Is there any reason I should not buy this bike?

[jrenaut]

I’ve been lusting after one of these for a while, and suddenly here one is on ebay.

My Bianchi is a 57, this is a 58. Would I ride the same size on a fixed gear as I do on my commuter? Is it typical to size up or down?

Anyway, unless there’s a crazy bidding war I’ll probably buy it no matter what you all say, but I do cherish your opinions.

Topic

[vvill]

Between CX races, kids activities, and the like I won’t be doing real weekend rides ’til next year probably.

@peterw_diy 97196 wrote:

Not a problem, I have horizontal dropouts. Might have to adjust the brakes, no big deal.

In that case, I think it would work okay for fixed gear! Other than perhaps wheel re-dishing as Dismal mentioned.

The endurance thing is purely to do with not having to spin up and spin down your legs between coasting and keeping the blood flow up and muscles from getting stiff, as TwoWheelsDC mentions. I don’t know if it really helps but would like to test it out sometime. I would probably wear double bibs though…

Hills – I agree a lot of it is psychological, but is there another element in chain alignment reducing friction losses? (I agree that losses from the RD probably isn’t all that much.) I read somewhere that having a 53T in the front is more so you can ride 53-15 or whatever favorite gears you spend a lot of time in with better chainline (rather than actually expecting to need/use 53-11 much).

[mstone]

@vvill 97205 wrote:

Hills – I agree a lot of it is psychological, but is there another element in chain alignment reducing friction losses? (I agree that losses from the RD probably isn’t all that much.) I read somewhere that having a 53T in the front is more so you can ride 53-15 or whatever favorite gears you spend a lot of time in with better chainline (rather than actually expecting to need/use 53-11 much).

It’s probably not alignment so much as much less chain flexing/friction when using bigger gears compared to smaller gears. (That’s actually where most of the extra friction in the RD pulley comes from, rather than the pulley bearings.) But again, the effect is going to be pretty minimal. Justify FG because you like it, because it ain’t gonna win because of an efficiency argument.

[vvill]

@mstone 97208 wrote:

It’s probably not alignment so much as much less chain flexing/friction when using bigger gears compared to smaller gears. (That’s actually where most of the extra friction in the RD pulley comes from, rather than the pulley bearings.) But again, the effect is going to be pretty minimal. Justify FG because you like it, because it ain’t gonna win because of an efficiency argument.

That’s what I mean though: when the chainline is straight there is less lateral pulling/side strain on the chain, so less friction: both between the top of the chain (cassette to chainring) and yes underneath in the RD pulley. Or do you mean the friction from the chain curving back into the RD after going around the cassette?

Btw, it’s not a justification nor an argument, there’s no “winning” – I’m having a discussion out of interest. I’ve read online where people say they can ride a higher gear ratio FG than the equivalent on a derailleur’d bike, and also seen these efficiency %s quoted. Before I converted my hybrid to SS I tried 46/17 on my CX bike without shifting and it seemed tougher than 48/16 on a SS even with an old RD used as a chain tensioner.

[jrenaut]

@vvill 97230 wrote:

Btw, it’s not a justification nor an argument, there’s no “winning” – I’m having a discussion out of interest.

Yes, this.

[mstone]

@vvill 97230 wrote:

That’s what I mean though: when the chainline is straight there is less lateral pulling/side strain on the chain, so less friction: both between the top of the chain (cassette to chainring) and yes underneath in the RD pulley. Or do you mean the friction from the chain curving back into the RD after going around the cassette?[/quote]

I was talking about the friction from the links of the chain bending. The smaller the gear, the more those links have to move. AFAIK, any effect of increased friction from the chainline is infinitesimal. (I know fixie riders especially like to obsess over it, but I haven’t seen any science suggesting it actually matters once you’re in the normal range.)

Quote:

Btw, it’s not a justification nor an argument, there’s no “winning” – I’m having a discussion out of interest. I’ve read online where people say they can ride a higher gear ratio FG than the equivalent on a derailleur’d bike, and also seen these efficiency %s quoted.

I’d chalk it up to the psychological effects. There just aren’t such huge drivetrain inefficiencies in a derailleur setup that dramatic improvements are there to be had. At some point it comes across as desperately trying to rationalize something.

[vvill]

@mstone 97235 wrote:

I was talking about the friction from the links of the chain bending. The smaller the gear, the more those links have to move. AFAIK, any effect of increased friction from the chainline is infinitesimal. (I know fixie riders especially like to obsess over it, but I haven’t seen any science suggesting it actually matters once you’re in the normal range.)

Yeah, I think it’s generally accepted that even without a derailleur it’s better to run 48/18 than 43/16 since each chain link is rigid and has to bend around a cog. I have a 9-26 cassette on my folding bike and I’m always loathe to actually use the 9T.

