Why you need aero wheels

[foxyrider]

I maybe stating the bl@@dy obvious,but leg shaving is nothing at all to do with aero dynamics,but everything to do with massage.And in my case,because I have very hair legs,to do with insects getting stuck in the hairs and irritating especially in the height of summer with those little black cornflies

What's wrong with fly catching?

Anyhow apart from the massage thing the main thing is that if you fall off its far less painful to get cleaned up and treatment without the forest! Oh yes, been there, done that!

[Brucey]

Some fantastic examples of "I don't want this particular feature so I am completely unable to comprehend why anyone else would." on this thread.
Hold this thought:
Not everybody is the same as you

Reminds me of;

".... you are all individuals....."

(lone voice pipes up) "...I'm not..."

which I think was in Monty Python's 'life of Brian'....

cheers

[LittleGreyCat]

For those pushing the "throw away the technology and enjoy the ride" line, please remember that some of us have been riding since before the technology was available.
On GPS, I spent decades working from maps when driving and compiling route directions to stick to the dashboard. I find it quicker and easier to use a GPS and especially to navigate to an address I've just looked up on my (recent technology) mobile phone. Which deflects me on to the thought that I used to have to use phone boxes to call in when I was away from home. But I digress.
I look forward to GPS navigation on my bike. I can spend more time enjoying the ride than worrying about the route.
One reason I ride is for fitness, so measuring average speed and distance travelled allows me to measure performance gains. Impressions on the day are not always accurate.
So I am for using technology when there is an obvious benefit, not just for shiny (although shiny can be nice).
Presenting all technology as pointless is not a balanced view.

[Canuk]

'I don't want this particular feature so I am completely unable to comprehend why anyone else would." on this thread.
Hold this thought:

Not everybody is the same as you'

This pretty much sums up at least 50% of the posters on these threads, and they will say anything to denounce it. Its a pretty sad way to look at the world. New technologies emerge, old technologies get left behind, and usually for good reason. Reynolds 531?Rubbish in comparison to the CrMo and stainless tube technologies of today. I have three 531 frames rotting in a cupboard, and there they'll stay. I don't know what head in the sand 1960's mindset one poster above lives in, but almost everyone in the three cycling clubs I ride with regularly (probably 300+ members) does ride a carbon frame as their main bike. Sure they have different bikes for different applications but apart from the odd titanium ride, 100% carbon. They're not 'racers', just ordinary blokes or for a ride and pint of a Saturday. Even among these carbon bikes you'll see dozens of variations and new technologies (Look for example is very popular here)

Everybody is different and not everyone is a conformist. There is beauty in revolt.

Today in France you'll see that idea in action. Non conformists in Yellow jackets, ready to risk their lives and liberty for real revolution. Unwilling to accept the status quo in the pursuit of something better.

Its the fate of human beings: to look for something better. And thank God for it.

Thread drift, but it had to be said. Too many stick in the muds on this forum.

[francovendee]

I'm one that tends to look at the 'latest' thing with some scepticism. I don't write new things off as worthless without thinking how it would improve my cycling or life in general. For instance,I doubt I'd buy a carbon frame as it doesn't offer enough/ any benefit to my type of riding, not because I have a dislike of the material.
I was brought up at a time when spare cash was very short so if you had something that worked you kept it and didn't change because something newer was available.
As for the Yellow Jackets, there is a lot of support for them but the problem is they all are singing off different hymn sheets. All it does is tell you is that large numbers of people are fed up of the rich seemingly getting richer whilst they are visibly poorer. How to effect a change is what's missing from the protesters. I condemn the violence and wanton damage but applaud them for letting Macron know they are there and need to be considered.

[Canuk]

I'm one that tends to look at the 'latest' thing with some scepticism. I don't write new things off as worthless without thinking how it would improve my cycling or life in general. For instance,I doubt I'd buy a carbon frame as it doesn't offer enough/ any benefit to my type of riding, not because I have a dislike of the material.
I was brought up at a time when spare cash was very short so if you had something that worked you kept it and didn't change because something newer was available.
As for the Yellow Jackets, there is a lot of support for them but the problem is they all are singing off different hymn sheets. All it does is tell you is that large numbers of people are fed up of the rich seemingly getting richer whilst they are visibly poorer. How to effect a change is what's missing from the protesters. I condemn the violence and wanton damage but applaud them for letting Macron know they are there and need to be considered.

