down the flat bars to a reasonable (i.e. shoulder width) length to reduce the getting hooked onto trees, brush, mailboxes, etc. factor.
ReplyDeleteThey were almost a requirement in being able to surmount the particularly steep technical ascents common to the Berkshire foothills of western Ct.
I'm sure it's been observed that NYC's erudite and edumacted mayor vetoed e-bike and e-scooter rentals because no helments!
ReplyDelete'“Failure to include these basic measures renders this legislation fatally flawed,” the governor said in his veto message. He specifically referred to the lack of a requirement that riders of the battery-powered conveyances wear helmets as one of his main objections.
“Helmets are a common-sense requirement that should be imposed on operators of these vehicles to protect public safety,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding that he looked forward “to continuing this discussion in the 2020 legislative session.”'
The mayor needs to be required to wear walking and driving/passenger helments from now on. I mean, it's just "common sense" and would "protect public safety."*
How TF do you protect public safety anyway? You either protect the public, or you provide for the safety of the public, but you don't protect safety.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/nyregion/Ebikes-scooters-Bill-ny.html
Dear Bike Snob,
ReplyDeleteI am a rich dentist. Can you please recommend a $4000 titanium frame sort-of-fat bike to me?