Cycling UK Forum

SpannerGeek wrote:If the price point between 105 di2 and mechanical 105 is £50, then dare I suggest that mechanical STI is just a
Breath away from extinction .

How do you kill off an outdated technology?

Stop selling it, and then stop supporting spares and repairs. It's quite easy, when you think about it.

Last I checked 105 di2 remains little more than a rumour. That shimano would wish to retail such a product for £350 given the current price gap between the ultegra mechanical and di2 versions seems highly unlikely to be something for the immediate future.

As for killing off outdated technology, it's probably worth noting that shimano are still making and selling 7 speed systems, square taper bottom brackets etc. It's going to be a very long time before you see electric shifting on the low end bikes.

You're right that shimano etc decides what the market wants but there's zero financial benefit to them to trickle stuff down too fast, particularly once you get below 105 where they basically have a monopoly.

SpannerGeek wrote:Like I said when it becomes price comparable with mechanical (likely early next year) mechanical will go the way of non indexed gearing.
.

Ultegra is currently 470 for mechanical and 900 for di2, a little optimistic to think it is going to be price comparable next year at all?

And even then that's ultegra. Once electronic groupsets find their way on to bikes in the £1000 cycle to work limit (tiagra basically) is when it will start to become more common place. And that remains some years off really. Probably less because shimano etc can't and more because why would they want to? When you've still got cycle club mamils willing to chuck well over half a grand on electronic shifting there's no pressure to trickle it down yet, r&d costs have to be funded!

Yes pepper spray/cs is illegal. There are some thick foam/gel staining sprays that exist in a bit of a legal grey area, which is about as close as you can get.

A less legally dubious option would be an air horn, or thinking about it, you could probably rig up one of those ultrasound deterrents on the bars.

Problem is the cyclist died so there's zero evidence to push a dangerous/careless driving charge since no witnesses. The chap could simply have insisted the cyclist rode into him. For some ludicrous reason the maximum sentence for failing to stop is 6 months, not even sure he got a driving ban? That really needs to be modified in cases where a party is seriously injured. It shouldn't matter even if in a hypothetical situation where a cyclist was completely at fault. To leave someone dying on the road is surely grounds for long term revocation of driving licence at minimum.

SpannerGeek wrote:How much effort does it take to change and then set up a full set of STI cables? And then be regularly adjust6 them? About £150 worth a year if an lbs does it.

I do wonder sometimes if lbs prey on those who can't or won't do gears themselves by doing a rubbish job of it so they have to come back again.

My commuting/town hack used to be an old trek hybrid, had it for about 5 years total. It was not an expensive bikes with cheap alivio (ish) drive train and ef50 shifters. In that time it needed the usual adjustment after being a couple of months old (this is however usually just a case of using the cable adjusters to take up the slack tension) and then another about 2 years later. After about 4 years the inners broke which resulted in the horribly onerous task of extracting the old inner and threading the new one though and readjusting. So about 15 min. As before, new cables tend to need a tweak a couple of months on but this is rarely more effort than a few turns of a cable adjusters. At no point did it ever seen necessary to replace any of the outers.

The nature of the bike meant it was regularly locked up in the wilds of public racks and in some pretty grotty weather.

That one's gone now but the replacement is a year old and has had two adjustments. And the second was mostly me being fastidious and shortening the cabling a bit and fixing the front derailleur to full length outers, having to that point been bodged with a spare v brake noodle under the bb...

While I'm sure electrical gears will permeate down to reasonable affordability soon enough (shimano have very much stated this as an intention after all) it's got a long way to go (if ever) before it's of use for pub bikes etc.

One would hope that the 'fins' detach very easily in the event of a collision else that thing's simply dangerous!

georgew wrote:Odd that you should say this Mick as this is exactly what I'm finding with my Esprit now that I'm using it in friction mode with bar-end shifters mounted on Bull-horns. I think that I've found the gear I want then with pedal pressure it slips to another sprocket. I haven't a clue why this should be though. I'm going to revert to indexing for a while and see what difference this makes.

Pedal pressure will change the chain tension and lateral position slightly. If your gear selection is not sufficiently central that will be enough to make the chain catch the ramp up or down to the next gear.

Survey seems a little unhelpfully designed in that it assumes only one kind of cycling is done.

