Re: Oh, that's great... really...

On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 00:43:12 +0000, Jasper Janssen wrote:


> You need more practice so you stay just under the limit rather than just
> over it.

I haven't supermanned since Christmas 04, and that was a result of a nice
oil/water suspension on the rims scraping off at an inopportune moment.
The back wheel regularly comes off the ground under heavy braking, more so
on the mountain bike than the commuter. It's more a worry on the road when
you're travelling around 50-60km/h and have to stop *hard*, which means
you hit the front brake hard enough to bring the back up. Lots of practice
means you don't go flying, but if you haven't played with stoppies, it's
easy to panic and brake harder, so I stand by my comment that it's easy to
force a full endo even if you're seated and bracing.

Modern push bike brakes have lots of power, particularly if you're talking
mountain bike brakes. I can lock a 2.5" tyre on tarmac wih my play bike's
front brake, and that's a lot of braking force - the only reason I don't
endo there is the 50kg of kids + trailer on the back.

> My personal favourite for low-mileage commuting would still be a
> threespeed or the modern equivalent.

Depends on the terrain. I'm tempted by the Shimano Nexus 8sp hub gear,
which is roughly equivalent to a 34-11 cluster. Running that and around a
42 tooth chainring should be good for hills up to 1:10 or so, and speeds
up to around 55km/h, so pretty good for Sydney. You could also fit a chain
guard so riding in work clothes would be a bit more practical, but for a
25km each way commute I get too sweaty for that. On reasonably flat ground
I'd probably just go a singlespeed with around 2.5:1 or 3:1 gearing.

Dave - whose legs do not like the ~1:5 hill with 2:1 gearing on one of my
rides.

--
Dave Hughes | dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remember Jeebus loves you. Or maybe he's just sucking up to get your old
bike bits. - Phil Las Gourgues

.

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