In all my years of #cycling, I've never found a great solution for cold weather. If I bundle up so I'm not chilled, then I soak everything with sweat in short order. If I wear less, then I freeze. I've tried Merino wool, synthetics (Gore, Event, etc.), and so on, but nothing works well enough for me.
Sadly, that means I don't do anything exciting on the #bicycle during the coldest part of the year. Just my daily local loop. :blobfoxsad:
@tk@biketooter@cycling@mastobikes I find I have a crazy steep temp gradient with almost any aerobic exercise and chronically overdress, so this makes sense to me
@tk@biketooter@cycling@mastobikes i warm the absolute hell out of my hands and feet before going out but for bicycling especially it’s been awhile. Want access to a mountain bike with nice wide tyres for actual snow.
If I were to get a titanium #bicycle, I'd definitely spec a compliant steel fork. I feel like steel folks get a bad rap because consumer grade production ones are overbuilt, especially ones with disc brakes! #cycling
I have an aluminum frame track bike with a carbon fork that I am considering switching to a steel fork. I guess the ride a little whippier but the front wheel is the place you want rigid control over what is moving where...
@LabSpokane
If you are talking about the average rider, they take their bike to the shop to get the pads replaced, but only at the point where they are making grinding noises or not working properly. Hydraulic discs self-adjust through the life of the pad, so they stay close to as-new performance right up until they're almost completely worn out, while rim or cable discs require constant adjustment to stay at optimum performance. @nothingfuture@hughtaylorscifi@v_perjorative@cycling@mastobikes
I have very long legs and a short torso, so "normal" bicycle frames never fit me very well. I always end up with a lot of seatpost height and a short stem, even though I'm leaned forward comfortably and with plenty of power in my pedal stroke.
When I'm riding my #ebike I hate the pressure I feel to accelerate to the speed limit when there are cars behind me. My bike can do 45mph but must we!? #20IsPlenty
After over two decades, Surly moved the Cross-Check frameset from their standard lineup of bikes to the ‘Legacy Lineup’ of their website. Surly confirmed that the bike is no longer in production and is unlikely to come back.
If you haven’t owned this gravel/cyclocross/touring/whatever bike yourself, you likely know someone who has. The Surly Cross-Check was the egalitarian choice in cycling, simultaneously someone’s utilitarian dream bike that was attainable and sold at a fair price.
The end of the Cross-Check marks the bike’s reign as the most bike that ever biked, the go-to way to make a pile of parts you hoarded in the corner of your garage into a functioning bicycle, and the defacto option that a bike nerd could happily ride and recommend to their non-bikey friends all the same.
@tk@cycling@mastobikes@mhoye Aw, dang. I rejoined the cycling world 12 or 13 years ago on a black Cross Check. I loved it unreservedly, and kept it in my garage for years after I rode it regularly— it got displaced by lighter, shinier bikes — mostly out of sentimental reasons.
I finally sold it last year to a math grad student who rides it nearly every day.
@chrishuck@tk@cycling@mastobikes
As a Swiss elite cycling racer told me once: cx is one hour of freezing, suffering and going way over your limits. So a perfect winter work out.
Mostly did road racing before the pandemic paused the season so I tried solo TT racing then tried CX which felt like it had the best of all worlds going for it.
First ever CX race was on a custom built 90s Hardrock MTB with drop bars. Fell over 3 times, had fun, and am in my third season of it.
@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.
Do you see a lot of cargo-bicycles (trikes, two-wheelers with baskets, bikes with trailers etc.) in your daily life? And what appears to be the most common usage; work-bikes, kid-transport, general use, shopping?
Mine: Rural Denmark (town with some surprisingly large companies). Cargo-trikes and bike-trailers are a very common daily sight. They appear to be used equally for kid-transport and general use. Two wheeled cargo-bikes are less common.
@Pepijn Most are kids-transport, we ourselves used a trailer quite often for our two kids. Now i'm hoping for a plan to rebuild it as cargotrailer (sorry, only in german).
But i really wouldn't need to, because in our town, the local student association offers two-wheeled and other cargobikes to lent for free.
An use by craftsmen is seldom, i rarely remember any...
Kind of annoyed with White Industries at the moment. The original press-fit bearings in my Stanyan’s MI5 rear hub needed replacement a long while ago, so I had my local bike shop order them (which took forever to be shipped by Enduro) and swap them out. Unfortunately, the same amount of play persisted after the bearing swap despite said shop following White Industries’s directions to the T multiple times. My shop has called White Industries multiple times only to not be given any recourse.
I’ve been out that Stanyan for several weeks now and I don’t know if I should just get a different hub put in the wheel or something at this point. :blobfoxannoyed: