Road Cycling Essentials

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One More Solo said:
Don't bother with a flashing light, they're annoying for drivers and make it harder to judge distances. Just get a good, bright light for the front and maybe an extra one for your helmet if you feel flush.
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got any evidence for that?

always thought a flashing light was best, and yes I drive 5/6 days a week, I see bikes on the way to work at 5am with lights on, some with out, some flashing

I use a flashing light on my rear
 
ShiWarrior said:
got any evidence for that?

always thought a flashing light was best, and yes I drive 5/6 days a week, I see bikes on the way to work at 5am with lights on, some with out, some flashing

I use a flashing light on my rear
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I think it depends on how bright the flashing light is.
 
ShiWarrior said:
got any evidence for that?

always thought a flashing light was best, and yes I drive 5/6 days a week, I see bikes on the way to work at 5am with lights on, some with out, some flashing

I use a flashing light on my rear
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Only my own perception. I would never just use a flashing light as, think about it, there is a period of time in between flashes where you are invisible. A combination of one flashing light and one steady light is probably the way to go if you want to use a flashing one, though I personally just use bright steady lights front and rear.

Here's a good article on the "moth effect" associated with flashing lights: http://roadrules.ca/content/roadside-danger-and-moth-effect
 
One More Solo said:
Only my own perception. I would never just use a flashing light as, think about it, there is a period of time in between flashes where you are invisible. A combination of one flashing light and one steady light is probably the way to go if you want to use a flashing one, though I personally just use bright steady lights front and rear.

Here's a good article on the "moth effect" associated with flashing lights: http://roadrules.ca/content/roadside-danger-and-moth-effect
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Studies of warning lights within the last few years have looked at light output, flash rate, color and reaction to light emitted. When many emergency vehicles are at a crash site—the usual case—the proliferation of blinding and distracting warning lights can actually make the area even more dangerous. They distract and blind both the official responders and other motorists.
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I'm not convinced that really has any bearing on cycle flashing lights most peoples aren't anywhere near blindingly bright?

“The Moth effect” is the term coined for the high number of incidents in which motorists crash into parked emergency vehicles sitting on the shoulder illuminated by their bright flashing lights. Theories for this effect focus on the human instinct to look towards light, and the tendency to steer in the direction on which attention is fixated.
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How much of that is people being nosey and losing concentration ?

it also seems to be a study only one emergency vehicles parked on the hard shoulder of a motorway how relevant is it really to bicycles ? parking on the hard shoulder is dangerous enough anyway even if you don't have an emergency vehicle lights fitted and flashing
 
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touch said:
I like putting the old, heavy fulcrum 7s on after each race. If you keep the fancy wheels on all the time then you wont get that little boost when you swap to them for a race.
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I know what you mean, but I like going as fast as possible. Training with power in reality it doesn't make much difference in my opinion. Heavy wheels means you just go slower for the same output.
 
arknor said:
If I got any carbon stuff for my bike from china I would inspect it extremely carefully before putting it to use and reassemble It if possible
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That's the whole problem, you cant inspect them.
There's hundreds of people riding around on chinese carbon frames and wheels and very few of them actually know what the quality is like.
You cant tell just from looking at a carbon frame what the structure is like, you either need to xray it or cut it in half.
 
touch said:
That's the whole problem, you cant inspect them.
There's hundreds of people riding around on chinese carbon frames and wheels and very few of them actually know what the quality is like.
You cant tell just from looking at a carbon frame what the structure is like, you either need to xray it or cut it in half.
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true I don't think I would put my life in their hands tbh

even if they are known for quality they are still going to likely be made by someone working stupidly long hours which can cause mistakes
 
Spent the morning redoing my cabling on the TT bike. I don't have many decent pictures of the before, but the gear cables used to run along the underneath of each aero bar. Meaning that you would want to bar tape nearly the whole length to keep it all tidy, then the cables would run under the bars rather messily and into the top tube.

Drilled a cable sized hole near the end of the extensions to allow the cable to pass through and out the back, then into the top tube. SO much neater and nice to look at. Also means I wont't have to bar tape anywhere near as much.

Now need to get rid of the crummy vision brake levers for some SRAM numbers and I'll be good to go for next season. Just need to decide on white or black bar tape. Thinking of the black fizik tape with white logos as on my roadbike.

previous setup, you can kind of make out here:
IMG_8577_zps158a463c.jpg


new setup without bar tape:
FF2410BF-3B52-4678-9DF7-8A7ED75B21B9-2548-000001D94C7EDC20_zps3e8bc4b7.jpg


9823628A-CAE2-4C9C-B786-021F69D08207-2548-000001D84125B5AA_zps33d5f3de.jpg
 
uniQ said:
A friend had some Chinese 50mm tubulars his tyre blew so did the side wall of the wheel.
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I'll call ******** on that. With clinchers I'd believe a side wall could go but there's no pressure to blow out a rim sidewall with tubs.
 
arknor said:
true I don't think I would put my life in their hands tbh

even if they are known for quality they are still going to likely be made by someone working stupidly long hours which can cause mistakes
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Even so, you'd think the internet would be full of horror stories about Chinese carbon failures. It isn't, they fail no more often than branded stuff.

Agreed on the sidewall story by the way, I don't see how that's possible.
 
Most carbon frames are coming out of the far east. In fact most alu frames are coming out of the far east, but people ride them all day long. With all things though there are going to be good products and bad products.

There really aren't that many horror stories, mostly it is people worrying where their money is when there is a delay in manufacturing because of stock shortfalls. And quite frankly the most likely cause of a Chinese rim exploding is someone crashing into me and that is going to destroy my wheel whether it is 2000gbp of Zipps or 400gbp of China's finest at the end of the day.

Tubs do seem to be the way forwards though.
 
Gribs said:
I'll call ******** on that. With clinchers I'd believe a side wall could go but there's no pressure to blow out a rim sidewall with tubs.
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It may have been a carbon clincher, we were discussing Lightweight Tubs at the time though but it looked exactly like this:

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Thomas. PLease. said:
valve looks like a normal inner tube valve so I'd guess clinchers too.
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What valves do you have on your tubs? I thought pretty much all tubs had normal presta valves?

(or do you just mean you would expect it to have an extender on it?)

The shape of the tyre looks a bit more like a tub to me (it doesnt bulge out over the edge of the rim) but it's impossible to tell from the photo.
 
uniQ said:
It may have been a carbon clincher, we were discussing Lightweight Tubs at the time though but it looked exactly like this:
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There's no way I'd personally use a carbon clincher. They just don't make sense as if you're that desperate to save weight then tubs are still much lighter and there's a lot less chance of failure.
 
Gribs said:
There's no way I'd personally use a carbon clincher. They just don't make sense as if you're that desperate to save weight then tubs are still much lighter and there's a lot less chance of failure.
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If you want an aero wheel and don't want the hassle of a tub then they're your option...
 
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