Getting My 'Bent Soon....

NYC XYZ said:

Hey, just a BIG THANK-YOU to all y'all 'bent-heads here for the help
and advice these past two or three months. I'm putting in an order
with Hostel Shoppe for their tricked-out SMGTe
(http://www.hostelshoppe.com/cgi-bin/specs.cgi?Bike1=1081348728), but
with Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires.

Is there some kind of super-chain and cassette out there that won't
wear out for...oh, say 50K miles??

A shaftie/belt drive/enclosed chain. Of those, the shaftie is the most
readily available.

I had the chance to ride a recumbent for the first time recently. It was
the most twitchy ride ever... I rather believed I was going to die for the
first couple of seconds.
--
Phil, Squid-in-Training

NYC XYZ said:

Hey, just a BIG THANK-YOU to all y'all 'bent-heads here for the help
and advice these past two or three months. I'm putting in an order
with Hostel Shoppe for their tricked-out SMGTe
(http://www.hostelshoppe.com/cgi-bin/specs.cgi?Bike1=1081348728), but
with Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires.

I thought you wanted the best brakes you could find for huge descents at
high speed? The hydraulics are considerably more effective than
mechanicals for this (that's why serious mountain bikes all use
hydraulic discs, and the hydraulic rim brakes IME (direct, of trying
Avid mechs fitted to HP Vels and the HS-33s) are more powerful than mech
discs too outside of mudbaths.

Quoted message said:

Is there some kind of super-chain and cassette out there that won't
wear out for...oh, say 50K miles??

Chain, no, and get a Rohloff if you don't want to change a cassette ever
again. But the chains do last a while. Being 2.4 chains or so they
last roughly 2.4 times as long to start with as the stretch is evened
out more, and with no cack thrown up onto the transmission from the
front wheel there's a lot less goop getting onto it to help with the wear.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In article <XzLTf.37235$2c4.34692@dukeread11>, Phil, Squid-in-Training

() said:

I had the chance to ride a recumbent for the first time recently. It was
the most twitchy ride ever... I rather believed I was going to die for the
first couple of seconds.

Mr Larrington's Bicycle Handling /La/

twitchy: more responsive than my normal ride
sluggish: less responsive than my normal ride

--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
Barley, barley, barley, world cruise. You never see a farmer on a bike.

Per NYC XYZ:

Quoted message said:

Is there some kind of super-chain and cassette out there that won't
wear out for...oh, say 50K miles??

Rohloff internally-geared hub - if you can live with 2 pounds of additional
weight. Also, I dunno if there are shifting issues with a der so far from the
bars, but if there are I'd expect Rohloff's system to mitigate them.
--
PeteCresswell

(PeteCresswell) said:

Rohloff internally-geared hub - if you can live with 2 pounds of additional
weight. Also, I dunno if there are shifting issues with a der so far from the
bars, but if there are I'd expect Rohloff's system to mitigate them.

Derailleurs work fine on 'bents, to some degree better than uprights
because the length of chain means a less pronounced angle as you change
from one side to the other, so there's potentially less chain and
sprocket wear.

But a Rohloff does you about as close to a guaranteed change as you'll
get (no thrown chains again! :-)). Though aside from the weight
disadvantage, and the cost issues, there are a couple of other gotchas
worth considering. If you don't like twist grip shifters then that's
really the only game in town (Thorn have an option for drop bars where a
twister is turned into a separate knob, but trigger shifting it ain't
AFAICT), so that's not so good, and if you're used to close ratios as
typical of sports bikes then you might well find the jumps between gears
a bit big for your liking. It's about the most efficient hub money can
buy, but still probably poorer than a well maintained and used
derailleur in terms of absolute muscle -> momentum conversion.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Per Peter Clinch:

Quoted message said:

It's about the most efficient hub money can
buy, but still probably poorer than a well maintained and used
derailleur in terms of absolute muscle -> momentum conversion.

As the owner of two of the things, I'd change "probably" to "definitely".

They're also significantly noisy in gears 1-7.

But for me nothing beats being able to get out of the saddle on a hill and just
roll up 4 gears ..... and roll back down when you feel like sitting again. Ditto
attacking a steep little hill in gear 8 or 9 and then instantly rolling down to,
say, 2 or 3 when your momentum runs out.

Also, not having a lot of brain cells to spare, it's nice not to have to keep
track of which front chain wheel I'm on...
--
PeteCresswell