Cycling UK Forum

hoogerbooger wrote: ↑21 Nov 2023, 4:40pm

Bmblbzzz wrote: ↑21 Nov 2023, 10:21am ... I never got out of the habit of thinking in psi for tyre pressure or calculating gears in gear inches.

Gear inches are meaningless to me, but if you cite metres developed, I understand and can predict the slope it'd get me up.

(Now that we've left the EU can we take control of units and go completely si/ metric...)

Gear inches and metres developed are the same thing really, just multiplication to convert one to the other. GI x pi x 2.54 = MD.

When I flirted with other social media (particularly thinking about fb), a few years back in a cycling group, I used gear inches in a post and received an onslaught of vitriolic criticism for using an archaic system that no-one understands except for old fogeys, telling me I should be using ratios instead. They refused to accept that gear-inches are still commonly used in cycling circles (that sounds like a tautology!) by cyclists of all ages and they refused to accept that ratios are not much use without wheel size (which is very much often referred to and sold described in "inches" - even on the European mainland).

I'm happy to accept we're all different in our leanings and preferences......and certainly most/just about all on this forum use gear inches........but I've never been able to 'visualise' how low/high or wide a range it is when gear inches are referred to cos my head is metric....as have been all my gear calculations for my bikes.

In NZ many people go to a pub or bar and order a pint of beer. What arrives can range hugely in volume, the only standard being what volume ( in ml) that bar defines as a pint

Km makes it sound more impressive. It's like tabloid newspapers using deg C in winter and deg F in summer.

I use miles. The UK uses miles. Km are too short.

VinceLedge wrote: ↑21 Nov 2023, 9:15pm In NZ many people go to a pub or bar and order a pint of beer. What arrives can range hugely in volume, the only standard being what volume ( in ml) that bar defines as a pint

There are only two answers, 568 ml (UK pint), or 454 ml (US pint).
Anything else, and it's an imaginary pint, like most British bars.

No one has mentioned slopes. Are they metric now.

The old 1 in 6 is now 16% (I think)

As an (ex) Geographer is a 45° slope now 50%?

So many things to worry about.

When I see a slope sign in % I automatically do the division in my head to rationalize it into 1 in ? format. % means nothing to me. I always do a calculation from litres to milage to get mpg too. I draw the line at converting ? Pence to £ s d though.

Al

simonhill wrote: ↑24 Nov 2023, 8:54am No one has mentioned slopes. Are they metric now.
...

The two common methods for expressing slope on roads are both ways of describing the tangent of the angle of inclination.

I wouldn't consider one to be more "metric" than the other.

The SI unit would be the radian.

Jonathan

PS: The percentage nomenclature has the cognitive advantage that the value goes up with increasing slope. See wire gauges upthread!

simonhill wrote: ↑24 Nov 2023, 8:54am ...
As an (ex) Geographer is a 45° slope now 50%?
...

100%

Jonathan

simonhill wrote: ↑24 Nov 2023, 8:54am As an (ex) Geographer is a 45° slope now 50%?

Can one be an (ex) geographer??
I completed my formal studies 38 years ago, but I think of it as a lifetime's vocation

Concerning the matter at hand, I really dislike American recipes where dry ingredients are measured in cups. I wonder if there's any practical advantage of mass over volume, or if it's just learnt behaviour on my part.

I thought that was going to be about nomenclature of slopes on rail systems! Because it's fascinating...

: - )

Jonathan

Pendodave wrote: ↑24 Nov 2023, 9:41am ...
Concerning the matter at hand, I really dislike American recipes where dry ingredients are measured in cups. I wonder if there's any practical advantage of mass over volume, or if it's just learnt behaviour on my part.

I'd guess mostly the latter.

But there's a fair bit of international variation in the cup, where there isn't in SI units of mass or volume.

Jonathan

I always do a calculation from litres to milage to get mpg too.

When I used to drive a lot (back way back in the 90s) I used to calculate it in miles per litre. It seemed by far the most logical unit to me, as the odometer was in miles and petrol sold by the litre.

Bmblbzzz wrote: ↑24 Nov 2023, 9:50am I always do a calculation from litres to milage to get mpg too.

When I used to drive a lot (back way back in the 90s) I used to calculate it in miles per litre. It seemed by far the most logical unit to me, as the odometer was in miles and petrol sold by the litre.

Which reminds me: apart from the different units the Continental system for describing fuel consumption of road vehicles also works the other way round, in L/100 km.

Conversion of a value to the UK system of mpg then requires some sort of reciprocal, an enormously more difficult task for mental arithmetic than anything proportional.

Jonathan