Bike porn

A coach.

A coach.

To draft behind?

Haha I was thinking of a funny reply but you beat me to it.

:-)

is it not fucking idiotic to name your company "english" and have the union jack?

is it not fucking idiotic to name your company "english" and have the union jack?

Im Scottish, I fucking deffo won't be buying one. :)

is it not fucking idiotic to name your company "english" and have the union jack?

'English' is the builders surname.

MDCC, this statement of yours made me think of the following hypothetical situation:
Say I want to start racing, I have an average 80s roadbike and I'm looking to make it faster. What would be the single most cost-effective upgrade that I should make? Lighter wheels? More aerodynamic wheels? STI style integrated brake/shifters?

tyres then wheels a coach when you start getting good

A coach.

Probably this, assuming you already have it fitted properly. Really cost effective upgrades, in terms of watts saved per pound spent, can often be made to tyres/tubes. If you have the wrong ones, £70 can buy you 10W at 30mph, a saving which might be impossible or hugely expensive on a wheel purchase, depending on your starting point. STIs won't make your bike faster, but they might be the difference between staying in the group and getting dropped, so definitely get those if you're road racing. After that, it's pretty certain that more aerodynamic wheels will make a bigger difference to your speed when you're alone/on the front than any modest weight saving, although you can shed quite a bit of weight of most older/stock bikes for not much money by well considered upgrades to bars/stem/ seat post.

That is one sweet looking bike. Belt drive too, loving the colourway and most things about it. Win. Something else to covet.

F + F just $5000.00

Found on American eBay. http://cgi.ebay.com/NOS-Vintage-AIRLITE-Track-Bike-Hub-Fixed-Gear-Bicycle-/380319672315?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item588cd1a7fb

YES YES YES YES YES, I'm after some decent high flange track hubs, and those looked ideals, then I saw the price, and thought, fuck, I could buy a car for that! Or 3 cars actually.
damn sweet piece of fine metal though.

The Airlite stuff often goes through the roof.

Cheaper than the Phils Wood version.

Now this I Love! Not particularly to look at, but I just love the fact it has Rotor guards. A friend of mine ran a disc brake on his polo bike. I thought it was a great idea at first......until a mallet hit it and bent it like a pretzel.

i like the mallet, it looks like a rubber ended one, always Wonder if that would work for polo

Probably this, assuming you already have it fitted properly. Really cost effective upgrades, in terms of watts saved per pound spent, can often be made to tyres/tubes. If you have the wrong ones, £70 can buy you 10W at 30mph, a saving which might be impossible or hugely expensive on a wheel purchase, depending on your starting point. STIs won't make your bike faster, but they might be the difference between staying in the group and getting dropped, so definitely get those if you're road racing. After that, it's pretty certain that more aerodynamic wheels will make a bigger difference to your speed when you're alone/on the front than any modest weight saving, although you can shed quite a bit of weight of most older/stock bikes for not much money by well considered upgrades to bars/stem/ seat post.

It obviously depends on how fast and flat the ride is, but I thought aero wheels only really made sense on bikes needing to stay over the regulation 6.5kg. And if your bike is over that your nearly always best off shedding as much rotating mass as possible?

It obviously depends on how fast and flat the ride is, but I thought aero wheels only really made sense on bikes needing to stay over the regulation 6.5kg

The UCI limit is 6.8, but it's irrelevant; under pretty much any circumstance short of a UK-style hill climb, aero wheels trump light wheels in terms of the total energy needed to propel the bike over the whole course. Cervelo calculate that elite riders would need to be climbing >8% for the 200g penalty of an S3 frame to be a problem compared with the less aero R3, and frames make much less difference than wheels.

So basically that means that in almost all instances, Mavic Aksuims are better wheels than the lighter and more expensive Ksyriums, because Aksiums are more aero?

I remember he was saying that the Aksuims are superior despite being cheaper.

Ironically our stock of Aksuims is not being recalled, probably an isolated incident as I was going to get a front one for my fixed wheel bike.

So basically that means that in almost all instances, Mavic Aksuims are better wheels than the lighter and more expensive Ksyriums, because Aksiums are more aero?

Yes. This was the big joke about the R-Sys recall - Mavic free-issued Aksiums to people while the R-Sys problems were sorted, and anybody who bothered to conduct proper tests would have discovered that their new 'free' wheels were actually faster than the exploding wheels they had just wasted £1000 buying.

so what would you say are the best value/perfomance wheels then?

so what would you say are the best value/perfomance wheels then?

How long is a piece of string?

Cosmic Carbone SL is probably the most aero clincher wheel under £1000, they have a reputation for being plenty strong (apart from the slightly suspect FTS-L freehub, but as long as you're aware of it's limitations it's a maintenance problem rather than a reliability problem), and they are usable in most wind conditions.

is the performance : value proportionally better than say a semi aero wheelset that cost £250?

Trying to think of an example and failing

is the performance : value proportionally better than say a semi aero wheelset that cost £250?

I cannot possibly make that judgement for you. The objective performance gain over a cheap but well designed 30mm alloy wheel like a Shimano RS30 is quite small, but I have no way of knowing whether that gain is worth the price difference of typically £600 to you.

haha - touché

I'm asking hypothetically - not personally. I've already got wheels :)

For those not racing. The feeling of being able to maintain pace with slightly less effort. Is less detectable than the feeling of being able to accelerate quicker. Its especially noticable, as we non-racers will vary our pace more. Call all it smile factor.

So if you ride purly for smiles, lighter beats aero.
If you ride to compete, aero beats lightness.

Cervelo calculate that elite riders would need to be climbing >8% for the 200g penalty of an S3 frame to be a problem compared with the less aero R3, and frames make much less difference than wheels.

Very interesting. I wonder if stiffness was also a small factor?

Re: aero frames. What is the point of making the seat-tube + seatpost super aero. When the rest of the frame pays little attention to aerodynamics. My Racemaaster, has a tear-drop seat tube + seatpost, and even a rear wheel cut-out. Yet the head tube and down tube have the aero dynamic properties of a sack of potatoes. Is this faux-aero design feature purely to make the bike look fast? (I'm OK with that TBH)