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Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

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Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#161

Post by whyleyc »

chrismorgan wrote: post #40
scoopdewoop wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, lots of web devs here. Thats why this is in the guidelines: Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful.

Thank you for pulling me up on that—I’ve certainly complained about things I find particularly annoying before, but I do try to make such complaints valuable by explaining the technical side of things (why the problem occurred, and why it matters) and a solution, which I know other developers find helpful sometimes. Done in moderation, I reckon that normally satisfies that guideline (because it’s not just a complaint…

I'm not 100% convinced Greg LeMond is hanging out on HN, nor that he handcrafted this particular website.

If he is and he did then he has made a spectacular midlife career pivot.

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#162

Post by satvikpendem »

dmurray wrote: post #150
tedivm wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you and op are missing the point though. This is a light weight ebike! Obviously it's not as light weight as a professional bike (or like any without a battery), but this cuts weight everywhere it can and still has a 45 mile range (plus an extended battery you can add on to extend the range). On top of that people are already spending thousands of dollars on ebikes- this really isn't that much more expensive…

Yes, the point is to be a light weight e-bike, but still, why? Make it out of steel or aluminium, making the frame 1 kg heavier, perhaps that costs you another 200g in the battery and motor to drive the same power. Aluminium and steel are better materials than CF in every way except weight - or if not, I'd like to hear why! The 1-2 kg weight savings is useful if you need to carry your bike up the stairs to your top f…

The 1-2 kg weight savings is useful if you need to carry your bike up the stairs to your top floor apartment. Or to ride it up hills in manual mode. Both of those seem like niche cases.

These don't really seem niche. The lighter the better, simply because F = ma, the lower the mass, the higher the acceleration from the same amount of force from the battery applied. Or, higher range.

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#164

Post by kwaugh »

wiredfool wrote: post #137
kwaugh wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A double chainring setup likely offers smaller gaps between gears but likely a comparable overall range from lowest to highest. This isn't true. This bike is using a 40 gear crank in the front with an 11-40 cassette in the back. That puts the gear ratio at 1.0 on the low end and 3.64 on the high end. The corresponding Shimano GRX setup with a double chainring would be a 46-30 in the front and a 11-34 in the back. T…

No one (basically) is going to care about the difference between a 46/11 and a 40/11 when the assist drops out at 25kph. If anything, you’re much more likely to be able to use the 40/11. At the other end, the assist is going to cover a lot of gearing, and it’s going to make the gaps in a 1x setup a lot less important. (FWIW, I ride a 1x42/11-42 and a 2x 50/34-11/32. And a triple on the tandem, and I lived with a cx g…

I definitely agree that high gears are overrated except for racing, but when the bike markets itself as a lightweight semi-aero bike, isn't the point to go fast? If you're not going faster than 25kph, then why are you need deeper rimmed carbon wheels?

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#165

Post by microtherion »

_verandaguy wrote: post #5

Coming from conventional bikes, I don't understand who this is for. Carbon fibre frames are prohibitively expensive and the market for them serves very involved, often professional or semi-pro cyclists whose performance bottlenecks are imposed by the bike instead of themselves. Ditto for some of the other details on the bike, like the medium-dish carbon rims — all for the sake of weight savings and aerodynamics (sinc…

Lots of hobbies (I want to say male hobbies, but presumably there are female examples as well) attract people buying equipment that cannot be objectively justified by the skill level of the practitioners buying it: The proverbial titanium head drivers in golf, fancy mics, amps, and instruments in music, tricked out hiking gear, etc.

This might be an increasing phenomenon in advanced middle age, as we have more money and less time to invest in our hobbies.

Signed, a guy who just bought a laser cutter today...

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#166

Post by kwaugh »

ols wrote: post #125
kwaugh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean no offense, but many of the advantages that you've cited are more of claimed advantages from the marketing departments of big manufacturer rather than proven advantages that the tech gives you. The author of the comment to which you replied does seem to understand the trends in bike designs these days and feels that these trends do not fit well into the market segment of e-bikes. I agree. > it’s not only the w…

I agree with most of your points, especially that the demand is strongly influenced by marketing/fashion and percieved values of the product, not objective ones. Diving deeper into gears and handlebars - I believe it’s a very consious choice. - max speed with an optimal cadence (90 rpm) in this setup seems to be around 43km/h. This is plenty fast and definetely above typical commuting speeds. Even the electric suppor…

Those are fair points. I guess I'm most confused by the inclusion of mid section rims. This makes me think they're targeting people who want to go really fast, but then their other choices don't pair well with going fast enough to get the gains out of the wheels.

