Do you use the full performance potential of your bicycles?

[cycle tramp]

No... some times I only use 3 of my five gears.
That's two whole gears I've paid for and not used..

..sometimes I dream about a single speed coaster brake. Oh, to be free from two cables, and a derailleur!!!

[Tangled Metal]

It's the same thing with motorbikes and cars. Your bike in other people's hands would have a different performance level same as any mode of transport that's reasonably designed to exceed users performance.

This thread is less about bikes but about questioning ideas of performance. Two elements, technology of transportation device and ability of user gives the performance. I'll never do a gt as fast as froome did but I can buy a bike like his. A biker can't win the superbike races but he can buy a bike very similar. We can both try to emulate pro's in a gt or a superbike race on the road but doing both is likely to result in increased danger. A poor decision if we tried.

However the potential capability of the bike or motorbikes remains if there's danger in trying to get the most out of both should we take the potential away or take away the desire to try and get the most out if it's dangerous? With motorbikes there's a sense ppl on here want n the former. I think it's better to affect the user or the latter.

[PedallingSquares]

Yes I do.

[briansnail]

Some of it is power to weight ratio. Expensive bikes tend to weight less.

[rogerzilla]

No... some times I only use 3 of my five gears.
That's two whole gears I've paid for and not used..

..sometimes I dream about a single speed coaster brake. Oh, to be free from two cables, and a derailleur!!!

My next skunkworks project will have one of those because:

- someone has cut all the cable guides off this frame
- it is, counter-intuitively, the most lightweight option if you are building a singlespeed. A coaster hub is fairly heavy, but lighter than a screw-on hub, freewheel, rear brake caliper, brake lever and cabling.

[Cugel]

How does one define the full performance potential of anything? Presumably it's just at the cusp before the demands made of it result in something of it breaking .... ? However ....

Use of a bicycle or any other machine up to that cusp, while it may not break it there and then, will surely result in faster wear - and an earlier breakdown because of that wear - than if the machine was used under a lesser strain tah to its "full perfomance potential" as defined above ..... ? This raises the question: is "full performance potential" an instantaneous and singular measure or does it include an element of resilience over time and multiple uses; and, if so, how many such uses?

In addition, if an ability to serve multiple uses without rapid wear is a valid criterion, are we allowed to take maintenance levels into account? Some machines (e.g a railway steam engine) require extensive maintenance after each use if they are not to break down or otherwise fail next-use. Maintain them and they might last 30 or more years, with near constant use.

Some machines (e.g. a well made woodworking handplane) can last through tens of thousands of uses with only minimal and occasional maintenance. Many users of such items measure their "full performance potential" using this ability as a major criterion. Ticky-tacky woodworking planes that don't work well or for very long before they wear out, are generally regarded as "not performant at all".

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Myself, I've come to regard most things in the way I regard woodworking planes. If it can't be made to perform very well and/or it won't last, even with a lot of maintenance or fettling, I regard it as unable to perform to my full potential for using it. There are exceptions, such as tyres and chocolate cakes, that I will forgive for not outlasting me. But most of them other things I now buy better last 'til well after I'm dead and gone! Yes, they had.

Cugel