Disk brakes on a folding bike

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u_i

Über Member
Location
Michigan
But what do I know... I'm not an engineer. :laugh:

I am neither, but I train future and current engineers, particularly in getting advanced degrees. Similarly to other fields, engineers come in all shapes and sizes, some are brilliant, many are good enough or better and some cannot hold a well paid job and may resort to garage-level aftermarket product manufacturing. Obviously, in spite efforts to regulate it, the automotive aftermarket is not much better than that for folding bikes such as including miracle oil additives that can hurt engines.
 

tinywheels

Über Member
Location
South of hades
Not sure if willy waving using your hands would be so much pleasing. :whistle: Not to forget that the whole story startet with you, telling us that you have the biggest willy in the world. :laugh:

Why? I don't think so. Right hand pedal is one of the lightest pedals on the market and at the same an utterly cheap spare part. The cage sometimes breaks after a couple of years but replacing is cheap and easy. The lefthand folding pedal is one of the best folding pedals on the market (but obviously suffers from constraints of load distribution onto the main bearing, that are typical and unavoidable with any folding pedal). It could no doubt be better, but I don't know of any existing better one and the typical lifetime with me has been ~12-15 years of intensive use, most samples last even longer (but have been not used as intensively). Then the main bearing fails (which officially is not maintainable - however: @rogerzilla has published how to exchange the bearing in such a case).

That's good. I guess that's true for other people's MKS pedals as well. Mine i.e.. But I assume you are talking about removable pedals. Much easier to construct than folding pedals - even the MKS folding pedals are not that good (and they build pedals as their main and exclusive business). On the Brompton, I do not favor removable pedals as I find them annoying in daily practice on the Brompton. I do have removable pedals (MKS as well as others) on a couple of bikes and only remove them if absolutely necessary. I do have some experience with other folding pedals than Brompton and they all quickly turned out not to be convincing.
As you did not point out what model of pedals you're talking about and why they are "fab" your statement seems to be rather willy waving than informational.

My Brompton pedals do not and did never creak, so I don't get your point. Nice and shiny is either a matter of taste or a matter of maintenance.

I'm sorry, are you an engineer?
 
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CEBEP

Guest
We have lot’s of brilliant engineers here arguing that ball-bearing wheels are not the worthy upgrade to the friction type wheels and shouldn’t be used as standard in a Brompton. I guess I need to reassess my understanding of engineering all together. And not ever have an opinion of my own, as the only correct one is available here, with few users with insane egos who know everything.

I’d say thats the reason why there are fewer users here compared to folding bike threads on reddit and bikeforums.
 
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CEBEP

Guest
likewise, you would have spotted my MKS pedals further back.

now leave me alone, I'm busy converting my suitcase into a bicycle. It's gonna fold real good and have great wheels that never puncture etc etc

You will probably soon be told to shut your mouth and never ever say anything bad about Brompton pedals because nothing Brompton does can be wrong. My wrong opinion is similar to yours, also wrong one, that MKS pedals are awesome.
 

berlinonaut

Veteran
Location
Berlin Germany
I'm busy converting my suitcase into a bicycle.

Looking forward to your results. No need to reinvent the wheel. :tongue:

suitcase.jpg

(taken from the Brompton book by David Henshaw)


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlOyEZCd6lg


https://www.youtube.com/embed/m1UdayeFaLo

1660653152860.png

(https://www.made-in-china.com/showr...EInMxIgWU/China-Suitcase-Folding-Bicycle.html)

1660652998566.png

https://www.tuexperto.com/2009/08/1...cle-una-maleta-que-se-convierte-en-bicicleta/


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwtPpgWBsps
 
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berlinonaut

Veteran
Location
Berlin Germany
MKS pedals are awesome.
The silly thing ist that for one just because something is awsome something else can be awesome too at the same time. Plus what you consider to be awesome is often a question of personal taste and personal opinion.
To state that something is good, bad or awesome based on false beliefs or insufficient information is still a valid opinion, just not a very clever one.
Thinking you'd need to diss alternatives (or original parts) based on false arguments to justify your opinion that something you consider awesome is poor logic and irrational.
To pretend you'd be attacked for your opinion b/c you dislike something Brompton while in fact your opinion is questioned because of false information or false claims is a very poor straw man (including an ad hominem attack).

Be aware: You have not been, are not and will never be "attacked" by me (and possibly by no one else as well) because you say something against Brompton or one of their products or because of an opinion. But have to live with the fact that if you shoot around false claims (about anything) you may be corrected. I think you've experienced this already. Stop making false claims -> problem solved.
 
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CEBEP

Guest
To state that something is good, bad or awesome based on false beliefs or insufficient information is still a valid opinion, just not a very clever one.

Who are you to judge which opinions are clever and which are not?

Thinking you'd need to diss alternatives (or original parts) based on false arguments to justify your opinion that something you consider awesome is poor logic and irrational.

Who are you to judge that my opinion is poor logic or irrational?

To pretend you'd be attacked for your opinion b/c you dislike something Brompton while in fact your opinion is questioned because of false information or false claims is a very poor straw man (including an ad hominem attack).

Who are you to judge if information I based my opinion on is false?

Be aware: You have not been, are not and will never be "attacked" by me (and possibly by no one else as well) because you say something against Brompton or one of their products or because of an opinion. But have to live with the fact that if you shoot around false claims (about anything) you may be corrected. I think you've experienced this already. Stop making false claims -> problem solved.
Just read your own posts. I am an active member on forums I’ve mentioned above and didn’t come across aggressive users like you questioning each and every opinion opposite to yours, asking if people tested all samples in a lab before they will have an opinion about anything. It’s not a friendly discussion by any means. I’d suggest you to suck up your ego and be a little more friendly to users whom you consider not matching your high standards.
 
