This morning's commute and other commuting stories

44/16 at the moment. It's on my list of things to change, although I was thinking more changing front.

I need to go to the confess thread and admit that I find gear ratios confusing though.

yea they can be a bit of a pain to work out. 48/17 is a good mid-range ratio and fairly easy to trackstand on and it's fairly low resistance so pull-offs are nice and nippy

use this,
http://www.bikecalc.com/gear_inches

there are a couple of apps you can use as well

for town riding, you should be aiming for mid 60's to early 70's depending on how strong you are..

Thanks @cornelius_blackfoot and @ajo1989. Be good to ponder more constructively now.

Bobbed a cheeky right into Laburnum St then down the A10. Was busy there as well, but not quite as deadly. In mild #boastpost news I stopped at the lights at the junction with a cheeky endo straight into trackstand and didn't fall off. Indeed I remained trackstanding for the whole light sequence.

Cheeky Nandos later?

ftfy

stopped at the lights at the junction with a cheeky endo straight into even cheekier trackstand and didn't fall off.

Yes bruv.

Dear Mr Hell,
Your email has been passed to our Professional Standards Unit. A member of that team will contact you in due course.
Regards
Lambeth Leadership Support Team

fight tha power! with sternly worded emails.

Ah shit, can't say cheeky anymore, I forgot. In my defence, the endo was cheeky.

Shifting the commute 10min early is so worth it these days..

Wake up earlier/10

Chuckled to myself as someone thonked into the back of a truck this morning rushing to run the red at the bottom of Holland Park Road/Col du Notting Hill.

So is it easier to track stand with higher count at rear?

Ahh, finally an explanation for why I can't do it.

Yea, much easier. If you imagine tooth count determining the amount of distance covered per revolution/full pedal (i.e. the lower the tooth count, the further distance per full revolution, and the higher the tooth count, the more spinny your pedalling will be therefore less distance traveled per revolution), it makes sense that a higher tooth count will be better to trackstand on, because the chain covers a higher surface area within the drivetrain the more teeth there are, making it more responsive to any force put on the pedals

Ah so I run a 17 rear so have no excuses. I'm basically just shit.

Ummm, that is quite a lot of crap.

It depends on the ratio of your chainring (front) teeth to your sprocket (back) teeth. Which is why it is called a gear ration.

So yes, for a given chainring size more teeth on your sprocket will make it easier to trackstand, but if, for example, you had a 100t chainring, then a 18t sprocket will be impossible to trackstand. it is the equivalent of a 9t sprocket on a 50t chainring.

No need to be touchy. I was trying to explain this with the assumption that the chainring is of regular/common size, i.e. 46, 48 etc. Talking about things like 100t chainrings is more of 'a lot of crap' as it's completely out of context to cycling. Unless you own a Donhou. Do you own a Donhou?

What do you run on the front?

Back when my parents were just wee nippers, they still had gear rationing. It was all you could do to get a 16T, let alone your fancy pants 18T. And chainrings! They had to cast chainrings out of melted down teapots.

Where did you get this done?

Teapots! We had to make do with our own teeth. Molars all over the road in those days

Sory mate can't say*

*no actual idea to what you are referring to

You had your Brooks stamped with your initials, I wondered where. My saddle got nicked and I want to do something similar.

(You should be able to see the relevant post if you click 'in reply to' above my post.)

@hamrack

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/138715/

Knocked off for the second time in 2 weeks - by that stupid bit of Road that's recently changed priorities going East just after Vauxhall Gyratory. He drove off... and then he came back! And was pretty decent about it, he just wasn't looking. DRIVERS :|