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@dasgeh 113699 wrote:

But, PS, double check your patch kits every once in a while. Sometimes you need them.

I use the park glueless patches because they are simpler to carry, but they only serve as a backup to the extra tube I don’t leave home without. :p

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Dunno, I don’t think modern carbon race forks are especially “springy”, are they? Old steel forks, sure, but your average top end carbon fork these days is pretty damn stiff already. The spoke thing I can see (you need more spokes and stronger lacing to transfer braking loads), but that will be pretty quickly offset by freeing manufacturers to do better rim profiles (as happened in the MTB world; not needing a braking surface lets you optimize strength/weight/aero a lot better).

I do agree that whats out there for road discs is somewhat crippled by the weight-obsession; thin 140mm rotors will not deliver a great braking experience. But thats a very simple solution (put larger rotors on there and suck up the 30 gram difference).

Thing is, this stuff is not exactly experimental. Shimano and SRAM have been doing discs for over a decade in the MTB world. Once the UCI allows them I think the top end groups will switch pretty fast and any issues will be rapidly solved. I’m not gonna guinea pig the first gen stuff, but I won’t be surprised when things move over.

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@DaveK 113090 wrote:

I’m talking about the novice to average rider though dragging their brakes down a mountain instead of hard on the brakes before a turn or an obstacle. You can and will fade disc brakes doing that. And if you do they don’t cool down and come back as fast as rim brakes. A skilled rider can descend far better on discs but I’m thinking about the 90% of riders out there who will drag their brakes the entire way down a mountain.

Why would discs fade in those circumstances? I don’t have a tremendous amount of experience dragging brakes for a super long period of time, but (for example) racing the steep side at Snowshoe is a several minute descent, and I was on the brakes for a lot of that. I’ve certainly had them get very hot. And I’ve done some loooong descents on the MTB (blue from Hamburg Road to the valley of death in the shed, for example, or Bear Wallow in the GW forest) and never had an issue. I do think the stock organic pads that a lot of discs come with aren’t that great. I generally switch to a sintered pad ASAP. I do run a minimum of a 7″ rotor on all my bikes.

I think any fade on a disc is more a pad compound issue than a brake issue.

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@Harry Meatmotor 112923 wrote:

I don’t see this happening any time soon. Not that I think it’s a bad idea, but I don’t think the UCI will budge until the vast majority of road bikes sold world wide are disc-equipped. The UCI might be convinced when the only bikes on the sales floor that are still rim brake bikes are the UCI-approved topline models (think, S-works Tarmac, Giant Propel Advanced SL, etc.). For now it’s “lack of standardization something something, need more testing something something…”

I’ve seen several articles recently that said the UCI was pretty close to releasing a decision about them for 2017, and the manufacturers seem to think they’ll be allowed. Who knows. The UCI is the big thing holding them back; the manufacturers want their top end groups to be raced on, so they won’t go disc whole hog until its allowed. But I think it will happen pretty fast once it is. Shimano and Sram both already have extensive experience with disc systems on their MTB groupsets. Contrary to popular wisdom, discs aren’t exactly complicated. They are proven tech in the MTB field. And the advantages (especially once you’re on lightweight carbon wheels) are just too tempting to ignore.

Standardization might be an issue for pros (for wheel changes and such) but its far from insurmountable.

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@DaveK 112888 wrote:

I don’t see the point. Discs are heavier, less aero, more expensive, more complex, and just as likely to cook the brakes on a downhill as rim brakes (and slower to come back if you do cook them).

This is patently untrue. Good disc brake pads can withstand temps far in excess of anything a bike would exert on them. I raced DH mountainbiking for several years, always on discs, and never once faded a set. These are courses where you would drop thousands of feet in just a few minutes; the rotors would get hot enough to flash any sweat dripped onto them into steam almost instantly, but no braking issues. Rim brakes would never have withstood those forces. Not a million years.

Really, the same arguments against discs were made in the MTB world a decade ago, and yet here we are and its pretty much impossible to buy a MTB with rim brakes anymore. Road bikes are a different beast in some respects (the wheels and forks are typically not designed with disc loads in mind, which was less an issue on MTBs), but I strongly suspect that in a few years most of the pro peloton will be on discs.

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Obviously they need to give the dogs proper equipment.

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8/9/10/11 speed? What gear range is the existing one? Mountain or road cassette?

I generally get cheaper cassettes and chains, because they all function pretty similar and its a wear part that I feel weird spending a lot of money on. I’ll go to the lower mid-range stuff and see what I can find on sale in the gearing I want.