You can't condemn the violence. The French have form. 250 years ago they rolled out the guillotines. And it was 100% justified. Violence on the streets is 100% justified if its the only language a government (Macron) will listen to. He's backtracked 3 times now on taxes.

Violence gets results. Especially when a government is not listening. Their goal now is to rid France of macron and his administration. That's a hymn sheet alright.

We've been conditioned to be sheep in this regard. It's no surprise that criticism comes to those who seek revolutionary aims. Because the powers that be control the means of news dissemination, and they know that sooner or later it could their head upon the guillotine.

Like I said, the French have form

[fausto99]

Anyone know which aero rims and tyres work well with mudguards?

[Canuk]

Anyone know which aero rims and tyres work well with mudguards?

I run a set of Santa Cruz 650B aero carbon rims on my distance bike, with mudguards (full). They're tougher than any aluminium rim I've ever used. Virtually indestructible.

[Cugel]

[
And why does anyone really need to know their speed, distance et al? Many claim "for training purposes" although it's never specified what they're training for. Perhaps to serve the induced want for a training aid?

Weight loss, fitness, stamina, future holiday to the Alps, any number of things not connected with winning a professional cycle race.

Ha ha - how did we ole pharts manage to do all those things and more in the days before gubbins-fetishism became rife?

Cugel, still slim, fit, staminated and planning to cycle impossible routes in West Wales sans-gubbins.

[Cugel]

Some fantastic examples of "I don't want this particular feature so I am completely unable to comprehend why anyone else would." on this thread.
Hold this thought:
Not everybody is the same as you

We sceptics of the gubbins comprehend only too well why "anyone else" would want the gubbins-features. Perhaps you too can come to an understanding?

To do so, one must move beyond, "Because someone wants one", to ponder why they do. A tip: the reasons offered by the buyers are often rationalisations-after-the-fact kneaded into a doughy explanation with some advert-ingredient.

Cugel

[Cugel]

'I don't want this particular feature so I am completely unable to comprehend why anyone else would." on this thread.
Hold this thought:

Not everybody is the same as you'

This pretty much sums up at least 50% of the posters on these threads, and they will say anything to denounce it. Its a pretty sad way to look at the world. New technologies emerge, old technologies get left behind, and usually for good reason. Reynolds 531?Rubbish in comparison to the CrMo and stainless tube technologies of today. I have three 531 frames rotting in a cupboard, and there they'll stay. I don't know what head in the sand 1960's mindset one poster above lives in, but almost everyone in the three cycling clubs I ride with regularly (probably 300+ members) does ride a carbon frame as their main bike. Sure they have different bikes for different applications but apart from the odd titanium ride, 100% carbon. They're not 'racers', just ordinary blokes or for a ride and pint of a Saturday. Even among these carbon bikes you'll see dozens of variations and new technologies (Look for example is very popular here)

Everybody is different and not everyone is a conformist. There is beauty in revolt.

Today in France you'll see that idea in action. Non conformists in Yellow jackets, ready to risk their lives and liberty for real revolution. Unwilling to accept the status quo in the pursuit of something better.

Its the fate of human beings: to look for something better. And thank God for it.

Thread drift, but it had to be said. Too many stick in the muds on this forum.

Here I must 'fess-up to being fundamentally a conservative. This is not the Party ilk but the kind that prefers tried and tested solutions to new-fangles that first invent a "need" and then the means to satisfy it. This invention of "needs" is the other face of innovation - the one that serves mad profit-making, resource-squandering and a hundred other evils that even the most rabid consumer is beginning to recognise, as their environment worsens, their economic condition worsens and the monstrous activities of those your yellow-jackets object to wax and wax.

Personally I enjoy many innovations in the cycling sphere. Plastic frames: disk brakes; tubeless tyres; STI gear-shifting; clipless pedals and some others. But why assume that every claimed innovation is nothing but good? That's just naïve.

I too was seduced by the then new computers for bikes when racing in the 80s and 90s. Of all the cycling stuff I've bought these (and one or three inner tubes & chainrings) are the only things I've had to throw away because they're unfixable when they go phut. Moreover, it didn't take long to realise that a computer was spoiling my cycling rather than enhancing it. Riding a bike became about meeting meaningless slave-driver targets rather than about the various joys of cycling.