I wear protective equipment when mtbing but not when commuting or on road rides for instance. My expectation of injury also varies accordingly. Do i expect to injure myself on the road over the next year? Absolutely not. Mtbing? Highly likely.

Also it's not clear on the severity of this expected injury. Is it still at the needed medical attention level of the earlier question (in which case even mtbing unlikely) or just sufficiently to draw blood and cause some bruises and aches for a couple of weeks, in which case that's pretty much guaranteed.

Bonefishblues wrote:Yes, cyclechat.

I saw the rack eyelets, but can't see how you'd easily be able to get a rack anywhere near level without some creativity (perhaps other have a solution?). The other issue is that they allude to a compact rear triangle, which could mean heel clearance issues when riding with panniers - something to consider.

Chainstay length is 43.9 cm according to giants site. That's almost in tourer territory so heel clearance shouldn't be an issue. I think the compactness must refer to the height.

I agree with the angle though. Comparing the height of the seatstay mounts against the top of the wheel it'll need a fairly adjustable rack to not end up with a forward tilt.

DaveP wrote:Was there really a special bit of EU legislation allowing English cyclists to have their levers the other way round?
We never knew how well off we used to be!

No, having poked a bit further I think the EU standard only actually requires a single brake. The specification of one for each wheel plus lever arrangement is purely a UK addition. Note that this all only applies at the point of sale, on the road the rules are up to each country, although there is the UN Vienna convention that many countries signed up to which sets a minimum for when visiting other countries.

Huntress_Amelia wrote:

Abradable Chin wrote:That's weird. I had this same thought last night.
A bicycle needs two brakes to be road legal, right?

Sorry, according to EU law both the front AND back wheel have to be braked to be legal they are even specific on which side each brake lever has to be on.

The EU regulation about which side each lever is on is only to do with the state of the bike when sold (also where the bell requirement is from).

When on the road in the UK there are UK laws that cover what state a bike should be in when on the roads. This does require a braking system for each wheel (fixed gear counts for rear) but isn't bothered about where any levers are mounted. It also requires rear red reflector and front and back lights at night. I recall there's also a requirement for the amber pedal ones...

Labrat wrote:people are now trying to justify an argument that *for an existing cyclist* not wearing a helmet is safer than wearing a helmet.

I'm not sure why this is a nasty path, it's a very valid point to make from the available data.

Where helmet use has increased, head injury rates and injury rates in general have gone up.

Now this could all be down to the resulting lower participation reducing herd protection effects or leaving only the naturally more risky cyclists (although this latter one is perhaps countered by the fact that if you look at fatalities in London for example, they are more often than not the timid 'casual' cyclist getting stuck up the left of an hgv and less the Lycra clad brigade).

Or it could be a case that wearing a helmet does genuinely put an individual at greater risk. This could be from the individual subconsciously taking more risks due to feeling safer, or from drivers behaving differently to helmeted cyclists (passing closer etc).

I don't see why exploring the very real possibility that wearing a helmet might actually increase risk is such a problem.

Obviously should have been wearing a full face downhill mtb one.

And a pressure suit with shoulder pads.

16 weeks suspended, year ban, some community work and a tiny fine.

Even if, for the moment, we assume the collision was unavoidable (and that he had only had 2.25 pints (quarter pint??) and was therefore likely within the limit for his midnight drive) that is surely light for a hit and run. Higher custodial may not serve much purpose but it's daft that after such a display of irresponsibility he should be allowed back behind a wheel in a year.

Of course that's fantasy, it was not unavoidable in the slightest. If the chap had fallen into the road right in front of him that might have held some water but he didn't he was there in the road already. The bend, isn't, and even if it was he should have be driving such a speed to be able to stop within what can be seen. Street lighting is irrelevant, cars have headlights, mercs have brighter than most. As for the distance, as gaz points out that's within the 'official' stopping distance and those are really very conservative distances these days. A Mercedes clk should have little problem halving the actual stopping part of the distance, 15-18m total should not be a problem.

Tangled Metal wrote:Really? Claris or Sora? That surprises me since when I last rode it the original derailment still changed a lot smoother than the Tiagra on my current bike, even when new a little over a year ago.

That's likely mostly setup. A claris system will run smoothly if half decent cabling is used and some care is taken in putting it together. Also higher speeds leave less room for error, a poorly cut outer cable that squishes when the tension goes up can throw the indexing off quite easily.