I had some kind of epiphany

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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May 11, 2010
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Charlotte, NC
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Snorting his way across the USA
Yeah pretty much that. Here is the backdrop. Yesterday I went on a bike ride. I go on lots of bike rides. I love riding bikes. When I am not flying or the Asian chick thing or burgers I am riding my bicycle.

Well, my four grand (including the good deal on the Mavic Krysrium wheelset I scored on Ebay bicycle, well, yesterday, I was 15 in to a 30 mile ride and the right shifter started binding. The right shifter is the paddle that controls the rear derailleur, which, is fairly critical. Well...

Snap.

Yeah, it snapped off. I now have a two speed bike. Slow cruise and fast cruise. I can't negotiate significant hills. I can't... Well forget about all of that. It isn't relevant.

I was looking at my bike today. Like it was a girlfriend. Or a prison *****. Not a wife because I ride it every day. But...

I am trying to shift paradigms here. I was looking at it. It is a beautiful bike. It is injured. It will recover. Parts are on order. It is not a compromised bike. I was never intended to be a perfect bike.

Where am I going with this. You might love your airplane. Or your car. Or you motorcycle. Or your pet. Or your postal collection. Or your HO scale train. Or you girlfriend. Or your wife. Listed roughly in order.

How can I stand in the garage drunk off my ass and view my bike knowing that for the next ten days I can't ride more than twenty miles over flat land with no wind because there are no gears and damn I love my burger girls, that is why I do it. That is why.
 
The ethanol interlock has failed again. Are parts on order for it as well?
 
Dang new-fangled 21st Century components!
 
Learn to ride a single speed. All the hipsters are doing it now. And only drink single malts, no matter who you are.
 
N659HB said:
Get yourself a classic steel bike with downtube shifters.
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I have one of those, a 1984 Trek 620 that I bought new. I never ride it, I almost always take my Giant Defy, all carbon with a crazy wide gear range. I'm not getting any faster.
 
10 days?? You can't find anything where you live in a shop? You running Campy or Shimano? What group?
 
Evidently you missed ,checking the shifters ,on the last annual.I feel your pain.
 
FormerHangie said:
I have one of those, a 1984 Trek 620 that I bought new. I never ride it, I almost always take my Giant Defy, all carbon with a crazy wide gear range. I'm not getting any faster.
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I have a carbon bike as well, a Cannondale, that's light and nimble. I prefer my '84 De Rosa Professional. I'm no slower on steel.
 
Time for a fixie? All that geartrain hardware is excess weight and aerodynamic drag anyway.
 
Sac Arrow said:
How can I stand in the garage drunk off my ass and view my bike knowing that for the next ten days I can't ride more than twenty miles over flat land with no wind because there are no gears and damn I love my burger girls, that is why I do it. That is why.
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Back when I rode a lot, I thought I was riding for fitness, then one day it dawned on me: I was riding to escape the daily crap and have some time totally alone. Probably why I also never liked riding in groups (besides getting dropped towards the end of the ride).
 
Amateur...... I have three bikes. All purpose built. Stop whining and buy another. You now have an excuse AND justification for a custom build. Buy a frame and build it yourself. Only way to get what you want.
 
N659HB said:
Back when I rode a lot, I thought I was riding for fitness, then one day it dawned on me: I was riding to escape the daily crap and have some time totally alone. Probably why I also never liked riding in groups (besides getting dropped towards the end of the ride).
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That would make it mental fitness. :)
 
If I'm not regularly outdoors expending effort on a two-wheeled contraption, I'm not happy.

I used to ride 150-200 miles per week. I called it my "rolling psychotherapy." Did that for a few years until degenerated discs and subsequent surgery caused me too much pain to ride an upright bike. After a couple years of going nuts over not being able to ride, I converted to recumbents and got happy again. Over the past year, I've been riding a RUN4 Bionic Runner, a sort of elliptical on two wheels.

Even though I adapted, I still miss riding my upright bikes (yeah, I had more than one).
 
MtnMarcus said:
10 days?? You can't find anything where you live in a shop? You running Campy or Shimano? What group?
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The local shops don't stock partial group sets. I'm running SRAM.

Unit74 said:
Amateur...... I have three bikes. All purpose built. Stop whining and buy another. You now have an excuse AND justification for a custom build. Buy a frame and build it yourself. Only way to get what you want.
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I haven't bothered to replace the MTB after the frame succumbed to fatigue. I'm tempted to drop some coin on a Colnago, maybe outfit it with a Campy groupset.

asicer said:
Time for a fixie? All that geartrain hardware is excess weight and aerodynamic drag anyway.
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A fixie doesn't work well here, some of the grades are steep enough I can barely do them in low gear on a road bike.
 
Hmmmm.... and for years I rode a late 1940s model Sears and Roebucks with only one gear and coaster brakes, unless the chain came off, then stopping meant hitting the back of the 1953 Dodge pickup because even as a kid I only knew one speed.......fast.

And pop liked the balloon tires to be filled with air. I mean rock hard filled with air. Until one let loose at about 2am and woke up everyone in the house, and every dog in the neighborhood.
 
My philosophy is that a heavier bike gives one a better workout......besides, what’s your hurry?
My cyclometer is to monitor cadence not speed.

