I ride a titanium bike with rim brakes. It was custom made, and relatively expensive ($5,000 USD), but it is the only bike I ride, and it will last my entire lifetime, and more (it will require occasional component upgrades, just like any other bike). Plus, the ride quality is superb. I've found that, as with most things, investing in quality over quantity is the way to go. My bike may have been slightly 'less green' to manufacture, but I only need one, ever.
Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
51–60 of 91 posts
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#52There's nothing wrong with continuous improvement but when you are trying to fine tune something in the flat portion of an exponential scale, and lets face it, even the most expensive bike shown here is 1/2 the burden of an ICE engine car, you have to ask yourself: is this optimisation really the core problem? I argue: it's not. It's polishing. It's functionally a bit time-wast-y compared to reductions in the cost, a…
What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? I can easily buy Shimano Ultegra (which is pretty high-end) brake calipers on Amazon for roughly USD$65, and a big bottle of brake oil is less than $15. Cheaper-brand or lower-end calipers are of course, cheaper, easily less than $50 each. And brake calipers aren't something you normally need to replace anyway. Pads are easily available too, both name-brand and Chin…
It may just be rumour, but the units Movida chose appear from what a number of people tell me, to be fragile: You should just be able to replace the brake fluid. You wind up losing things, because they don't come apart as well as they should and they don't go back together as well as they should.
OK, so "wear the risk" -great: I take my bike in to the shop, and either I get it back at 3:30pm or.. its 3 months for replacement parts to make it, assuming the supplier has parts. Or, I have to ditch them and go back to cables. Or, an alternate vendor which means new levers, and pipes, and disks, and pads and ....
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#53There's nothing wrong with continuous improvement but when you are trying to fine tune something in the flat portion of an exponential scale, and lets face it, even the most expensive bike shown here is 1/2 the burden of an ICE engine car, you have to ask yourself: is this optimisation really the core problem? I argue: it's not. It's polishing. It's functionally a bit time-wast-y compared to reductions in the cost, a…
I paid about $1,000 for a steel-frame touring bike about 15 years ago. I commute/run errands for a few thousand miles a year on it. Every 2-3 years, I get it overhauled at a cost of about $500. Other than that, I’ve replaced wheels and tires a few times and break pads on average about once a year, plus the occasional random issue. So for me, the cost of maintenance quickly outpaced the cost of the bike. But it’s stil…
>But it’s still a pittance compared to the cost of car ownership.
I'm not really sure where the unrealistic expectation of zero dollar expense on maintenance of a bike comes from, but it seems the norm. No matter what though, it is still pennies on the dollar for any kind of expense from a car. The most expensive thing I can do for an upgrade to my bike is to have hydraulic brakes installed, and that's <$400 with paying for the labor of someone else to do it. Like you said, brake pads get replaced, but the set for my biker are <$20. Yes, it's not free and definitely non-zero, but it rounds to zero when compared to car ownership.
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#54You think this generation is going to be riding more bicycles? Likely far far less, the roads are insanely dangerous and toxic now. I don't know what it is like in other cities but in mine at least one out of ten vehicles is now one of those new ridiculous monster sized trucks that not only cannot see you, they wouldn't care if they did. The bicycle lane line is now something to cruise over for these drivers while th…
Yup. I used to be an avid road biker, 10-40mi rides multiple time per week, hopping on 80mi day trips, Tuesday evening time trials, racing, etc. But it has been over a decade since my road bike has seen pavement. I keep it to mountain biking on trails now because the traffic everywhere has gotten too insane, and the drivers just seem less and less aware/alert/smart/skilled. And I've noticed in the last few month bad…
In a car dependent society such as our America, how do we expect a humongous and rapidly aging demographic to handle their loss of motor skills? By simply staying inside and becoming entirely dependent on kids they never had?
They’ll be out on the roads - get a bigger car and don’t bike. I’m sad about it as well but I don’t see many options unless you’re in a unique area.
For context, 1/3rd of Americans today are over 55.
Due to exponential growth and innovation everything any of us have ever known is one of a series of crazy experiments. I don’t think car dependency will turn out to be a good one.
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? I can easily buy Shimano Ultegra (which is pretty high-end) brake calipers on Amazon for roughly USD$65, and a big bottle of brake oil is less than $15. Cheaper-brand or lower-end calipers are of course, cheaper, easily less than $50 each. And brake calipers aren't something you normally need to replace anyway. Pads are easily available too, both name-brand and Chin…
> What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? Apparently hydraulics, instead of cables. Cf. https://www.bicyclehabitat.com/how-to/disc-brakes-101-pg362.... I have hydraulic brakes on one of my bikes too. They feel great (so accurate and responsive!), but I'm glad I haven't had to get them fixed yet...
I AM talking about hydraulics in my post, I even specifically mentioned brake oil, something hydraulic brakes require for a simple bleed operation.
