Opinions please on some pressing issues

petethedrummer

3 things I'd like opinions on:

1. Is there or has there ever been a Crit race in Mondello?

2. Forgetting about the implications of loads of bikes being deemed illegal. Wouldn't it be nice if the minimum weight of a road bike was raised so steel could be a viable alternative to Alu and Crabone fibre? This article put it into my head.

3. Should they ban electronic shifting and keep bikes mechanical?

el tel

1) Sorry don't know. But I do know that there is a summer series of Crit races at the motor circuit at Kirkistown, Co. Down. http://www.northdowncc.com/

2) I think that steel framed bikes might well become a viable alternative and will drop closer to the present UCI limit as steel technology advances and as favour/fad shifts back towards it. As it is, I don't think there should be any lower weight limit for bikes. It just seems too arbitary and only stunts bike development.

3) I'm in two minds about this. Apart from the computer I think everything on a bike in a race should be powered by the rider. On the other hand electronic shifting be a great development for other cycling applications and mostl likely it would be through racing that the technology would be developed best before trickling into mainstream cycling.

crashoveroid

petethedrummer wrote: »

3 things I'd like opinions on:

1. Is there or has there ever been a Crit race in Mondello?

2. Forgetting about the implications of loads of bikes being deemed illegal. Wouldn't it be nice if the minimum weight of a road bike was raised so steel could be a viable alternative to Alu and Crabone fibre? This article put it into my head.

3. Should they ban electronic shifting and keep bikes mechanical?

1 Not that i have ever heard of.

2 This is a personal choice and bikes never get weighed at local races unless your riding UCI events so its the riders choice.

3 IMO i think not its progress and i like the technical stuff in bike equipment i hate every time the UCI change things

GlennaMaddy

1. A recently established Kildare interclub league held their league opener at Mondello, and the underage champs used to be held there (long time ago).

No opinion on 2 & 3

petethedrummer

GlennaMaddy wrote: »

1. A recently established Kildare interclub league held their league opener at Mondello, and the underage champs used to be held there (long time ago).

Cool. I'd like to cycle round a race track, I have no idea why really.

kennyb3

petethedrummer wrote: »

Cool. I'd like to cycle round a race track, I have no idea why really.

because its the only road in ireland with no f'ing potholes on it?

DCU lad

GlennaMaddy wrote: »

1. A recently established Kildare interclub league held their league opener at Mondello, and the underage champs used to be held there (long time ago).

No opinion on 2 & 3

SDCC, kilcullen, carlow and a few other clubs now have clubs races in there.

petethedrummer

kennyb3 wrote: »

because its the only road in ireland with no f'ing potholes on it?

It could be that.:)
I also have this urge to cycle down the port tunnel.

ROK ON

petethedrummer wrote: »

It could be that.:)
I also have this urge to cycle down the port tunnel.

I'd be on for that.

petethedrummer

ROK ON wrote: »

I'd be on for that.

I'd like to say that its all hypothetical, don't want to bait Tim "Fencer" Allen into joining the thread.

As for electronic shifting. I'm opposed in principle but I doubt it will ever affect my life either way.

doozerie

petethedrummer wrote: »

3 things I'd like opinions on:

1. Is there or has there ever been a Crit race in Mondello?

2. Forgetting about the implications of loads of bikes being deemed illegal. Wouldn't it be nice if the minimum weight of a road bike was raised so steel could be a viable alternative to Alu and Crabone fibre? This article put it into my head.

3. Should they ban electronic shifting and keep bikes mechanical?

2. No, there should be no additional restrictions on what bikes can be used. The UCI already apply some pretty bizarre restrictions already based on very odd reasoning and going further down that road is not a good thing in my view. Right now riders can race on steel if they want to, and that choice should be theirs rather than enforced on them. Personally I think it would be great to see modern steel frames appearing in races but only because the riders choose to use them.

3. No, why restrict further development of bike parts? Electronic shifting doesn't give riders any great advantage, as such, that I can see. It can apparently change gear a little faster (and it claims to do so more reliably too), but I can't see that offering any significant advantage in itself over the top-end mechanical shifters. Some reviews I've read claim that it is quite reliable even in mucky conditions, perhaps more reliable than mechanical when shifting under load, so for cyclo-cross and mountain biking it might yet offer a slight advantage but it's too soon to say for sure - in the meantime I think that a good mechanic and a clever rider on mechanical shifting can make any advantage of electronic negligible.