I never assumed there are “huge drivetrain inefficiencies” or “dramatic improvements”, I’m interested in if there are any quantifiable differences.

@mstone 97235 wrote:

At some point it comes across as desperately trying to rationalize something.

Or just being interested in how things work and discussing things with other fixed gear riders. What’s there to rationalize? Thanks though. ” “

[Starduster]

“Originally Posted by mstone

At some point it comes across as desperately trying to rationalize something.”

Hasn’t the compact chainring craze (pardon me-trend) been about “reducing weight”?

[Rod Smith]

Sounds very complicated. I prefer the simplicity of a geared bike.

[mstone]

@vvill 97248 wrote:

I never assumed there are “huge drivetrain inefficiencies” or “dramatic improvements”, I’m interested in if there are any quantifiable differences.

Well, if you want quantities the best thing to do is search for the literature on the topic. Look for the papers which actually compare various setups in a controlled environment. From memory, the differences are on the order of <1% for the entire drive train in isolation. It’s fiendishly difficult to take the next step, and see what kind of difference there is in a real system–it’s not easy to do a double blind comparison between a fixed gear and a derailleur bike–and I’m not aware of any real data on that.

[jrenaut]

So I’m having some difficulty finding bars I’m happy with. I got some track drops that look really pretty but just don’t work for me.

Trying out some track drops by thetejon, on Flickr

I rode it to work like that and just couldn’t find a comfortable hand position except for on either side of the stem, and that just doesn’t work in terms of controlling the bike.

So now I’m trying to bars it came with, minus the hoods.

Let’s try again with the road drops, minus the hoods by thetejon, on Flickr

As many of you said, I think I’m going to end up with compact road drops, but I don’t currently HAVE any compact road drops, so I’m going to see how I like these without the hoods. I’ll tape them when I’m happy with the setup.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@jrenaut 98317 wrote:

So I’m having some difficulty finding bars I’m happy with. I got some track drops that look really pretty but just don’t work for me.

Trying out some track drops by thetejon, on Flickr

I rode it to work like that and just couldn’t find a comfortable hand position except for on either side of the stem, and that just doesn’t work in terms of controlling the bike.

So now I’m trying to bars it came with, minus the hoods.

Let’s try again with the road drops, minus the hoods by thetejon, on Flickr

As many of you said, I think I’m going to end up with compact road drops, but I don’t currently HAVE any compact road drops, so I’m going to see how I like these without the hoods. I’ll tape them when I’m happy with the setup.

I’ve got bullhorns on my commuter and I like them a lot. I’ll probably get some for my Cinelli too, just to mix things up, but I prefer compact drops for longer rides. Bullhorns are my top choice for shorter city rides though.

[Phatboing]

I have spare bullhorns you can try. A failed experiment from long ago. It’s seen no actual ride time, even.

[vvill]

@jrenaut 98317 wrote:

As many of you said, I think I’m going to end up with compact road drops, but I don’t currently HAVE any compact road drops, so I’m going to see how I like these without the hoods. I’ll tape them when I’m happy with the setup.

You might have a little trouble finding compact silver road drops for the 26mm stem clamp – most are made for 31.8mm. I think the Soma Highway One is still being sold. I ended up with a Civia Emerson, but I think that may be discontinued.

The problem with different handlebars is that they can change your reach/fit. Traditional road drops are bigger, so you end up needing a shorter stem with them for the equivalent reach for compact drops (assuming you use the hoods as your main position). If you mostly use the tops, then it may not matter too much. The stock bars on my bike combined with a 100+mm stem had me too stretched out, then I shortened it to 90mm and still felt like that. In the end I got the Civia bars which I liked but I had to go back to a 100+mm stem. (I also played around with the stem height/spacer stack – still haven’t settled on that exactly.)

[jrenaut]

I thought about bullhorns, I just don’t like the look, and I’m not sure they offer any hand positions I don’t have now.

If the compact drops effectively shorten your stem, that sounds like a definite winner. I know many of you have been saying that from the beginning, but I couldn’t look past track drops without trying them. So now I need to find some, and decide whether I want to stick with the flat bar brake lever or go back to the hoods.

[Orestes Munn]

Those are pretty radical track bars and it’s been a while, but I don’t think most riders wouldn’t use them for anything but sprint events, even on the track. They would be outright dangerous on the road, in my opinion. Bars are very much “de gustibus”, but have intended purposes and should match the intended use of the bike.

I have a set of bullhorns on a SS commuter, which I put about 3000 mi/yr on for several years. I love them, but that’s just I.

There are some modern, short-drop bars available in 26 mm. I know because I just investigated this in modernizing my 1980s road racer. In the end, I went with an adapter and a set of Ritchey Classics. I’m still not sure I like them.

[Author]

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