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#167

Post by wussboy »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #60
_verandaguy wrote: post #5

Coming from conventional bikes, I don't understand who this is for. Carbon fibre frames are prohibitively expensive and the market for them serves very involved, often professional or semi-pro cyclists whose performance bottlenecks are imposed by the bike instead of themselves. Ditto for some of the other details on the bike, like the medium-dish carbon rims — all for the sake of weight savings and aerodynamics (sinc…

E-bikes are perhaps the most misunderstood category of bike products right now. Traditional bikers have underestimated demand for e-bikes at every step of the way for one reason: Traditional biking has a massive selection bias effect that excludes anyone who isn’t in great physical shape. The deeper you are into cycling, the more homogenous your perception of what constitutes a biker. You’re not going to see average…

I’ve never been so angry in my life as when I was chugging up a hill in lower gear just to have some lady in her office skirt blow past me, Louis Vuitton bag in her side saddle. I get the animosity. But kudos to her! I hope she’s still blasting past idiots like me!

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#168

Post by auxym »

frutiger wrote: post #148
hazeii wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking the right sort of question :) Seatpost is actually one of the simpler sensors, without giving too much away it's sensing force in 4 different directions.

Is the 4th direction time?

Typically it would be a rotation (or torque, if we're talking load force/torque cells).

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#169

Post by rgbrenner »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #50
_verandaguy wrote: post #5

Coming from conventional bikes, I don't understand who this is for. Carbon fibre frames are prohibitively expensive and the market for them serves very involved, often professional or semi-pro cyclists whose performance bottlenecks are imposed by the bike instead of themselves. Ditto for some of the other details on the bike, like the medium-dish carbon rims — all for the sake of weight savings and aerodynamics (sinc…

> whose performance bottlenecks are imposed by the bike instead of themselves I'm a fluid dynamics researcher, and I'll tell you the money these people spend on "aero" and "weight saving" and "higher drivetrain efficiency" stuff is 99.9% snake oil. Unless you are among the top 1000 road bike racers in the world. Increasing your exercise load by half an hour per week, or spending a little time understanding and implem…

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

Your post is what theory looks like when people forget the difference. Your theory leaves out tons of variables, including the condition of the road, and the differences in how materials deform under pressure. I've seen the stats you're referring to, and that's what it looks like in a lab with perfect conditions.

Go ride a $400 bike and a nice carbon fiber bike. The difference is much more substantial than 15 seconds per 4 hours. It's less fatiguing, the pedals feel stiffer (cheap bikes feel mushy in the pedals), my speedometer has a higher average speed, it's easier to climb hills (flat surfaces like in the lab are rare on real world streets--flat roads are almost never 0% grade), etc.

Sometimes you need to put down excel and actually do the thing you're theorizing about.

Re: Greg LeMond’s New 26 LB. Carbon Fiber Ebike

#170

Post by hyperpallium2 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #147
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whose performance bottlenecks are imposed by the bike instead of themselves I'm a fluid dynamics researcher, and I'll tell you the money these people spend on "aero" and "weight saving" and "higher drivetrain efficiency" stuff is 99.9% snake oil. Unless you are among the top 1000 road bike racers in the world. Increasing your exercise load by half an hour per week, or spending a little time understanding and implem…

I'm an engineer and a biker. If you only look at the numbers or try to run simplistic calculations, it's easy to think that bikers are just deluding themselves. But there's more to it than just numbers on paper, and there's more to biking than just riding in a straight line from point A to point B. Carbon fiber frames aren't just about saving weight. The Carbon Fiber has different flexibility and damping properties t…

> reduced rotational inertia translates to faster acceleration

\aside why not smaller (radius) wheels? Use higher gearing, and accept the bumpiness.

Though for touring aot commuting, there's something pleasant about higher inertia.

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