One possible downside of electronic shifting is that it gives the manufacturers an excuse, some of it justified, to charge a hefty amount for the new electronic groupset(s) that they sell to the public and they might well raise the cost of their other groupsets in the process (to narrow the jump in cost to the electronic groupset and therefore encourage more people to make the leap), but that is a separate issue and possibly me just being cynical.

ED E

kennyb3 wrote: »

because its the only road in ireland with no f'ing potholes on it?

Amen to that.


Would be funny to see what they'd do if a group of 50+ cyclists hit the port tunnel off peak.

Greyspoke

Personally I'm not in favour of electronic gear shifting - surely part of the beauty of a bicycle is it's mechanical simplicity, something that is super efficient and yet essentially very simple.

Russman

Greyspoke wrote: »

Personally I'm not in favour of electronic gear shifting - surely part of the beauty of a bicycle is it's mechanical simplicity, something that is super efficient and yet essentially very simple.

+1 to that

Moflojo

I think with the evolution of technologies such as The Copenhagen Wheel electronic shifting might not be too far away even on mainstream bicycles.

Personally, as someone that started out using old-school drop-down manual gear levers, I don't like how gear shifters have developed into semi-automatic and (soon to be?) automatic systems. One of the things I enjoy about cycling is the harmonious relationship between man and machine and I think that the automation of gear shifting dampens a rider's feel for his bike.

Slideshowbob

The FIC (now CI) had the underage champs in Mondello circa 1990 iirc.

blorg

As far as I am aware the argument against steel for racing is more to do with flex than weight. I vaguely recall an article that compared a top of the range 1983 Pinarello to a modern carbon bike and the main complaint about the 1983 bike was not the weight but the flex. Eddy Merckx's (steel) hour record bike weighed 5.5kg incidentally. A track bike obviously but that is still damn light- and I think last time I looked for it I found steel bikes even lighter. "Drillium" was a big fad around this time.

Carbon has really won the argument for racing bikes; if the weight limit was raised you would just see teams using heavier carbon bikes. Even as things are now the pro bikes (according the articles I read anyway) often are well over the UCI weight limit- 7.2-7.5 seems to be common with road bikes and TT bikes can be a kilo over or more. On the other hand the only pro bikes I have looked over in any detail in the flesh (when buying my Columbia-HTC Zipps) did have weights glued to the downtube.

kumate_champ07

Reynolds 531 UTS: 700-900*MPa 7.8*g/cm3
Reynolds 953 UTS: 1750-2050*MPa, density 7.8*g/cm3

Its tensile strength is 2-3 times higher than 531 series so tubing can be made much thinner, resulting in large weight reduction. or it can be made ultra stiff

Its very hard to build with so theres not many people using it at the moment.



the flex issue didnt effect Sean Kelly who rode a Vitus 979 frame which flexes like crazy! that was lugged alluminium tho

Raam

petethedrummer wrote: »

Cool. I'd like to cycle round a race track, I have no idea why really.

You can do it on the Nurburgring for 24hrs if you want. I did it last year as part of a team.

Crippens1

I recall the underage national championships up to U-16 in 1978 were on the Mondello circuit. I rode the U-18 and it went out about Kildare before coming back onto the track for the finish. Phillip Cassidy won it; rode away on his own; I remember him a few hundred metres ahead as we went across the Curragh for a really long section of straight road and he just kept pulling away. 52 x 16 was the top gear.

I'll go to bed now and dream I won it!

Happy days.

killalanerr

petethedrummer wrote: »

Cool. I'd like to cycle round a race track, I have no idea why really.

i rode in those under age champs back then it was cool

i have rode it lately on a motorbike now that was just scary

The tax man

I raced Mondello in the 80's. Tough enough lap on a bike.
I recall a nasty crash in the sprint for the finish.

petethedrummer

Raam wrote: »

You can do it on the Nurburgring for 24hrs if you want. I did it last year as part of a team.

ah yes I remember your post about it now. But 4 hours is my upper limit in cycling now. And I'm not doing shifts.

