The R3V Bicycle Thread

[jeremy5000]

Just got back from a nice dh session with some friends. Only killer was that we started riding at roughly 5:30-6am.

[GaryE30]

The visual of you pringling your rear wheel has be cracking up! Haha.

Anyone use MapMyRide? Let's be friends! Been riding to work as much as I can.

[ATTACH]70154[/ATTACH]

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

I use MapMyRun as an app for both my running and riding. Here's my latest:



I rode my mountain bike a few miles to pick up my Jeep that I had left at a friends place. I was completely worn out by the end of the ride! Road tires would have been very nice to reduce the drag my mud tires had.

I was keeping up with another guy on his road bike too :)

[lambo]

Anyone have any wheel building advice for someone who has never done it and doesn't possess the professional tools?

[Emre]

Anyone use MapMyRide? Let's be friends! Been riding to work as much as I can.

I'll have to try that if there's an iPhone version.

I live in lower Manhattan and work in Queens. I bike to work 2-3 times per week in the summer months. It's 13 miles and takes me 60-70 minutes depending on how tired my legs are.

[Nick_S]

Anyone have any wheel building advice for someone who has never done it and doesn't possess the professional tools?

What kind of wheel (size? spokes? cross pattern?)? I build tons and tons of wheels, BMX mostly so they're very simple. Best advice is if you're unsure how, I guarantee there is a write up somewhere how to do it, google what you're looking for and take your time. Once you have it laced up properly, you want to screw all the nipples so you can see any threads on the spoke. From there you'll need a truing stand. There's other ways to do it though, like you can use your frame and brakes but it will be harder to get the hops (up and downs) out. It's pretty easy but you just need to take your time if you've never done it. About 1/4 down this page explains it pretty well...

http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

[BlackbirdM3]

I don't think I've posted pics of all my recent bikes. Some of them are now broken, others are still in use...
Old road bike, frame is now cracked in 3 places, its wall art now. It was custom built with a mix of Columbus Altec 2+ and Easton Ultralight. My design.



In the background you can see my old Scandium tubed Action-Tec race bike. It was about 19.5 lbs with full knobbies on it ready to race. It needs the derailleur hanger replaced to be rideable again. I miss that bike. I guess I could build it as a stupidly light single speed however. I'd guess it might be 16 lbs or so.

The extra/beater mtb. Its actually a nice frame and with the parts off the Action tec, built up to be about 21 lbs.


The first frame I won a race on. The race happened to be a criterium on the road despite this being a mtb. The seat tube cracked at the bottom bracket so now its wall art as well.




My retro bike. Its a very rare 1992 Specialized S-Works steel frame built up period correct with just about ever cool aftermarket part that was in demand back in the day. Grafton cantilever brakes, Pauls levers, Specialized Ti bottom bracket, S-works Thermoplastic bars, King headset, Cook Bros cranks, White industries hubs. Syncros seatpost ect. Oh yeah, Sun tour XC-Pro 8 spd shifters, derailleurs. Rock Shox Mag 21s (but not hte SLs)



The current main mtb. A Voodoo D-jab ti built up with all the parts off the Action Tec. Its still a bit heavy. Its got Ti bars, cassette, bottom bracket and chainrings.


The Klein Adept, it sits in the corner and never gets ridden.


And the current road bike. I designed it, but last week I dented the top tube so the frame is trash now. Built with Easton Ultralight aero tubing, Campy Record group. (by the way that is the USS Iowa being towed to Long Beach in the back ground.) I had this frame built to replace the Strong frame that cracked.


Will

[Threehz]

Nice collection Will, the Tsunami is definitely my favourite. How badly did you dent the topframe to make it trash???

[BlackbirdM3]

Nice collection Will, the Tsunami is definitely my favourite. How badly did you dent the topframe to make it trash???

Its about the size of a quarter, and about twice as deep. Think coke can, you can stand on one as long as the sides are perfect. As soon as you put even the smallest dent in it, it collapses. Same concept here. I ride way too many rough roads at way to fast of a speed to trust this thing now. The top tube is the back bone of a frame, its what holds the whole thing together. You can have a frame with no down tube, you can have a fame with no seat tube, heck, I've seen frames missing seat and chain stays (no idea how the rode as they were concept bikes at Interbike years ago) but you must have a top tube to make a frame rigid . Even Ladies step through frames usually have a very low slung top tube. The ones that don't ride like wet noodles. If I'm carving up a corner at speed, you better believe that top tube is under load both latterly and vertically. The dent is just asking for the frame to fold. Considering the fact that I'm both a tall rider and a heavy one this doesn't bode well for a compromised frame. If I can ever get over this funk that has pretty much robbed me of any and all power, I'll have that working against the frame as well.

Between the Strong and the Tsunami, the Strong was the better frame. The two are nearly identical geometry, but the Strong was a 73 degree seat tube and the Tsunami is a 74. Both run an 11.25 inch tall bottom bracket, no pedal strikes while attacking through a corner in a gutter.(I couldn't tell you how many people have taken themselves out trying to follow me through the gutter when they have struck a pedal and skipped the rear wheel. An equally large number of people have been removed from my wheel because they found they couldn't take the line I can.) I can still pedal at nearly the lean angle that the tires run out of grip. Its not the pedal that strikes, its actually my foot/shoe.