....and don’t get offended but index shifting is for pu....s. :eek::D
 
Lachlan said:
Learn to ride a single speed. All the hipsters are doing it now. And only drink single malts, no matter who you are.
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This is so fricken true. That was like the hipster thing on my college campus. They rode them around campus as if they were in the biggest race of their life
 
Zeldman said:
Hmmmm.... and for years I rode a late 1940s model Sears and Roebucks with only one gear and coaster brakes, unless the chain came off, then stopping meant hitting the back of the 1953 Dodge pickup because even as a kid I only knew one speed.......fast.

And pop liked the balloon tires to be filled with air. I mean rock hard filled with air. Until one let loose at about 2am and woke up everyone in the house, and every dog in the neighborhood.
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WHAT! No baseball cards on the spokes! :eek:
 
N659HB said:
I have a carbon bike as well, a Cannondale, that's light and nimble. I prefer my '84 De Rosa Professional. I'm no slower on steel.
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If I had all the gears on the steel bike that I have on the carbon one, I'd never have bought the carbon one. I don't think the frame makes much of a difference, but I need all those gears to get up and down these hills.
 
FormerHangie said:
If I had all the gears on the steel bike that I have on the carbon one, I'd never have bought the carbon one. I don't think the frame makes much of a difference, but I need all those gears to get up and down these hills.
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Yeah, I know what you mean about getting up the hills! Old steel frames will accept 10-speed (and higher) groups. You just need to spread the rear triangle a few mm.
 
N659HB said:
Yeah, I know what you mean about getting up the hills! Old steel frames will accept 10-speed (and higher) groups. You just need to spread the rear triangle a few mm.
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....or not.
Frames designed for touring should accommodate.
Eg. Bob Jackson Super Tourist that I built up in the 80’s - cut my riding teeth on the roads to and from the Blue Ridge Parkway. “Granny Gears” in those days (still a term?). My shortest gear is now 25.4 inches. (Anybody still do gear inches?)
 
FormerHangie said:
If I had all the gears on the steel bike that I have on the carbon one, I'd never have bought the carbon one. I don't think the frame makes much of a difference, but I need all those gears to get up and down these hills.
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It's not a carbon vs. steel thing, it's a double crank vs. triple crank thing. Most modern road bikes have double crank sets, but triples can be had in a carbon road configuration.

I used to attack climbs in Napa on my old Schwinn Traveler (steel, down tube shifters, triple crank set) that I can't touch on my Specialized Tarmac, just because of the gearing. But, those I can touch, I get up a hell of a lot faster on the Tarmac.

I love carbon and won't go back, but damn, the ride of steel is a lot smoother. Aluminum on a bike I have no use for. It's a rough ride. Necessarily because you can't design an aluminum frame to flex like you can with steel or carbon.

Anyway, for those that haven't seen it, my bike is in this thread.
 
I thought that way about ALU bikes as well, but the ones with CF forks are not too bad. Rode a Specialized Secteur several years.
 
If you want to see what's possible, mixing old and new, visit bikeforums.net. I used to spend quite a bit of time there.
 
I never understood the appeal of roadbiking...when I raced motocross I did some training that involved roadbiking on a regular basis, but I didn’t necessarily enjoy it.
 
N659HB said:
I thought that way about ALU bikes as well, but the ones with CF forks are not too bad. Rode a Specialized Secteur several years.
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I enjoyed my Specialized, until I moved out here where the edge of the roads are rippled to inside the white lines (so the hum will tell you you're about to run off the road). Those just aren't compatibke with road bike tires . . .
 
Hank S said:
I enjoyed my Specialized, until I moved out here where the edge of the roads are rippled to inside the white lines (so the hum will tell you you're about to run off the road). Those just aren't compatibke with road bike tires . . .
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They've put in those rumble strips around here as well. I hate them.
 
Friday I bought a Giant Escape hybrid, the old heavy Fuji mountain bike couldn’t keep up with the better half on the Rail Trail with her Trek Hybrid. Yesterday we rode the Rail Trail for a test drive and new bike runs well. Only went out about six miles and decided to return on the highway to get a feel of how it runs on the road. Passing a house just off the road a loose Pit Bull comes running out and attacking me. I manage to kick it off with my right foot and it comes around to the left side still in attack mode, and I kick it off with my left foot. With the last kick the dog retreats and I escape uninjured. Poetic Justice – a couple hundred feet further down the road I see a police cruiser coming and I flag him down, explain the problem of a loose aggressive Pit Bull and ask him to visit the house. So within a couple of minutes of the attack these idiots have a police car with lights flashing in their drive.

I stopped by the PD later and ask the officer how did it go when he talked with the owners of the pit bull? He said, Ya, they know but the dog is old and can’t hurt anyone. Bulls..t! And last week one of their dogs was hit and killed on the highway.

I also had an Epiphany, WHY DO PEOPLE WITH LOW IQ’s HAVE PIT BULLS!!
It seems everyone who onws a Pit Bull has an IQ lower than the Dog’s IQ!

Holy Sh..t, where’s my beer!
 
Sorry for your troubles Sac, but a real rider would have a back up bike, just saying.
 
I rarely do pedals, usually only when we go on vacation. My wife and I are hikers.
But I have 3 motos in the garage, ranging from 120 to 185 hp, which get ridden, a lot.
No Harleys. I only ride fast bike. :devil:
 
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