Junior

killalanerr wrote: »

i rode in those under age champs back then it was cool

i have rode it lately on a motorbike now that was just scary

You weren't the only one !

doozerie

Moflojo wrote: »

I think with the evolution of technologies such as The Copenhagen Wheel electronic shifting might not be too far away even on mainstream bicycles.

Personally, as someone that started out using old-school drop-down manual gear levers, I don't like how gear shifters have developed into semi-automatic and (soon to be?) automatic systems. One of the things I enjoy about cycling is the harmonious relationship between man and machine and I think that the automation of gear shifting dampens a rider's feel for his bike.

I'm not sure what you mean when you describe gear shifters as being semi-automatic. Gear shifting is still a manual process, even on the latest electronic gear systems being used by the pros. The only difference with the electronic systems at the moment is that instead of your hand applying force directly to "push/pull" a gear cable to move the derailleur you push a button to trigger a motor into applying this force against the gear cable for you. I guess it could be argued as being a form of automation, but only in the same way as the current mechanical gear shifting systems could be described as being automated when compared against the need to remove and reverse a rear wheel to change to a different cog on bikes many years ago.

As regards the harmonious relationship that you describe between man and machine, I think this harmony is all in the eye of the beholder. Modern bikes have come a long way over the years both in very visible ways (derailleurs, concealed brake cables, clipless pedals, quick-release wheels, integrated brake+gear levers, improved and more efficient brake design, etc.) and in less visible ways (bottom bracket design, headset design, frame materials, etc.). It could be argued that each of the numerous innovations detracted from the "harmony" that existed to that point between bike and rider but I imagine that every rider would have a different view as to whether any particular innovation added to, or detracted from, their lives. Personally, I would choose my current bike over my first decent bike of over 20 years ago, without any hesitation, and I considered that first bike as a hugely positive advance from what would have been available up until that time. Not all innovations offer noticeable advantages admittedly, some even take a step backwards, but in general I believe that bike innovation has resulted in more comfortable, better handling, and safer, bikes.

TinyExplosions

doozerie wrote: »

I'm not sure what you mean when you describe gear shifters as being semi-automatic. Gear shifting is still a manual process, even on the latest electronic gear systems being used by the pros. The only difference with the electronic systems at the moment is that instead of your hand applying force directly to "push/pull" a gear cable to move the derailleur you push a button to trigger a motor into applying this force against the gear cable for you. I guess it could be argued as being a form of automation, but only in the same way as the current mechanical gear shifting systems could be described as being automated when compared against the need to remove and reverse a rear wheel to change to a different cog on bikes many years ago.

I think that's only true to a certain extent... while you still have to push a lever to change gear, DI2 will trim your derailleurs for you, essentially removing any cross-chaining problems, as well as performing the shift at the optimal point in the pedal stroke (so you don't get any brief binding, or at the worse dropping your chain on a rough shift).

doozerie

@TinyExplosions, Yes, as I understand it Di2 aims to relieve the rider of having to fine tune their (front) derailleur and also tries to avoid grinding or chain drop, but my reading of the earlier reference to semi-automatic was that the poster believed the system itself actually played some part in selecting when the gear was changed whereas this is still entirely down to the rider.

It's down to interpretation I guess, but personally I don't see a sub-second delay in the chain moving (as Di2 tries to avoid grind/drop) as being a form of automation as such. I think such things as the ramps/pick-up teeth on chainrings and cassettes already try to achieve a similar kind of "compensation" for gear changes made at a less than ideal moment with mechanical gear systems, but it wouldn't typically be viewed as a form of automation in mechanical systems. It is all a bit of a grey area in my view and I don't think the distinction between so-called mechanical systems and electronic systems is really as black and white as their names suggest.

Bluefoam

petethedrummer wrote: »

3 things I'd like opinions on:

Answers below in red,

1. Is there or has there ever been a Crit race in Mondello? This, I don't not know. Although if I read back through this thread I'm sure I'd probably find out

2. Forgetting about the implications of loads of bikes being deemed illegal. Wouldn't it be nice if the minimum weight of a road bike was raised so steel could be a viable alternative to Alu and Crabone fibre? This article put it into my head. I am not qualified to answer this, try asking someone else

3. Should they ban electronic shifting and keep bikes mechanical?Again I don't know. If you provide more information I can attempt to make a ruling on this matter.