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tinywheels

Über Member
Location
South of hades
The silly thing ist that for one just because something is awsome something else can be awesome too at the same time. Plus what you consider to be awesome is often a question of personal taste and personal opinion.
To state that something is good, bad or awesome based on false beliefs or insufficient information is still a valid opinion, just not a very clever one.
Thinking you'd need to diss alternatives (or original parts) based on false arguments to justify your opinion that something you consider awesome is poor logic and irrational.
To pretend you'd be attacked for your opinion b/c you dislike something Brompton while in fact your opinion is questioned because of false information or false claims is a very poor straw man (including an ad hominem attack).

Be aware: You have not been, are not and will never be "attacked" by me (and possibly by no one else as well) because you say something against Brompton or one of their products or because of an opinion. But have to live with the fact that if you shoot around false claims (about anything) you may be corrected. I think you've experienced this already. Stop making false claims -> problem solved.

Thank you Dr Spock
I claim my 5 pounds :laugh:
 

T4tomo

Legendary Member
I'd like to nominate this thread for the biggest and most pointless willy waving exercise on Cyclechat.
 

berlinonaut

Veteran
Location
Berlin Germany
I am an active member on forums I’ve mentioned above and didn’t come across aggressive users like you questioning each and every opinion opposite to yours, asking if people tested all samples in a lab before they will have an opinion about anything.
That's an interesting point. Why are you member of those forums? I assume, as with most people including myself, one aspect is to learn, to ask questions, to find new solutions, to exchange experiences and to discuss different opinions.
The problem with every forum is, that many people inourdays cannot distinguish any more between opinion, belief, judgement, hypothesis, assumption, experience and fact - it is basically all the same thing. So often an opinion or assumption is stated as a fact. Which they aren't. If then someone questions that "fact" you feel attacked for your opinion - which is not the case.

Obviously opinions (and even more judgments) based on prejudices or wrong assumptions are less worth for learning than opinions or judgements based on extensive own experience and/or extensive knowledge of context. If this is all mixed up learning is barely possible, prejudices and cheap, uninformed judgements always win as they are easier to compose (and thus more frequent), more attractive (as they do need less thinking and often seem convincing on first look) and for all of those reasons get echoed more easily and more frequently, especially by newbies that have little own experience but want to actively participate and give advice. If this situation becomes the standard or dominant a forum may still be fun regarding social aspects and may still be interesting and inspring but has a very low level of competence, trustworthyness and technical value. This is basically what facebook is and what also many forums are (or have become). And often enough, this turns out to be a waste of time because of bad signal-to-noise ratio and being constantly sent in wrong and dubious directions. Often rather disinformation than information.

It is in my opinion thus in the deepest interest of a technical forum, while being integrative and friendly, to also maintain a reliable and trustworthy high standard of the technical content because this is a relevant aspect for the value of a forum, today in times of facebook, instagram etc. even more than 15 years ago. This is what distinguishes a good forum from social media and what is it's USP. Having in mind that social media is real time (no-one cares for facebook posts five years ago) while a forum is also often used as a reference and people take relevant (and in their eyes trustworthy) information from 10 year old postings and threads also makes aware of the differences and the relevance of a reliable and good standard of a forum. I've learned loads from forum archives and often enough found the hint that finally led to the correct information or simply the correct search terms on google or elsewhere. Sometimes after years of fruitless digging. But I've also often had the opposite and had to wade through tons of useless disinformation. Not desirable.

If within a forum any opinion is stated as a fact and has to be accepted as a fact (no matter on what - in extreme grotesque misinformation, prejudices etc. - it is based) there is not even discussion of different opinions possible any more and the forum is on a predictable route to irrelevantness. I've seen this often enough in forums over the last years.
If you respect, that you have an opinion and I may have a different one - but neither of those is per definition automatically "the truth" discussion mode is enabled about the reasoning and the background and learning starts. On both sides. And no matter how the discussion goes and what facts, ideas, experiences or other opinions show up: You do not need to actually change your opinion. But sometimes you would be stupid not to. Or I. One needs to be open minded for that. If you consider new information as a threat for your personality, a different opinion than yours as as a threat as well and as an attack and any questioning of your reasoning that lead to that opinion as an attack and you assume that you are always right than this is a sure way into either trouble/conflict or irrelevance of the platform and we are back in middle age. People will toot out opinions and prejudices randomly, this may still be ok from a social perspective (and maybe very woke) but the technical value and relevance is close to zero as is the learning. More and more of the more competent people will leave and the speed to level zero increases. Nobody needs a forum like that.

Admittedly I am not always the friendliest person, but I only very rarely ride a personal attack and even if that happens this is the consequence of a longer story and escalation beforehand. If you feel personally attacked I am sorry for that but you should maybe think about why you feel that way and what set the triggers with you and what maybe with me. There are always two sides of a story.

I do consider this forum of value - this is why I do post here (and also, why I gave up on some others: because they lost their value to me). And I would like it to stay that way and to do my part to make this possible. In many cases this may be uncomfortable to others by questioning their opinions. Such is life. If you don't like that there's probably an ignore button somewhere in the settings section.
 
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ExBrit

Über Member
When I joined MENSA I saw discussions like this. I never renewed my membership.
I mean this in the most respectful way - some of you guys are geniuses
^_^
 
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