in many ways, mechanical shifting is more reliable than the electronic equivalents - Di2 and AXS - due to the hardier nature of the components and the lack of reliance on batteries and phone apps.
Huh, TIL. It was my understanding that electronic shifting is more robust than mechanical. I wonder if reliability in this context is fault tolerance.
Gawd, I hate the UCI. The UCI’s fuckery holds back bicycling and innovation. Once in a while, the rules make sense for safety, e.g. aerobars banned for mass starts. But the rest of the time, they’re just pissing in the well.
The wallet crying hobby or the bike hobby? In my experience, the answer to both questions is “a decent bicycle.” :D
Happy to help! The bikewrench community (https://lemmy.world/c/bikewrench) is really helpful and mostly populated by knowledgeable people. Just make sure to be patient for correct answers.
Non-electric, non-whiz-bang bicycles are inherently knowable to everyone. All the functions are sitting right there in the open. Even the bits inside other bits are still comprehensible to a non-techie person willing to put in a couple hours of learning.
This is in contrast to, say, an internal gear hub (IGH). There are not many people who can work on the internals of these things. I mean actually repair and rebuild them, and make them better than new.
If you’re in the neglectful commuter segment, take a look at Shimano CUES Linkglide. You can get an entire group for something like $350 (don’t quote me on that). There’s a lot more to indicate CUES, but I’ll spare you.
Q’Auto is for LinkGlide, which requires pedaling pressure to shift correctly. Hyperglide and Hyperglide+ perform similarly when shifting to more teeth, albeit to a lesser degree. SRAM Eagle is another drivetrain technology that requires more torque to shift correctly. LG and Eagle can kinda shift like garbage when soft-pedaling.
I have test-ridden LG and Eagle, For me, shifts are perfect in the 10 to 25% torque range; full pedaling torque results in perfect shifts nearly every time. And I’m a clydesdale.
Another thing to consider: LG right now is targeted for commuters and e-bikes, although Shimano seems to be expanding the tech. So it’s designed for high load and commuter levels of neglect.
In my experience (>165,000 lifetime miles), HG requires letting up when shifting to less teeth, HG+ less so. The overarching amount of wear comes from a dirty drivetrain and riding on a worn chain*. Keep your drivetrain clean, stay on top of the prescribed maintenance intervals, and the components will last a long time.
FWIW, the only time I have ever broken chains was putting down too much torque when shifting to a smaller tooth count. And that was only with HG. I haven’t broken a chain in decades. HG+ seems to be very tolerant of more torque in both directions.
*This script is getting flipped in some technologies (Eagle, IIRC), with the chain having a much longer service interval than the chainrings.
This, along with the new XTR, is sexy AF. It’s also absolutely antithetical to my ideal of the bicycle. Will there be parts in 30 years? Hell, will it last ten years? Can my knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing dumb ass work on it with the tools I already have and are applicable to all of my other bikes? What happens when it stops working and is no longer supported?
Shimano may have gotten better about this, but the last time I had to rebuild an STI lever, I swore off brifters. Okay, I’ve got one road bike with 10-speed STI, but I got it for $150 from a shop going out of business.
To paraphrase Louis Rossman: if you are unable to repair it, you don’t own it.
I’m not sure I’m following the reasoning. Please clarify?
What makes this too far off? I have enormous clodhoppers and toe overlap with VO fenders was never an issue on this bike or any of my other VO fendered bikes.
Holy. Ballz. Between you and @DerPlouk@lemm.ee, this is starting to resemble a generalized design flaw. DerPlouk’s break looks like more like a stress riser, whereas yours looks like an HAZ. Aaaannd that is the about the outer limit of my metal failure analysis skills.
Are there any welders or metallurgists in the house? I would love to read a failure analysis of how and why this happened right at that spot.
Indeed! Locally custom built and fits me! I’d say that gets me into unicorn territory.
