"On maintaining derailleurs I had an epiphany when changing from 3x9 to 1x10."
Yeah...my front mech died last year. Couldn't be faffed changing it, put the chain on the middle chain ring, took the front mech off and...never missed it in town.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
The 15 worst inventions for Bikes (allegedly)
(39 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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On maintaining derailleurs I had an epiphany when changing from 3x9 to 1x10
A third poster here did the same with his chain and derailleur and ended up semi-conscious on his face on the tarmac when the chain decided to go on strike and fall off the chainring*.
* I'm not implying that single chainrings are one of the worst inventions, by the way!
Posted 11 years ago # -
"On maintaining derailleurs I had an epiphany when changing from 3x9 to 1x10."
My epiphanies about gears usually occur when ascending Redstone Rig.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm really irritated at the moment as I'm trying to recall the 'emulates walking' pedalling mechanism I was talking about, but I can't quite get it. It was definitely recently (90s I think) and it was the DIY work of one guy and a machine shop, he got his inspiration from an exercise machine and basically bodged that onto the frame with some complex linkages to the back wheel. It somewhat resembled this:
[+] Embed the video | Video Download Get the Flash Video I know I was looking at an info page on it last year, but darned if I can find it. Likely I'll come across it again years later when this thread is consigned to history.
It would be great to have the world's top engineers work on making the bicycle something you get on and pedal, day in day out.
It's been done decades ago and the same applies today; you enclose all the mechanics of the bike away from the outside, and built it robustly to begin with. The modern take would be this sort of thing, complete with hub brakes, dynamo lights, etc. Nowadays cartridge bearings, disc brakes, lighter materials etc should be able to produce something reasonably 'sporty' and agile that's also maintenance free. I've looked closely at dutch type bikes and the things that put me off are the too-relaxed riding position and the weight. I'm basically waiting for something like a flat bar road bike with discs, cartridge bearings all round, and a derailleur in a chaincase, but that doesn't seem to be coming.
How about getting rid of the drive chain altogether and propelling yourself by pushing your feet off the ground?
This is one of those great moments where you've said this in jest, yet there exists a serious and genuine attempt to do it:
[+] Embed the video | Video Download Get the Flash Video On single chainrings, they have been all the rage in mtb for a while now, they're usually used with a chainguide to prevent the aforementioned chain escape shenanigans. One of the best really innovative things to have emerged recently is narrow-wide chainrings, which does an excellent job of holding the chain on by itself.
I've never personally found front mechs to be a problem on road at least, though my town bike and it's very up-to-date 3x6 speed freewheel transmission spends 99% of it's time in the middle ring. Though on occasions like going up Oxgangs road with a load on the back, into a wind, that's when having a delightful 22t granny ring pays off.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Plastic hats and saying that they make people safer... ;-)
Posted 11 years ago # -
GripShift: (not x-ray, admittedly). Been fitted to my hardtail since I bought it and given me years of faultless service in all weathers without even having to replace the cables.
Elastomer suspension: Agreed, terrible idea. It was great for weight-saving but they did indeed seize up in the cold and I eventually replaced the elastomers in my full-suss bike's forks with springs. Night and day!
Bar ends: Maybe what's wrong is the angle some people use them at! 45 degrees (give or take) is the optimal angle, but I've seen some crazy and downright dangerous angles in my time, which can only reduce stability. I'd removed mine from my old rigid bike when it gave up the ghost and never put them on my hardtail when I bought it. Until last year when I decided to hell with them being less fashionable, they work!. Much nicer when honking up a hill or just needing to rest the joints.
Fingerless gloves: Really? Sure, for downhill or cold conditions, not so suitable, but the rest of the time they are fine for any type of cycling.
Toe clips: Spawn of the devil, say no more. Certainly unsuitable for MTBs and the first thing that came off my first true road bike.
Onza HO pedals: I still have a pair on my full-suss and I really like them! Also have an older pair in reserve. I don't take the bike out in colder conditions so I've never had much of an issue with the elastomers going stiff and I don't find them so hard to get in and out of. Sure, I'd replace them with SPD to match my hardtail (and therefore give me two bikes and two pairs of shoes using the same cleats) but until they wear out I'm sticking with them. Almost maintenance-free too.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I actually thought they might put in Shimano's Biopace chainrings, even though I liked them. Then again, elliptical rings (albeit of differing specs and mainly for the road) are "in" so maybe they don't want to appear uncool!
Posted 11 years ago # -
I had a pair of gripshifts that lasted 5 solid years of (ab)use on my old town bike, they were the really cheap plastic ones, but gosh the things just wouldn't give up. By the end of their life the internal cable winch/drum was barely synchronised with the outer twisty bit so you had to really force them past where they were meant to go to shift. With only 6 speeds the tolerances on the cable pull were large enough to get away with that, and though I did have some trouble shifting onto the largest/smallest cogs, I don't think they ever once let the mech slip once it'd settled.
The right hand/rear shifter finally disintegrated inside and I replaced it with a similar but slightly better quality (so I thought) model from the bikestation drawer. Then something funny happened. The new shifter was excellent on my old bike, then when I transferred it to my newly built town bike a few months later the indexing broke. Literally all I did was take it off one handlebar and put it on another without even touching the cable but after that it was like a motorbike throttle, able to rotate smoothly back and forth, so it had to be used with the caution of a friction shifter. There's a bit of advice from Sheldon brown about 'never stand up to pedal on a mechanically unsound bike', I learned the value of this after the chain slipped under load and I was fired over the bars while going across a toucan crossing, while I'm grateful it was a green man and the cars were stopped, there was plenty of people to watch it happen. Worst injury was to my pride.
There's some Biopace rings in the bikestation I seriously thought about buying, if only for the oddball quirkiness of them. I feel that along with parallel push V brakes, they're an idea that was unfairly maligned/ignored and stopped in development before their time.
Posted 11 years ago #
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