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Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#81

Post by snotrockets »

newaccount74 wrote: post #23
snotrockets wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper maintenance and quality parts last 50 years (my commuter bike and most of its components are 40 years old. Tires, chains, cogs, brakepads, saddle and bartape are the exception). Anything but the cheapest of components would last years with proper maintenance (which has cost in service charges: good bike mechanics don't come cheap)

If you ride your bike a lot, and some point the bearing races in the hubs will wear out and you'll need new hubs, same for the bottom bracket, the rims will either get ground down by the brakes or get a dent that requires them to be replaced, fenders will get bent and / or rust off, screws corrode, brake / shifter cables need to be replaced every few years... Bikes that get ridden a lot are like the ship of Theseus..…

Maybe that's the problem, I only ride 15,000km a year or so (used to ride more when I was racing, but life came in the way)

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#82

Post by samstave »

dylan604 wrote: post #53
paulcole wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pay…

My bike cost more than my car. I have a $7,500 bike, a $3,000 bike and two $400 bikes... my car was $5,000 and I put more miles on my bikes than any car...

Bikes suck for a few things - weather and only one person and no storage.

I am a pro-dealer of Fox Shocks products and am looking to becoming an Orbea dealer - potentially opening my own shop.

Also, I am designing 3D printable components based on my being a daily biker for two decades.

--

Also - you can go to importYeti.com and look up bike suppliers supply chains, shipments and native chinese/taiwanese manufacturers (Taiwan produces a F-ton of bike frames....

You will see differences in pricing >$1,000 just based on the quality of components.

Some modern bikes have apps to tune their performance, blue-tooth wireless shifters, brakes etc.

I love bikes - but they arent as cheap as one may think (if their looking for performance on top of convenience...

Then just look at the prices of spandex biking clothes.

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#83

Post by samstave »

leemailll wrote: post #44
paulcole wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

what kind of service cost you $500? that's pretty high unless you replace a lot stuff

Mikes bikes does a full service which is $500 - and yes bike techs have a lot of mechanical knowledge, like for example using various spacers to change the geometry to suit the riders body/grip/posture etc.

And then for certain things you need multiple spacers, or you can only mate this handle-bar with this type of headset/stem etc...

Bikes are fn awesome machines.

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#84

Post by detaro »

samstave wrote: post #82
dylan604 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 pay…

My bike cost more than my car. I have a $7,500 bike, a $3,000 bike and two $400 bikes... my car was $5,000 and I put more miles on my bikes than any car... Bikes suck for a few things - weather and only one person and no storage. I am a pro-dealer of Fox Shocks products and am looking to becoming an Orbea dealer - potentially opening my own shop. Also, I am designing 3D printable components based on my being a daily…

> but they arent as cheap as one may think (if their looking for performance on top of convenience...

The same would be said by someone explaining why they spend so much on their Porsche ;)

admittedly e-bikes have higher initial costs, but even there $7,500 gets you something far up the fancy end.

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#85

Post by PascLeRasc »

ggm wrote: post #59
midoridensha wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Your brakes use mineral oil, and you can use any kind of mineral oil you want in there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63VIuPiX3CA

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#86

Post by mnky9800n »

midoridensha wrote: post #10
ggm wrote: post #2

There'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…

Also I don't really understand what the difference between the tiagra and Ultegra brake levers are except in comparison to like bottom rung stuff. But to each other I can't seem to tell a difference.

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#87

Post by newaccount74 »

snotrockets wrote: post #81
newaccount74 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ride your bike a lot, and some point the bearing races in the hubs will wear out and you'll need new hubs, same for the bottom bracket, the rims will either get ground down by the brakes or get a dent that requires them to be replaced, fenders will get bent and / or rust off, screws corrode, brake / shifter cables need to be replaced every few years... Bikes that get ridden a lot are like the ship of Theseus..…

Maybe that's the problem, I only ride 15,000km a year or so (used to ride more when I was racing, but life came in the way)

That is a lot more than I ride :)

You must have cared well for your bike if it lasts 40 years with that kind of milage.

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#88

Post by snotrockets »

newaccount74 wrote: post #87
snotrockets wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that's the problem, I only ride 15,000km a year or so (used to ride more when I was racing, but life came in the way)

That is a lot more than I ride :) You must have cared well for your bike if it lasts 40 years with that kind of milage.

Mileage is split across multiple bikes.

That specific one is 40 years old, but I only owned it for the last four. All my bikes were bought used: like cars, once you roll them out the shop's door, you loose a significant amount of the purchase price.

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#89

Post by throwaway22032 »

Okay, so they calculate that the worst produced bicycle produces 250kg co2 equivalent.

That's about 2 months worth of my diet. Maybe less.

Like, if I cycle for an hour I'll burn enough calories to produce approx 1kg co2e from the foods I eat.

This is "switch off your LED light bulb" levels of daft.

Re: Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

#90

Post by midoridensha »

mnky9800n wrote: post #86
midoridensha wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

Also I don't really understand what the difference between the tiagra and Ultegra brake levers are except in comparison to like bottom rung stuff. But to each other I can't seem to tell a difference.

Ultegra is better, of course :-)

But you're making an invalid comparison: the real comparison is between Ultegra and 105. The two are functionally the same, but Ultegras are a bit lighter and use better materials (probably carbon fiber handles, for instance). The year I got mine, the 105s were physically larger too, so the internals weren't as advanced; not sure about today.

Tiagra is a 10-speed shifter, while Ultegra is an 11-speed, so they're certainly not compatible at all. You can assume that Tiagra will be even more cheaply-made than the 105.

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