Jacomus-rides-Gen said:
Quite a challenge you have set there bonj *scratches head* I'll do my best to describe it.
Ok, here is the situation: Leaning into a LH corner at the bottom of a hill that I use a fair few times a week, entry speed is about 32mph. The road is fairly smooth, and it doesn't require braking, but you do need to lean in with full commitment. Just past the apex there are a couple of small "whoops" or smooth ridges in the tarmac.
On the steel roadbike - When I hit the ridges it feels as if the front wheel is being forced forward, and backwards lengthening and shortening the wheelbase but without shaking the bars side to side. I am aware of my outside foot, which is weighting the pedal in the 6'o'cock position, wobbling/flexing out and in again at 90 degrees to the direction of travel.
But I'm just trying to imagine what actual distortion the bike's experiencing.
Imagine you were really strong, and you had to produce the same shape change in the bike when it was still to what it does when you go over the ridges on that corner. Would it be standing to the side of it, putting one knee on the top tube and one on the down tube and pulling the headtube and rear dropout towards you, i.e. as if the bike's curving with the corner? Would it be to hold the rear dropout and have an accomplice holding the headtube and both pull tug-of-war-style, i.e. as if the bike's 'stretching'? Would it be as if you're getting it underneath you with your knee on the top tube and pulling it up from front and back, making the whole thing more 'U' shaped? Or what?
And also, what shape are the 'ridges' that cause this? Are they dips in the road i.e. concave, or rise above the surface i.e. convex? How long and tall/deep, and how far apart, are they?
Jacomus-rides-Gen said:
On the alu/carbon roadbike - Hitting the same bumps, but a little faster than on the steeley, I don't experience the same wallowing feeling. This bike shakes its bars more and the frame almost jumps hitting the bumps. Its not actually jumping, but it is more of a shock *bump* that shoots through the frame rather than a more protracted *whump* that shivers through the steel frame.
And you're sure it's not just that the ridges are producing vibration and the steel's better at absorbing them than the carbon/alu bike?
Although to be honest it's a LOT more believable when you describe it as something that's like different shock absorption characteristics than 'the bike bends whenver I go round a corner'.
peejay78 said:
"imaginary benefits of them"
eh? importance of rhythm and pacing yourself when climbing on a fixed (or any) bicycle? imaginary? ? have you ever ridden a bike up a hill, or ridden a bike?
Whether or not you respect the qualifications which i assume in order to comment on your original assertion, the only comment I made was to put it to you that your proposed advantages of fixed were not something you are able to qualify as tangible, therefore not something that requires the backup of such qualification. That you merely seek to question the qualification I assume (have I ridden a bike
), which isn't even necessary, confirms the validity of my comment.
peejay78 said:
"I just have quite a passionate desire to learn what people actually see in the whole weird/old bike thing but mixed with a certain cynical desire to shatter the myths they put forward as their reasoning for liking them."
really? are you sure? what are you, some kind of Richard Dawkins protesting against the perceived mysticism of cycling? this duality sounds like it might be tearing you apart.
I'm trying to debate in real/literal/measurable/quantitative/tangible terms, but the above isn't possible to formulate a reasoned response to as it talks purely in fantasy/metaphorical terms.
peejay78 said:
"For instance, i don't understand why people are embarrassed to admit they only like some things purely because they're fashionable? I don't see anything wrong with fashion."
no relevance to the OP at all. or anything else. totally off-topic. i'm out anyway.
That's two down...
Chuffy said:
I like my single-speed (it's a conversion and a thing of beauty. If I posted a picture it would burn the eyes of the fixie puristas to a jealous crisp)
Ah, now single speed. You see that confuses me. Because I don't know whether I have more or less of a problem with it than with fixed.
The arguments for more, are......... erm.......I don't know. I don't think there are any.
So therefore I have much less of a problem with single speed than with fixed, simply because by introducing a freehub you remove the element of danger, which is presumably what all the fixie brigade think makes them 'cool' - ("ooooh, he must be skilled, he's riding a fixed!, he must be able to 'tame the beast'! "
)
But understand Chuffy that your single speed isn't a bike that just
hasn't had gears put on. It's a bike that has had the gears deliberately
taken off. That would be true even if it was a bike that just hasn't ever had gears put on. Bikes are
supposed to have gears.
Why don't you go one further, and completely remove the cranks, pedals, chainrings and chain? And just scoot it along, with your feet? You wouldn't go as fast, but then again you can't go as fast with a single speed as you can with gearing, so it's only relative.
And you then really would be able to 'ride' it in pedestrian areas and on pavements, as you'd be walking by putting one foot in front of the other (and despite Arch's many attempts to define 'cycling', you would completely fit the definition of being a pedestrian, as you would have no method of propelling yourself plus bike other than the same as what a pedestrian does. Don't try and enter an argument with me about this because I will win.).
Chuffy said:
it's simpler than having gears. It takes away all of my choices and I like that.
Well why did you bother to convert it, why didn't you just sellotape the shifters up, if you don't like having to put up with the stress of the agonising decision of what gear to be in. That would remove your choices just as effectively. But you've still got the choice of which way to go at a junction, or even whether to ride your bike in the first place. In fact, better still, why didn't you just sellotape yourself to your bed then you wouldn't even have the choice of whether to get up. That really
would remove all your choices, and then you'd have a
really simple life as you wouldn't ever have to bother deciding anything.
And the pure fact that it is simply the
removal of choices is the reason I thought I might have more of a problem with it than fixed, as it's purely subtractive, it 'adds' nothing to the experience. But then I realise that the only thing that having it fixed adds is danger.
Chuffy said:
Just spouting your standard ignoblather isn't shattering myths, it's just building a new one, the story of the Idiot Who Wouldn't Listen.
Is that a new word, 'ignoblather'?
Just another point, out of interest: would it be possible to have a fixed bike but with gears? i.e. with a rear mech, shifters and cassette, but no freehub? i.e. why are fixed bikes
always also single speed bikes?
