La Flamme Rouge **off topic discussion**

magicbastarder

my sister bought her son a BMX from argos for christmas, and i put it together for her. for a bike for a ten year old, it was ludicrously heavy, and the bottom bracket didn't spin quite as freely as i'd want. and re cheap bikes being dangerous - nothing i could do would get the brakes working the way i wanted, they were stiff and unbalanced. apart from that, it was a fairly simple bike, with the exception of the doohickey at the head tube which allows the fork to spin freely through 360 degrees for stunts. the bike is too heavy for that sort of aerial trickery, and the pressed steel doohickey (which has the job of transferring the cable tension to the front brake in such a way that allows the fork to spin) didn't seem that robust.

but i guess the factories produce what the market wants, at the price point it wants (around €200 in this case AFAIK).

cletus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118533750#Comment_118533750

Unfortunately, I don't have my policy document completed yet😉

I know it wouldn't be easy, or perhaps not even possible, to implement, but from a social viewpoint, I would prefer to see a more equitable implementation of the scheme. Especially considering those who benefit least from it are probably most likely to need or use a bike for actually cycling to work.

While I'm at it, I'd change the rules so that employers were obliged to offer the scheme to their workers

cletus

Here's a question for any of you that record your cycles with garmin, wahoo or whatever, and also use your bike(s) for trips to the shop, leisurly spins with the kids, or whatever.

Do you record every km (or mile) that you do on the bike? or does your yearly total distance only count actual training/club etc spins

magicbastarder

i have a bike i use for shop trips and the like - the one i restored a year ago. i don't bother recording anything on that.

Weepsie

I record nearly everything but only because I have a Garmin watch too so I don't need to have a gps with me

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118534039#Comment_118534039

same here, it would probably only add up to a couple of hundred km per year max. I don't wear a smart watch and it's not worth putting the garmin on for short trips.

magicbastarder

plus, if you think about it, it's an insurance policy if you finish the year on, say, 4,950km. if you record every trip, you'd be kicking yourself for not making the extra 50km. if you don't record every trip, you can be smug thinking 'well, i did at least that on my beater, so quids in...'

Wildly Boaring

Only record the ones with road shoes......

Have a couple bikes with flat pedals, use them for collecting kids or going to shops etc

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118527814#Comment_118527814

The core argument isn't a safety one but an economic one. Unnecessarily complex cheap bikes (which are built poorly in the developing world) are not economically viable to pay someone to maintain in the developed world.

Show me a lbs making a living out of servicing that type of bike; they don't exist or they don't exist for long. t €25/hr (labour cost, tax, business costs and profit) plus parts will make the anything but the simplest repairs unviable.

I've lost count of the number of times family and friends have asked me to fix this type of bike, even with free labour the parts costs quickly matches the purchase price.

The end result is most of these bikes very quickly end up in recycling centres/landfill/dumped.

A simple bike with less complex parts (like the one I linked from Decathlon), maybe with a hub gear added, will be much simpler and cheaper to maintain and less likely to end up in a scrap heap. Even if poorly maintained it will still have some value.

No one and certainly not me has made safety the core argument, so you might leave out the strawmen thanks . The "Pretty nasty accidents" were bike part failures on low end bikes the insurance companies of shops had asked me to examine. Both plus the bottom bracket failure are due to a race to the bottom on price.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118534680#Comment_118534680

"pretty nasty accidents" was a direct quote from the person I was replying to so its not strawman or whatever other trendy internet phrase you want to throw at it.

Weepsie

I've had a BB fail on a relatively high end carbon frame. We've had 2 members here who had Ultegra cranks disintegrate on them. I've also had a tiagra crank arm just come off. So it's not just cheap bso.

People buying them, are far less likely to be doing any sort of cleaning or maintenance on them, whereas most here are at the very least cleaning chain, cassette etc regularly

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118534908#Comment_118534908

So you accept the core economic argument the lbs man on twitter made and as I and others have done here?

The entilted ****(is not trendy?) as you so eloquently put it was essentially correct?

Fighting Tao

Can anyone recommend a bike shop for a service in Dundalk? I think the bike station has a great name but it’s too far from me.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118535083#Comment_118535083

I dont and I've said why I think banning cheap bikes is wrong already so at this point I'm gonna stop annoying everyone else on Flamme Rouge and leave it there.

magicbastarder

there's a subtle difference between 'banning cheap bikes' and 'enforcing minimum standards' i suspect.

as weepsie mentioned, a lot of it is down to maintenance, and i also expect it'd be probably unworkable to apply minimum standards to brakes, say, which would be the low hanging fruit. you can bet your bottom dollar there have been collisions/accidents/call em what you will, where substandard brakes were a contributing factor.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118535048#Comment_118535048

I disagree with the implication that I clean or look after my bike regularly

Weepsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118539877#Comment_118539877

Which reminds me, I still have your pressfit tool that I finished with on the day. They've been in a bag beside my door for months and even made it into work

magicbastarder

why is it called a bottom bracket anyway?

surely a bracket is something solid and unmoving for attaching things to.

cletus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118539902#Comment_118539902

The term "bracket" refers to the tube fittings that are used to hold frame tubes together in lugged steel frames which also form the shell that contains the spindle and bearings; the term is now used for all frames, bracketed or not.

magicbastarder

aha, so the bottom bracket (originally, at least) refers to that portion of the frame, rather than the bearing assembly it contains?

magicbastarder

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnHyphen/status/1486599467134558213

Mr. Cats

My kids used to push me in the same way and somehow it seemed to work in making climb easier

In my case it was more like having a jockey spurring me on, I'd get a poke in the ribs if more speed was required or there was something interesting to be seen.

Seth Brundle

https://twitter.com/_shanmoho/status/1486615097015300097

tomasrojo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118535459#Comment_118535459

Yeah, I think, markets being what they are, you'd still get cheap bikes, but they'd be bikes with a minimal amount of ok features, rather than a plethora of cheap features. Say, a single chainwheel with a five-speed screw-on freewheel at the rear and rim brakes, and no attempts at suspension.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118541953#Comment_118541953

Nothing wrong with starting the kids out on single speeds, little maintenance, light(er), can't go like the clappers on descents. An all round winner.

CianRyan

Let's be fair, a lot of of use probably started out an a fixed gear bike. Might have been a front wheel, direct drive trike but that's still a single speed.

Honestly though, when my young fella is getting his first bike it'll be as simple as possible and preferably a well maintained used bike.

https://twitter.com/JumboVismaRoad/status/1487025478703722501

magicbastarder

https://mobile.twitter.com/lauren_tuite/status/1487213299401953283

Weepsie

That councillor " you can not choose one infrastructure over another" but is precisely what is in place everywhere nowm infrastructure for cars.