> WARNING - Serious or fatal crashing injuries can occur from furniture tip-over. To prevent this furniture must be permanently fixed to the wall.
Somehow I doubt permanently fixing one's bicycle to the wall will help.
Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
251–260 of 298 posts
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can still get 6-7-8 speed rear cassettes (which use a common 6-7-8 speed chain size) if you're worried about chain durability and don't care about the extra range. In general 10/11 speed parts are still more expensive than 6/7/8 or 9-speed parts.
The great thing about 10/11 speed cassettes is that you can go single on the front end. I did that three years ago, and man is it better. So I sacrifised the very highest and the very lowest gear compared to my old 3x9, but this thing never drops the chain off the front end, there is no front derailleur that always gets bent and fails to shift properly, and there are no awkward momentum-bleeding crazy shift-down-one,…
> The great thing about 10/11 speed cassettes is that you can go single on the front end. I did that three years ago, and man is it better.
Well, maybe if you live somewhere pretty flat. Or are willing to give up some high-end range (>25 mph). 10/11 speed cassettes generally only have a few teeth wider range than a ~7 speed, for example (e.g., you can get a 13-28 7-speed and the bigger 11 speeds are 11-32 (road)) . Mostly, the jumps are just much closer together, which makes for a smoother shift and easier to find a comfortable gear at a given effort.
> So I sacrifised the very highest and the very lowest gear compared to my old 3x9, but this thing never drops the chain off the front end, there is no front derailleur that always gets bent and fails to shift properly, and there are no awkward momentum-bleeding crazy shift-down-one, shift-up-the-other moves. And you save money, weight and complexity, meaning less maintenance and less failures.
Yeah, there are definitely some benefits! In my area (Seattle) with my level of fitness, I'm a fan of 2x front cogs.
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with the hi-ten 18-speed bikes? Less elegant design?
Selling the wrong bike to the wrong person. A casual cyclist should have something that is simple, comfortable and reliable. High-tensile steal will equate a rough ride. 18 gears and a transmission has a hugely larger number of points of failure, that's just math. And requires regular maintenance, which casual cyclists don't/won't do. IMO most riders would be best served by Dutch style built-like-a-tank cruisers (whi…
I'm not sure what you mean by regular maintenance. For 10 years I've been casually using an $800 Kona flat-bar bike, 24 speeds, and I didn't need to change anything on it. It was pretty much maintenance free. I did last year took it in for checks, just to be on the safe side, but they said that it is fine and nothing needs fixing.
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point on the belt. I wonder if people paired that to a NuVinci CVT system: https://youtu.be/GHYGOIttuVM - no noise - no grease - no shift shock - no fixed gear I'd love to try a bike like this. ...
They exist - I have one; and very nice. Mine is made by Lekker.
No problem with the variator ? too heavy ? lack of efficiency ? maintenance or frailty ?
Just curious, one guy on reddit said he didn't trust the thing much.
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
90% of your braking 'power' comes from the front brake. Under hard braking in ideal conditions, this is closer to 100%. You can safely remove the rear brake from most bikes. This is a common misconception [1]. The same is true for motorcycles. [1]: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html
That is not a misconception at all, at least not for bicycles, and it's highly dangerous to suggest so. Have you ever tried braking while going down a steep hill? (e.g. San Fran hills?) You know, to stay at a safe speed? Front brake will flip you over in an instant, I know because I've done it, even at slow speeds, when my rear brake cable snapped. After a couple tries I walked home, since bicycling without a rear br…
I never use my back brake, because it's inefficient, and sometimes the back starts sliding.
Using only one brake also avoids confusion between them, so you won't by accident slam the front one.
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back in college I got rid of my old bike by just leaving it unlocked outside. It was gone in a few days.
Tried that. Turns out, even bike thieves have standards.
In Brooklyn, I got rid of half a bike (missing front fork and seat) by setting it outside for about 20 minutes.
I guess you could say I got rid of the first half by setting it outside overnight, poorly locked to a post, but it was unintentional.
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#257I used to be a bike mechanic, and have gotten to work 90% by bicycle for the past two decades, so I'll take a stab at some of the questions: - Belt drives are great. They're sturdier than chains, cleaner, and something I love, quieter. The angle of the belt doesn't change, the way a chain does, which means you can add a chain guard, as this bike does. Which keeps it yet cleaner. You can ride to work without worrying…
I have question for you. Before my actual bike, I had a mountain bike for something around 15years. I never changed or did anything to the chain. It was perfect. Now I bought a new one. After 2 years I went to the shop to have it checked. They had to change the chain. When I told them my story with the old bike they told me: "that's how it is today. Chains are not what they were". I'm still in disbelieve. Can you con…
If the machine doesn't have very many miles on it, it doesn't need a new chain unless it's terribly corroded or somehow damaged. If you get a new chain on a low-mileage bike, you will not need to replace the cassette/freewheel as well. If it's something with some miles on it, best bet is just to go for the whole drivetrain at once (chain rings, cassette, chain). I also used to be a bike mechanic. It's crazy to see the electronic shifting on high-end road rigs. Impressive, but crazy.
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cheap bikes are much cheaper today (in terms of build quality, though there are some that are, inflation-adjusted, lower priced than the cheapest bikes when I was a kid). I mostly had cheap bikes as a kid, and they held up really well. The quality was lower than that of a "good" bike, but not remarkably so. My first two bikes, a Huffy (from K Mart) and a Ross Piranha (from Toys R Us) had Chromoly frames and forks…
Maybe that's it? Maybe the shitty bikes I remember from my youth were actually just better than the equivalently priced bikes of today? I sold my last bike for $50 after a decade of really hard city and trail riding, even taking a couple dives off the edge of a 20 foot fall and getting in a minor car accident. That owner kept it for another decade and outside of normal part wear and repair, used it well for some pret…
Do bear in mind inflation. $200 in 1987 is approximately equivalent to $430 today [1].
So we could reasonably predict, ignoring technology changes, that your $200 bike was at least twice as good as a $200 bike bought this year.
[1]: http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=20...
Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#259Re: Flat Pack Chainless Bicycle from IKEA
#260I've been keeping an eye on this bike's development for a while, and I'm not disappointed with the outcome. It's still more expensive than a box-store bike, but I hope that availability at IKEA will make it more appealing to college students. Internal gears and a belt drive will make for more interesting maintenance, but anything beats the hi-ten 18-speed monstrosities that currently dominate college campuses.
What's wrong with the hi-ten 18-speed bikes? Less elegant design?
I was referring to the fact that most box-store bicycles are made out of cheap hi-ten steel and have 18-21 speeds.
There's nothing particularly wrong with either, they're just indicators that the bike is overall of low quality.