I think the replacement frame will be Titanium. There is no better material to build a frame out of. Sure, carbon is lighter, but its too iffy. You never know when its going to let go. You cant test it, you can't x-ray it for internal damage. If there is a flaw in the original layup you will never know until it fails. It also has no crash survivability for all the above reasons. With a metal fame, you can see the dent, with carbon, the outside might be fine, but the insides have let go and when you least expect it, the whole thing fails on you. Yes, I do ride a carbon seatpost and fork. I've had a seat post fail on me while doing a track stand at a stoplight. The thing just up and snapped. (It was an Easton, not a cheap post.) The fork honestly scares the heck out of me. I keep waiting for it to fail as I'm bombing down a rough back road at close to 50 mph. Its not a matter of if its going to let go, its a matter of when. My old room mate had an Easton fork fail mid leg on him as he was exiting a downhill decreasing radius corner in a crit a few years back. I caught the whole thing on film. The inside leg (he was making a right turn) failed about half way up, the wheel fell out of the dropout and down he went at close to 40 mph. It was a very ugly crash. There really isn't an alternative though. The metal forks are both too harsh and too heavy. Bonding metal parts to carbon is also a bad idea since it tends to cause corrosion of the metal that will cause the joint to fail. (You can see this on many of the early Cannondale 6/13s The ones with the bare carbon and unpainted aluminum lugs tend to have a milky appearance around the lugs. That is corrosion.) If a frame/fork is built as a single integrated piece, so the lugs are carbon as is the crown on the fork, and everything is interwoven, those should be stronger, but finding a fork like that is though. I think Time was the only company building forks that way. They were heavy however. Look might have made them as well, but I never found a Look fork I liked. The steerer tube on the Alpha Q is flexible. Even with the reinforcement sleeve in there and no spacers, I keep expecting it to break off on me. Its a fast fork, but it really does scare me.

Titanium is tough to work with, but it will last forever. Its got nearly an infinite fatigue life, depending on the alloy, it can be super hard and dent resistant (6/4 ti) and it can be nearly as light as a carbon frame. My Voodoo is a great frame, and its all straight gauge tubing. A double butted Ti frame will have an epic ride quality. Years ago I had the opportunity to build up a custom Moots Vamoots road frame for a customer and he offered me the first ride on it. It had the stiffness of my Strong, but it wasn't harsh. It was flat out fast. I've always wanted one, but I still can't afford one. As it is, I think I'm going to try to sell the Klein and skip some upgrades on the M3 to afford the new frame. I've written off my bike racing season this year before it even started due to my inability to be fast. (I was faster in January than I am now by a long way. I've gone from a little on the slow side to really really slow. I've added 18 minutes to a 20 mile ride since march. It makes no sense since I should be faster and more fit, not slower with no power. I can ride for hours at 19 mph, I can't do 15 minutes at 22 mph. I just pop. ) So I guess it doesn't really matter when I get the new frame. I guess I can still use the Tsunami for a commuter or perhaps even just a time trial bike (since being still and smooth is key to time trialing.) Either way I refuse to go race with and get dropped by the Cat 5s. I've raced at far to high of a level for far too long to deal with that. :roll: At that rate I might as well take one of my mtb frames and dig up my 11-18 straight block cassette, the 52 tooth chain ring, and slick tires and go back to racing crits on that with flat bars. ( I did actually win some races that way much to everyone's surprise.)

Eh, just as well, I found a cute women's cat 2 who is making a shift to racing dirt to ride with I'll ride dirt with her any time, any day. Yes, she is faster than I am right now, but I don't mind chasing... The view from behind isn't bad.

Will

[Sparkle']

Hi guys! This is my road bike, I got it in April 2012 and it has completely changed my life. I love it. Its a 2011 Specialized Dolce Elite

[Nick_S]

Not mine but holy hell this is gorgeous. 3D printed Ti lugs with carbon tubing.
LINK:

http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/05/28/3d-printed-masterpiece-in-carbon-and-titanium/#more-60646

[WhorifyingHunty]

^^ love it!

I have a huge centurion accordo, its a 63 cm and i wanna turn it into a woodgrain wall frame

[long tall eta]

check this video out.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=467792803305737

[LateFan]

... the Strong was the better frame. ...

Hey, a friend of mine's son rode for Carl Strong in Bozeman as a teenager. He's now riding in the TdF for a big team. He broke a Strong frame in half in a race once - something to do with steel quenching I think. But they are beautiful bikes.

He's my Colnago steelie. Carbon fork, steerer, seat post. Chorus 10 gruppo, Ksyrium wheelset. Such a blast to ride!

(Also an Alfa guy...'67 Duetto)
Cheers -

[Mr. Burns]

I'm a DH rider, and I admit that Colnago is sexy.

It's like the e30 of road bikes.

[M-technik-3]

^ Not a fan of Chorus but that is a very pretty Colnago, I need to send mine out for a respray, I plan to mount up my Campagnolo 50th anniversary Super Record. It's been sitting in a box since I bought it, with fresh paint and decals it will be a stand bike only or maybe a occasional club ride.