For compatibility, you want the same number of gears (obviously) and to make sure the derailleur can handle the cassette (a short cage road derailleur won’t play nice with an 11-36 mountain cassette, for example).

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@DismalScientist 112169 wrote:

This is what happens when there is a right-hand side bike lane. Taxis should always move to the curb when dropping off passengers. This would have never happened if this were a real cab.:rolleyes:

That said, no injury to the cyclist, no visible damage to the CaBi, damage to the car door. Isn’t this a victory?

Those Cabi bikes are freaking tanks. Im surprised it didn’t rip the door off.

Anything that damages a BMW is a win in my book.

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@docjones 112066 wrote:

Question 1. I currently have a 2010 Cannondale Synapse Carbon Six that is currently an excellent piece of wall art. It’s my only bike, but what would you all recommend to make it a suitable option for commuting? Should I be trying to swap out wheels/tires for something a little thicker than the road tires it’s currently got? Should I consider spending $300 for a cheap commuting bike off craigslist/Nashbar instead? I rode the bike recreationally (<15 miles usually) when I lived in SE DC and Shirlington, but haven't ridden it much since the move to Kingstowne. (2+ years)

Assuming you have a safe place to store it at work, I’d recommend just starting with the road bike and a backpack or messenger bag for stuff-carrying. I personally have been commuting for years primarily on my carbon road bike with a chrome messenger bag. No need to spend money on changing a perfectly functional bike. If you find you take to bike commuting and want to change things about the bike (or replace it/supplement it with something else) that can be done later.

A combination drive/bike commute is a fine place to start!

Other people will have to help with routing, since I’m not very familiar with that area. There is a connector for the Mt Vernon to get across the Wilson bridge now, but I’m not sure the best way to go from there.

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@elwbikes 111204 wrote:

That would be great! I’m DC based (work in NW, live in NE) but can go about anywhere a bike can go. I’ll PM you.

Yup! I’m out in Reston, not far off the W&OD. Here is my bike:

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I’m also 5′-6″ and have a 50cm Soma Saga built up as a touring bike. You’re welcome to give it a whirl if you want.

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I do think that tech has trickled down to the point where you don’t need to go high end (or even mid range) anymore to get good quality parts. I think the functional improvement after mid-range (say, 105 in Shimanos case) is so minimal as to be almost unnoticeable. After that you’re paying for bling and weight reduction.

The biggest argument (for me) between the Sora and Tiagra is that Tiagra is at least 10 speed. The higher end stuff has gone to 11 speed now, but high quality 10 speed parts are still relatively common and easy to get. 9 speed has been low end only for several years now so there is little in the way of upgrade path.

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@Jason B 111086 wrote:

One of the people I work with purchased a bike from BikesDirect and asked another teacher and I to put it together for her. True, it did have 105’s, and on paper it did look great. Unfortunately, I was surprised how cheap every other part other than the 105 group was. The wheels were absolutley awful, and we had to send them back for they had two cracks in the rims, and were way out of tru. The crank was not 105, and it was pretty close to the cheapest crank i had ever seen. The bars, tubes and stem appeared to be made out of iron. The bike weighed a ton.

To be fair, the big name brands do this too. I had a mid-range Lemond a while back and pretty much all the non-grouppo parts were junk (Bontrager branded junk, but still junk). The wheels imploded within a few thousand miles, the bars cracked, the crank developed play where the axle joined the crank arm… I still have the stem, but it does weigh a ton. Companies know people look mainly at the main group parts and cut corners elsewhere. Bikesdirect does it, Trek does it, Specialized does it, etc.

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I my 34/28 combo. I don’t need it often, but when I need it, I need it. :p

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@mstone 110076 wrote:

The worst delays I ever had shipping something was entirely domestic, because UPS drove the package somewhere and left (lost?) it. A friend had a package stuck for a week repeatedly going back and forth between the same two UPS locations, each a reasonably quick drive from his house.

I remember reading a thread on another forum a while back about someone who had ordered something from a place reasonably close by (like 50 miles away or so). It was Fedex so he could track where it was going. It ended up taking weeks, and by the end the package had traveled several thousand miles. The major carriers have pretty impressive systems in place, but like any big complex system, sometimes things fall through the cracks and weirdness happens.

@ShawnoftheDread 110112 wrote:

What are your opinions on standard vs compact cranks for road bikes?

I prefer compact, but as mstone said, buy the right gearing for you. I rode a standard for a few years before switching to compact and can definitely say it works better for me.

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