@schizanon@cycling Lightweight cassettes, particularly ones with aluminium cogs in them are overrated. On wide range mountain bike cassettes it's very common for the biggest cog or two to be made of aluminium. If you live somewhere with steep climbs this cog will wear way faster than the rest of the drivetrain. I find that with a fully steel drivetrain I don't have to replace chains or cassettes nearly as often.
@schizanon@cycling
Most overrated? Carbon. It’s brittle, has a really unfavorable failure mode, and can’t be recycled at end of life.
Aero-everything. Just like being obsessed with a bike’s weight, aero on the bike is marginal gains for most people, and it has really negative effects on the feel/comfort of those bikes too.
@nothingfuture@schizanon@cycling Most underrated? The square taper bottom bracket. Yes, yes & yes. On one of my bikes the Shimano UN55 BB has been running untouched these last 15+ years, used in all weathers, & still solid.
@geomannie God, no! It’s probably fused forever with the crank arms. Wait until the bearings give up and someone will have to work on it…😂@nothingfuture@schizanon@cycling
@ssamulczyk@nothingfuture@schizanon@cycling It happens occasionally (I work on a lot of bikes) but I'll take a BB that has a design life longer than most modern bikes any day.
@geomannie@nothingfuture@schizanon@cycling The last touring expedition I went on where a square taper was present, one of us ended up carrying a club hammer for ongoing repairs - hammering the non-drive crank back on. For touring, the octalink design was a big improvement in reliability over square taper.
Overrated: front derailleurs and how many people need more than 5 gears, anyway?
Underrated: cargo racks. People should have to go out of their way to buy a bike that can’t carry stuff, not the other way around. Imagine having to retrofit all your jackets with pockets.
I love my front derailleur!😃
I had 72 gears before I fitted a mid drive motor and lost the front derailleur.
I just mounted a spider to the motor replacing the single chainring. I mounted my original 42 and 56 tooth chainrings on it and have refitted the derailleur.
The 42 tooth chainring is slightly smaller than the original one. The 56 tooth chainring is great for downhill speed!😉
@famousringo@schizanon@cycling While I agree with cargo racks, all I'll say about your views on gears is you very obviously never cycle in Devon county, UK! We consider gradients of 5% or less to be flat
@ssamulczyk@famousringo@schizanon@cycling I'm not changing my drivetrain just to catch up with the latest fashions. More to the point, with your 1 x 12 setup, you have 7 more gears than the OP said was necessary 😉
@WilliamNB In terms of upgrade on a whim it’s not worth it, I agree… But it is when you build a new bike… A year ago I’d go for 1x10. But I had serious issues with mud and cables on my gravel bike and I went nuclear on it. Switched to SRAM AXS (Eagle+Force) and I’d never go back to cables and Shimano…🤷🏻♂️ @famousringo@schizanon@cycling
@WilliamNB The only thing that failed me on a bicycle was cables… Once brake cable snapped on me just before crossroads… I had multiple shifter cable issues. Once it took one ride in the mud to ruin just installed brand new cable and housing…🤷🏻♂️ @nick@cycling@schizanon@famousringo
@WilliamNB@nick@cycling@schizanon@famousringo@ssamulczyk I have never had a front derailleur fail either, but then I run friction & replace the cables reasonably often. When servicing other folks bikes, particularly older & lower end bikes, I get a lot of trouble adjusting worn & poorly engineered indexed front derailleurs.
Just run friction, especially on front derailleurs. Few set up issues & so easy to trim.
@famousringo So true. I live in a hilly city, but I spend 95+% of my time riding between the 3rd and 6th gears in the back without touching the front derailleur. There's the occasional hill that needs the small gear or allows the big gear in front even with a toddler or loads of groceries behind me.
The extra gearing was nice getting started years ago, but now it's just more things that need adjusting and fixing.
@famousringo@schizanon@cycling
Ooff, I need all the gears, it's too hilly where I live to get away with only 5 gears. I have 7 gears on the rear derailleur of my ebike, and on the rare occasions when I've run out of juice, the lowest gear isn't enough to get up over the hills. If I lived in a flatter area I might agree with you.
@autumn That’s funny, because for me it’s the other way around with pedals. My feet keep falling and lifting of the pedals if not clipped in. I’ve never fallen over in nearly 10 years of cycling because of being clipped in… @schizanon@cycling
@ssamulczyk different (pedal) strokes for different folks! i’ve been cycling for a good 15 years now. only fallen twice: hit by a car & following too close behind somebody on a gravel downhill while fully loaded. i don’t think clipping in would have helped either of those, haha.
@schizanon What’s overrated is going back to niche friction shifters in inconvenient places in 2023…😂 Some of the things mentioned are awesome. Electronic shifting is expensive, sure. But it works great. And I never again want to have a bike with cables all over the place…🙏@cycling
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