Another syndrome ... I had a bike for typically a decade or more before selling it to someone else as either no longer suitable for my current cycling modes or because I wanted a significantly better thing. My current bikes are 10, 9, 7 and 5 years owned by me and will satisfy my needs for many years yet. But you "get the latest-greatest" lads seem all too keen to buy something every other week! This is not a good economic behaviour, for many, many reasons - both personal and because of the wider consequences.

It pays (in many ways, not just cash) to differentiate the truly innovative and useful from "induced needs and wants". I refer you to the parable of "needful things".

Cugel

[Cugel]

As for the Yellow Jackets...... I condemn the violence and wanton damage but applaud them for letting Macron know they are there and need to be considered.

You can't condemn the violence. The French have form. 250 years ago they rolled out the guillotines. And it was 100% justified. Violence on the streets is 100% justified if its the only language a government (Macron) will listen to. He's backtracked 3 times now on taxes.

Violence gets results. Especially when a government is not listening. Their goal now is to rid France of macron and his administration. That's a hymn sheet alright.

We've been conditioned to be sheep in this regard. It's no surprise that criticism comes to those who seek revolutionary aims. Because the powers that be control the means of news dissemination, and they know that sooner or later it could their head upon the guillotine.

Like I said, the French have form

You need to read the history of The French Revolution in greater depth. Try also a read of Edmund Burke's "Reflections on The Revolution in France". Those who revolted ended up being revolting in many other fashions besides that of doing away with a corrupt authority. They became a series of even more corrupt authorities themselves. Their misdeeds were horrendous, as was the history of Europe and beyond as the perturbations of that revolution washed down the subsequent decades. Consider the "Disasters of War" paintings of Goya that portray the French deeds in the Iberian Peninsula as Napoleon went about consolidating the revolutionary aftermaths.

Consider also the English revolution of Cromwell and it's many horrors. How about so-called Communist Russia? (On the other hand, Cuba is perhaps an example of a successful and benign revolution).

But perhaps you will require your own head to be under some sort of guillotine before you realise that there are no distinct baddies & goodies. We are all a mix of those, and everything in between. Revolutionaries tend to have a large dollop of the bad in them, unfortunately. Destruction is not usually followed by construction - until the revolutionaries have departed in favour of a different ilk of human. Their Grand Plans and Schemes for an often very peculiar utopia so often end in a lethal and degraded dystopia.

So it is with all innovation. Some ends up successful; most end up dross accompanied by a host of nasty unintended consequences.

On a very small scale, bicycle technology innovations are no different. The consequences of the dross innovations may be less consequential but they do have some consequences. Or is everything in the technology-innovation a wunnerful thing, do you think?

Cugel

[reohn2]

I can only suggest that you cease eating jam sandwiches with too much jam in them when you have your shorts on. Alternatively, host ladybirds in them hairy legs - although I have heard they can nip a bit if they run out of jam-stuffed cornfly.

I'm a very infrequent jam consumer,and never when cycling.

Shaved legs on blokes often makes them look like big babies. Of course, some are big babies. I have seen baby-legged TTers blubbering because they were 3 seconds slower this week than last. Oh yes I have!

Cugel

I've never raced,other than 10 mile ride home to beat the bus when I was ar school,I used love letting it pass then dropping in the slipstream and coasting a at 25mph.I've never cried over a bad performance,I save my tears for truly emotional times.
I've been shaving my legs for 20 odd years,and the only thing I don't like about it is when the stubble begins to prickle behind my knees,I'm no violent revolutionary,but given the right circumstances anything's possible

[LittleGreyCat]

Have I asked this before?
Why do men shave their legs but women wax their legs?
I am told that constant shaving results in coarser stubble but waxing hurts more.

[Cugel]

Have I asked this before?
Why do men shave their legs but women wax their legs?
I am told that constant shaving results in coarser stubble but waxing hurts more.

We blokes are too soft to bear the pain of waxed hair-yank.

I have a pal who has a hairy back and once thought to smooth it so he could impress fillies on the beach in some tourist sunspot abroad. He got his ladywife to purchase the wax ripper patches but took only one (about two square inches) before shrieking, yelling, blubbering and refusing patch two. His ladywife greatly enjoyed his beach sulks as the fillies noted his bare two inch patch and went orf giggling.

Myself, I rarely shave - even the fizzog, which gets scraped about once a month or so. I feel my natural beauty shines out anyway. Oh yes it does!

Cugel