Hydraulics are great, and I have fixed mine. The parts are NOT a problem to acquire at all. I will say, however, that bleeding them is a bit fiddly and a pain, compared to bleeding car brakes, in my experience. I've done bleeds on both Shimano and Tektro brakes; the Shimanos were definitely better, but still not as easy as car brakes. Which is why I happen to know Shimano caliper prices off the top of my head: I'm thinking seriously about swapping the Tektro calipers for Shimanos because they're easier to work with, both for bleeds and for pad changes (the Tektros require removing the caliper from the frame; Shimanos do not).
So again, I'm wondering what the OP is griping about. There is no supply-chain problem with hydraulic brakes that I can see.
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? I can easily buy Shimano Ultegra (which is pretty high-end) brake calipers on Amazon for roughly USD$65, and a big bottle of brake oil is less than $15. Cheaper-brand or lower-end calipers are of course, cheaper, easily less than $50 each. And brake calipers aren't something you normally need to replace anyway. Pads are easily available too, both name-brand and Chin…
It may just be rumour, but the units Movida chose appear from what a number of people tell me, to be fragile: You should just be able to replace the brake fluid. You wind up losing things, because they don't come apart as well as they should and they don't go back together as well as they should. OK, so "wear the risk" -great: I take my bike in to the shop, and either I get it back at 3:30pm or.. its 3 months for rep…
Again, I have no idea what you're talking about. What brakes do you have exactly? There are only a handful of manufacturers (Shimano, SRAM, Tektro/TRP, Hope, maybe a couple others). And no, you shouldn't be losing anything. Bleeding is easy: you take connect a hose to the caliper, and a cup to the level/master cylinder, and pump some new fluid in there with a syringe. (In practice, it's somewhat fiddly and can be a little messy if you're not careful.) There's no parts to lose, except the screw that seals the master cylinder, and maybe the bleed port screw on the caliper if it doesn't use a nipple.
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? Apparently hydraulics, instead of cables. Cf. https://www.bicyclehabitat.com/how-to/disc-brakes-101-pg362.... I have hydraulic brakes on one of my bikes too. They feel great (so accurate and responsive!), but I'm glad I haven't had to get them fixed yet...
I AM talking about hydraulics in my post, I even specifically mentioned brake oil, something hydraulic brakes require for a simple bleed operation. Hydraulics are great, and I have fixed mine. The parts are NOT a problem to acquire at all. I will say, however, that bleeding them is a bit fiddly and a pain, compared to bleeding car brakes, in my experience. I've done bleeds on both Shimano and Tektro brakes; the Shima…
Maybe OP is “stuck” with shitty hydraulics from a lesser-known vendor for which it’s difficult to get the parts? I’d say they look into the cost of getting the whole system replaced, my Shimano low-ish end hydraulics have worked fine for years and as you’ve mentioned, parts are easy to get.
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? Apparently hydraulics, instead of cables. Cf. https://www.bicyclehabitat.com/how-to/disc-brakes-101-pg362.... I have hydraulic brakes on one of my bikes too. They feel great (so accurate and responsive!), but I'm glad I haven't had to get them fixed yet...
I AM talking about hydraulics in my post, I even specifically mentioned brake oil, something hydraulic brakes require for a simple bleed operation. Hydraulics are great, and I have fixed mine. The parts are NOT a problem to acquire at all. I will say, however, that bleeding them is a bit fiddly and a pain, compared to bleeding car brakes, in my experience. I've done bleeds on both Shimano and Tektro brakes; the Shima…
Sorry, I didn't realize that you had understood that and were talking specifically about hydraulic maintenance. I have bikes with cable-actuated brakes and also one bike with a hydraulic system, and I've done maintenance myself on the former but not the latter. I personally think of the cable version as comprehensible and maintainable and the hydraulic version as black magic; hopefully that will change intentionally. I was imagining that other people would probably feel the same way about hydraulic brakes ("great, but hard to understand and totally infeasible to maintain at home"); my apologies for misunderstanding your point!
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may just be rumour, but the units Movida chose appear from what a number of people tell me, to be fragile: You should just be able to replace the brake fluid. You wind up losing things, because they don't come apart as well as they should and they don't go back together as well as they should. OK, so "wear the risk" -great: I take my bike in to the shop, and either I get it back at 3:30pm or.. its 3 months for rep…
Again, I have no idea what you're talking about. What brakes do you have exactly? There are only a handful of manufacturers (Shimano, SRAM, Tektro/TRP, Hope, maybe a couple others). And no, you shouldn't be losing anything. Bleeding is easy: you take connect a hose to the caliper, and a cup to the level/master cylinder, and pump some new fluid in there with a syringe. (In practice, it's somewhat fiddly and can be a l…
They're Tektro. That "in practice its somewhat fiddly" bit sounds like where I am.
I'll go canvas my options with some other stores. Who knows? Maybe I'm being sold a line of guff here?
(and its a Merida 200 not a Movida. I was having a bad hair day)
Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?
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