Thank you! I put in Jagwire Sport S (all weather) pads. Stopping is… confident. :D My daily whip has hydraulics with a 203mm front rotor; ALL the modulation! Grabbing a fistful of the Rodriguez front brake would absolutely launch me. I’m going to have to be aware of that when first getting on this bike.
The bikewrench community might have a fix. While I never saw a chainstay break like that before, I have seen breaks in load-critical joints such as downtube to bottom bracket shell and headtube to downtube.
My fix was to make an internal sleeve joint using carbon steel pipe. I would then epoxy it in place with 3M 5200, the same glue used to hold sailboat keels in place. Shipwrights also refer to it as Devil’s Glue, because it’s some tenacious stuff. The shaping on that tube complicates this fix, but some careful shaping might get you to done. The only reasons I even attempted these fixes were because the bikes had huge sentimental value to the owners.
Another possibility could be a internal shim made of G10, wrapped in ~5 to 8 layers of biaxial fabric (glass) wetted out with 2-part epoxy. Once cured, it would be ridiculously strong in all axes, for tensile, compression, and shear. Source: this is how I repaired a broken mast spreader bar in the middle of the ocean.
Effort-wise, you might be better off getting a new frame and using the original as an organ donor.
Also, YMMV, fix at your own risk, blah blah blah taco.
Edit: a word
If you can plan a bit ahead, ridesharing/transportation is one of the most popular services in US timebanks.
Disclosure: I am a founding board member of a timebank that uses hOurworld software.
I collaborate with other people who are also on DRS. Before I had teammates on DRS, I tried using Blender, Openshot, Shotcut, KDenLive. Those NLEs are just not there yet.
I actually started my solid modeling/parametric journey on FreeCAD, and I prefer the parametric workflow. I switched to Inventor when FreeCAD kept crashing when the object tree was ~60 primitives even on my monstrous workstation. I would love to go back to FreeCAD, because fuck AutoDesk in its ear, so hopefully they get the stability + complexity under control.
Rant on, bruddah! I am also in the “must use it for work” group, and I despise my work laptop with the fury of 1000 suns. In my personal work and prior to this new job, I was staying on Win 10 for Inventor, AutoCAD, FL Studio (and a bunch of VST synths I bought), and DaVinci Resolve Studio. My experience with my work laptop has spurred my nearly-complete jump to Linux.
FL Studio has been replaced by Bitwig, new learning curve and loss of the VSTs just being the cost I have to eat. I almost have DRS running in perfectly in Aurora Linux. And my two Win 10 machines will just go into an isolated network until I can figure out workarounds/replacements for the Autodesk garbage.
One of Grant Peterson’s early designs. He headed up the American division of Bridgestone in the 80s, and he was an iconoclast. The RB series were his take on Italian racing bikes, with the RB-1 being top of the line. But Peterson eschewed some things that industry considered de rigueur. Moreover, these were built in Bridgestone’s Japanese shop and were very high quality.
Peterson later went on to found Rivendell Bikes. Regardless of how one might feel about Rivendell’s design philosophy, they are seriously great steel bikes that feel amazing, all without resorting to the voodoo that other modern bikes need.
So, finding an RB-1 at a decent price is a bit of a big deal. Finding one in great condition is a coup.
Congrats on the classic steel! Not only classic steel, but one of THE classic steel bikes. In that condition… total unicorn.
I don’t really get all the hate on the comments.
Agreed. “Oh no! Not an ETL!” I wish more applications were backed by MySQL, MariaDB, Mongo, etc. Give me the option of encryption at rest, and when it’s time to change apps, I have granular control over everything.
On the other hand, the advantage of all the hate is everyone presenting their faves and providing their reasons. So …net win for the audience?
Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording. It uses a laser to heat the drive platter, allowing for higher areal density and increased capacity.
I am ignorant on the CMR/SMR differences in performance
Raleigh has a history of acquisition, waxing and waning. How much of the app functionality evaporates when the backend servers are shut down? For anyone who sees whiz-bang app features, here are some considerations: