The Thread about Nothing....

Since 2001, over 90,000 cyclist's have joined Cycling Forums to discuss topics from general cycling to equipment, training, racing and travel or vacation destinations (especially in europe during the tour de france). We also feature an great deals in our online store, 100's of articles, classifieds and product reviews.

I would get the internet JUST for that!

Have ya got this one?

obviously doesn't show rain, just cloud
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDE00902.loop.shtml

No, haven't seen that one before but I must confess my use of the site is fairly basic these days. I used to be right into all the satellite imagery and sea surface wind and temperature analyses when we were yacht racing.

Timely advice...the kids and the ex are coming over in a few minutes so we can all go off to the sons soccer. I've been trying to work on which insult I was going to through at her first...perhaps I'll just say hi and behave...:cool:

Be calm, Grasshopper, be calm.

Hey Jocko, who looks after the CCCC website? It's disappeared.

Hey Jocko, who looks after the CCCC website? It's disappeared.
Not me. I raised the thought of maintaining the site with a small group rather than an individual at the start of this year and was outpointed by others who thought the guy who's running the thing should keep doing it on his own.

So I bite my tongue as I see the content stay the same with the occaisional cosmetic facelift to the look and feel. And now they have no site or club emails because someone forgot to pay the bill.

tsk, tsk, tsk

Not me. I raised the thought of maintaining the site with a small group rather than an individual at the start of this year and was outpointed by others who thought the guy who's running the thing should keep doing it on his own.

So I bite my tongue as I see the content stay the same with the occaisional cosmetic facelift to the look and feel. And now they have no site or club emails because someone forgot to pay the bill.

tsk, tsk, tsk

Dammit! How am I going to know which days to avoid Peats Ridge Rd? It would be fine if you buggers stuck to the same day every weekend, but some weeks its Saturday and others its Sunday. How's a girl supposed to plan her cycling so she avoids getting in the way of a road race?

Dammit! How am I going to know which days to avoid Peats Ridge Rd?


How about avoid it completely? Or just ride it?

:D

How about avoid it completely? Or just ride it?

:D

Yeah, well, I've been avoiding it if late - but it is a really nice bit of road for riding.

Don't know the guy as such, but hubby bought me a frame from him a few months ago. (we are making it up with a mix of Shimano 600 and 10sp Ultegra) Unfortunately, he had no idea who the maker was. :( He has a couple of interesting things on Ebay at the moment.

Anyone out there fancy themselves as a frame identifier? I'll post a couple of pics if someone thinks they might be able to recognise an 80's possibly early 90's frame.

And it's 10C and raining here. Oh well, at least the water tanks are getting filled.

Post some pics, I'm not the best but I like mid to late 80's bikes
(just ask the hubby, he hangs out in Cranky & Vintage forum back at BF).

funny that Ben wouldn't know the framemaker, he has always been pretty
spot on with that kind of thing. He's the one I bought the Pogliaghi off of.
He got it from Eddie Salas who bought it back in 83.

Wattsy, I particularly like "You fat Fargin Slug" when it comes to my
ex, pretty much suits her too.
Althought to be honest it isn't the best approach to opening lines
of communication.
Marty

Post some pics, I'm not the best but I like mid to late 80's bikes
(just ask the hubby, he hangs out in Cranky & Vintage forum back at BF).

funny that Ben wouldn't know the framemaker, he has always been pretty
spot on with that kind of thing. He's the one I bought the Pogliaghi off of.
He got it from Eddie Salas who bought it back in 83.

Marty

Well the frame has been painted a couple of times so any identifying marks had been well and truly obliterated. He bought it for the running gear and once he'd stripped that off, really didn't have any use for a 51cm frame.

Anyways, if you want to see some pics check out ....
http://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=181378

Condolences Wattsy.
If it's any consolation it normally only takes me a couple of years to get over a relationship breakup. In no time at all it'll be 2009 and you'll be all healed up for the next goround :D
You're always welcome to pop on over here anytime. I can bitch about parking cops while you bitch about the missus and when the carton of Coopers is gone we'll be ready to start a ruckus on the TAN. Heck, doesn't that sound neato? Hello? Helloooo?

Condolences Wattsy.
If it's any consolation it normally only takes me a couple of years to get over a relationship breakup. In no time at all it'll be 2009 and you'll be all healed up for the next goround :D
You're always welcome to pop on over here anytime. I can bitch about parking cops while you bitch about the missus and when the carton of Coopers is gone we'll be ready to start a ruckus on the TAN. Heck, doesn't that sound neato? Hello? Helloooo? Thanks...hhhmmmm 2009...I think I need some Valium to keep me brain dead till then.

I think it's time we looked at an innaugral Melbourne cycleforums ride to get the team together and talk sh*t for a while. We did this on BF a couple years back when Hitchy was training for Warny, so I reckon it's time again. Maybe this time we Southern suburbs head to Sunbury so that Hitchy can show us around his stomping ground. Watcha think?

Thanks...hhhmmmm 2009...I think I need some Valium to keep me brain dead till then.

I think it's time we looked at an innaugral Melbourne cycleforums ride to get the team together and talk sh*t for a while. We did this on BF a couple years back when Hitchy was training for Warny, so I reckon it's time again. Maybe this time we Southern suburbs head to Sunbury so that Hitchy can show us around his stomping ground. Watcha think?

Hmmm, Wattsy it looks like the mention of exercise has scared them all off. :D

hey guys/girls,

im actually going to go back to bikeforums full time...given it a bit of thought and feel like its the right thing to do - i sort of deep down prefer it to here and i think the whole mess has been cleaned up by expat..TAT is back where it belongs and koffee is gone...expat has worked his butt off to fix the whole mess and make us feel welcome again...id rather continue the tradition started with TAT...so yeah hopefully i will see some/all/any? of you other there again. if not then happy cycling http://cyclingforums.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif


nah, Aussie site here better server, pretty happy here even though I do some posting at bf. (not in the road forum or tdf)

I get where he's coming from. While I admit to being a total noob to the cycling world, I do know a bit about some other industries / obsessions that have incredibly similar markets, problems and characters.

What I don't get, is how everyone else in the world is shit, while a relative newcomer to the industry who sells a couple of dozen frames a year is an "industry maven" who knows all.

As I said above, I hope the posts are done tounge in cheek.

Oh! Oh! I can answer this one! :p

Naturally there are bike companies I like. Would you like to know who they are? :rolleyes: Let's see now......Huffy.....Malvern Star......Konya....

Seriously though, the big reason I started this gig Damien is because I design bike stuff for other companies....I've been doing it since 1990....and am just a tiny bit over it to tell you the truth. Tioga is my biggest client whom I've had since 1995 or so, and I've also designed for other shops and wholesalers like BikeCorp, Groupe Sportif, The Freedom Machine, etc. etc.

At 193cm tall and after 20 years of off-the-shelf I basically got jack of stock bikes. If you're tall, they suck! There's no two ways about it. So I got a couple of custom bikes / bikes from small producers. They sucked too, but sucked a lot less than the off-the-shelf offerings from most companies which either didn't fit or looked ugly or both.

This was also at a time when Giant somehow managed to sell their 'Five sizes fits nobody' wonderful 'Compact' marketing drive to the plebs who lapped it up like mothers milk.

So, there were three things. I couldn't get bikes to fit me, I was sick of designing stuff for other people (Not entirely true, I still do it for select clients and love it), and fit and geometry was going down the shitter largely thanks to Giant's marketing department.

Now, just because I take it upon myself to point out some patently obvious mistakes and misnomers and myths by no means means I'm some messiah or genius, it just means I've taken it upon myself to make people THINK and not be such Muppets. And I should know coz I'm the biggest Muppet of all and even look like one, although probably not as much as Kotter ;)

Instead of dredgeing up comments I've made in the past and attempt to defend them, I thought maybe I'd make a few very simple comments and get people to think about them...if you could be arsed...no pressure :) . They're not pro or anti or personal opinion, they're just real simple concepts about fit, handling and geometry that are pretty irrefutable

Apologies in advance for all the bike talk but here we go.....

1) Chainstay lengths

There are two guys. One 170cm, one 190cm. They both have a 73 degree seat angle on their bikes. Naturally, the taller guy has longer legs meaning his seat his higher and therefore further back.

Now, if they were both to experience the same weight distribution between the wheels (a very important factor determining handling - just ask any car designer), the taller guy should have longer chainstays, right? Makes sense.

Next time you look at a geometry chart, see if the company varies the CS lengths throughout their range. If they don't, clearly something must be wrong, right?


2) Head tube angle

Trail is the most important number that determines how a bike will handle under steering.

To keep trail constant, the steeper the head angle, the less rake you need.

73º/43mm rake is common, however to get a similar trail figure on a bike with a 74º HTA, you'd need about a 35mm rake.

To cut costs, many companies spec a 43mm raked fork, yet vary HTA throughout the range, meaning from one size to another, the frames could handle wildly differently.

How could that possibly be a good thing? Are tall people quicker than shorter people?

3) Sizing

Giant popularised the '5 sizes fits nobody' 'Compact' phenomena, so what happens if like 50% of shoppers you're inbetween sizes? You either go too big or too small, just so someone in the warehouse can only stock 5 sizes and just so some retailler can make it easier to sell bikes.

How does that benefit you? Giant even goes so far as not to even tell you what the sizing is - they give you two top tube measurements depending on what seatpost you use. So how does that rate when you take into consideration 'Point 1)' above? Are the chainstays adjustable? Doesn't look like it.

---

So, taking into account these pretty basic points, if your off-the shelf bike is a perpetraitor of one or more, you have to ask yourself what exactly it is you're buying. I'm not havin' a go, it's just food for thought.

Anyhoo, apologies for the rant and congrats if you got this far! I hope I don't come across as a know-it-all because I basically know fark all, but what I do know I at least hope I can back it up with at least something meaningful.

I'd like to conclude this sermon with the words 'suck' and 'go see at the MIFF the doco 'An Inconvenient Truth'; Al Gores doco on global warming. It will change your life. Not as much as a custom ride will change your life, but hey, what do you want for 10 bucks? :D

On second thoughts just skip to the end paragraph, read that quickly, then go watch 'Planet Earth' on ABC. It's just about to start....

I knew there was a reason Giants didn't figure on my "must have" list. :)

---

So, taking into account these pretty basic points, if your off-the shelf bike is a perpetraitor of one or more, you have to ask yourself what exactly it is you're buying. I'm not havin' a go, it's just food for thought.




While I know nothing on frame design Im gonna stick my head in on this one.

While most people here what a custom built frame or a well fitting "exotic" brand. The problem is Im a uni student that doesnt have 2cents to rub together to make three. Yeah I ride a Giant, luckily I fit their medium so the geometry isnt too out of whack. Riding something is better than not riding anything at all. I would love to ride a custom but its gonna cost me 4 to 8 times more than what I paid for this bike. See what Im getting at.

Hey Tiger, I've been thinking. With all the crap I'm through I need to have something to look forward to in the future. We've decided to sell up the houses etc and turn everything into liquid asset when the final split comes.

Anyhoo, I reckon I'll need a new bike at this time and I reckon a Thylacine will be the weapon of choice! It's gunna be a burger with the lot. Don't know exactly when it's going to be but I suspect some time around Jan/Feb of next.

I'll get rid of the Trek and get me an Aussie bike with Italian running gear.:D :D :D The only thing is that we (you and I) need to discuss the colour scheme and the type of titanium I should be using.

Wattsy, sorry to hear the news mate, but hoping it all works out sweet from here. A nice custom Thylo frame sounds like a good type of therapy! :D

Might be up for a Melb group (or "gang" if AntG is to be believed) ride if I can remember how to do it. Been seriously lacking motivation lately.

I'll get rid of the Trek and get me an Aussie bike with Italian running gear.:D
Keep the trek. Use it as a training bike or on those rainy days when you wouldn't dare take 'the precious' out of its cotton wool :)