[mstone]

The sport part is perfectly legitimate. It’s the idea that it’s more than entertainment is the bogus part.

[mstone]

It’s a sporting event, nothing more. Anything about peace and justice is self aggrandizement and self promotion. That anyone still buys it after the nazi games and the stack of corruption scandals boggles my mind.

[mstone]

@jnva 25588 wrote:

I rode the section between Vienna and lake accotink again today. Took note of how often the path changes – there are long stretches of gravel with a 10 foot paved section, and then there are long paved sections with 10 feet of gravel in the middle. It’s crazy, but fun.

It’s important to remember that the CCT isn’t a designed trail, it’s the result of “what bits and pieces can we connect”.

[mstone]

@ShawnoftheDread 25582 wrote:

Who is “you” in this reply? I’m not the one who labelled the Trek FX series, Cannondale Quick, Fuji Absolute and the like “hybrids.” The manufacturers did that. If you don’t like that they call their bikes made for both trail and road use hybrids just because they aren’t crappy bikes, take it up with them. I didn’t redefine anything.

Trek FX is filed under “town/fitness”, not hybrid. Cannondale under “Recreation & Urban”. Fuji does prominently use the term hybrid, but always with a modifier like “Performance Road Hybrid” or “Commuter Hybrid”. So I still stand by my position that describing a bike as a “hybrid” is about as useful as describing it as “having two wheels that are the same size”.

Just look back at the history of the term. “Hybrid” was invented by the industry to describe bikes that pulled cheap mass-market components from road racy lines and mountain bikey lines after the industry itself decided that all cheap mass market bikes needed to fit into a road racy or mountain bikey bin. The various attributes of a “hybrid” existed on bikes long before the term was invented, and a bike that can be generally classified as “something non-enthusiasts want to ride” was merely reinvented after the industry realized it had forgotten about that market segment. At this point there’s enough variety that more descriptive terms are necessary.

[mstone]

@KelOnWheels 25571 wrote:

Other theory was that too much sugar is also tough on the digestion / can dehydrate you, so we always cut our sports drinks 50/50 with water.

If I drink too much sugary sports drink I feel sick. I can cut it with water, but then I don’t get the electrolytes. I’d rather just separate the two things; the amount of water+electrolytes I can go through when it’s 100+ degrees would include a coma-inducing amount of sugar if I were drinking that much gatorade.

[mstone]

@lordofthemark 25570 wrote:

What would you say to someone who wants to do a short commute, mostly short weekend rides, an occasional longer weekend ride, and who already has a mountain bike for dirt and gravel trails?

use the mountain bike for the short commute, buy whatever you want for whatever kind of weekend ride you plan to do

[mstone]

I use electrolytes in my water, and food for energy. No need for electrolytes and sugar in one liquid.

[mstone]

@ShawnoftheDread 25528 wrote:

I don’t know why cyclists denigrate hybrids so much. A lot of the trails and roads in the area are perfect for hybrids–bumpy and poorly paved, with frequent detours onto gravel, dirt, or grass. Flat bars are also useful for city riding. My back likes them too. Sure, a cyclocross would be great — show me one in the $500 range in an LBS.

Well, I don’t understand why people redefine what is meant by a hybrid bike and then don’t understand why people denigrate some other kind of bike.

edit to add: I suppose that was a bit terse. Basically (IMO) the heritage of “hybrid bike” is “cheap, flat handlebars, no specific purpose, cheap/blingy ‘comfort’ additions like fluffy seat or useless suspension”. As soon as you start talking about a bike that’s designed to fill a particular role reasonably well, the term “hybrid” is useless and you need to use a more specific term that captures the intended role. Maybe it’s not fair that “hybrid” has that kind of baggage, but it also isn’t fair that a good number of people won’t consider a bike that doesn’t have flat bars because the industry has pushed slammed-down low/uncomfortable road racing bikes for so long. The first thing (again IMO) is to understand where and how you’ll be riding, then start figuring out what kind of bike is good for that. And, unfortunately, it will probably involve going to a lot of different stores after extensive internet-based research because very, very, very few places have a good selection of multiple types of bikes from multiple manufacturers.

[mstone]

No, we need to go someplace with cones. It’s too hard to ride with a cup and a spoon.

How does it help to have a cone and spoon?

[mstone]

@vvill 25439 wrote:

It would be very embarrassing to have an airbag deploy when you’re wearing full bike gear, fail to unclip in time and fall over at 0mph whilst leaving your parking garage for your commute home (myself this afternoon).

I hate it when that happens. Especially when stopping so as to not hit some woman, who then stares at the freak at her feet.

[mstone]

where have I seen something as cool and safe as that? oh, I remember!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1363[/ATTACH]

[mstone]

Is that a euphemism?

[mstone]

@ShawnoftheDread 25025 wrote:

Fixing flats is still better than running.

RIDING ON flats is still better than running.

[mstone]

it’s not necessarily the time spent actually stopped at the lights as much as the time spent slowing/starting/etc at the intersections, in my experience. no matter how hard you push the fast parts, the slow parts are an ever-larger fraction of the total (unless you ride like an ass, of course, and never slow down)

[mstone]

Step 1: identify whether you have time, money, or both

[Author]

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