What's going on in the curly bar world? CyclingTips Digest showcases articles from our sister site, CyclingTips. In each installment, you might find endurance coverage, power-to-weight ratios, gravel bike tech and, of course, lycra. (Above - Photography by Red Bull Content Pool)
Breaking news: Embarrassingly outdated bike ‘works just fine’, ‘still shreds’
By: Iain TreloarAn embarrassingly outdated cyclocross bike from eight years ago “works just fine”, despite its lack of electronics and hydraulics, primitive braking, tubed tyres and paucity of gear options.
Following a rainy Saturday afternoon jaunt through the gravel bikepaths and singletrack of north-eastern Melbourne, CyclingTips can report that a 2011 Cannondale CAADX was put to the sword, but conspicuously failed to fall to pieces – in spite of the fact that it predated the gravel craze and its swathe of new products by a number of years.
“This is my oldest and least glamorous bike,” explained our source. “But get it out on gravel and this thing still shreds. I know, right? I could hardly believe it myself.”
(Read more.)
How to check for chain wear: The easy way, the best way, and why
By: Dave RomeYour bicycle’s chain is put through hell every time you ride. For every minute of pedaling, approximately 44,000 chain pieces are in motion, creating 320,000 separate instances of sliding surface friction. And all of this is on a component that sits near to the ground and is exposed to the elements.
Just like your tyres and brake pads, chains wear with use. And as a chain wears, friction in the drivetrain increases, your shifting gets sloppier, and worst of all, you’ll quickly start wearing out other drivetrain components. Changing your chain at the right time can save you money and make your riding more enjoyable.
If you’re seeking a quick answer for the easy way to check for chain wear, you should only need to read the first few sections of this article. If you want to go deep down the rabbit hole, well, we can help you with that too.
(Read more.)
The weekly spin: For Rissveds and Ferrand-Prévot, the circle is complete
By: Neal RogersThe narrative arc of a professional cyclist’s existence is often a rollercoaster of circumstance, heartbreak, and resurgence — a constant balancing act of physical and mental health. That has never been more clear than over the past few months in elite women’s mountain-bike racing.
(Read more.)
Two more studies support helmet use while cycling
By: CyclingTipsTwo new research papers published this month have provided further evidence for the value of bicycle helmets.
Both studies analysed data from a large numbers of cyclists who had been injured while riding. Both concluded that wearing a helmet is correlated with a reduction in injury severity.
(Read more.)
Muscle cramps from cycling: Why do they happen and how can you prevent them?
By: Paul ArgentMuscle cramps can be a debilitating and extremely unpleasant part of bike riding. So what causes them? And what can you do to prevent them from occurring?
Before we answer those questions, have you seen the film Pineapple Express? Stay with me here. There’s a scene where one of the main characters, Saul (played by James Franco) tries to kick out the windscreen of the police car he’s driving and gets his leg stuck.
(Read more.)
CyclingTips Podcast: Electronic drivetrain gremlins
By: CyclingTipsThis week’s episode comes to you from Rapha’s Boulder, Colorado clubhouse. We talk Vuelta a Espana, Marcel Kittel’s retirement, the Colorado Classic, and then James brings up something a bit controversial: Electronic drivetrains aren’t always reliable.
Is he advocating for going back to mechanical? Maybe.
(Read more.)
Must Read This Week
55 Comments
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797615620784
Helmets are great at helping prevent some injury, but 30 years of constant helmet safety propaganda rammed down throats have greatly overemphasized their reduction to injury, and obviously had some psychological effect in way people approach situations. How many commuters would have been safer by not running that redlight? How many mountain bikers would have been safer if the stuck to trails in their known limits?
I will never ride without a helmet, but there is certainly something there to examine further.
Speaking of the neurological side, recent science seems to show that the way pickle juice helps with muscle cramping is mostly due to the taste! The body's reaction to the strong taste also triggers a neurological reflex that causes the muscles to calm down
It's like when I ride without armor, does it hold me back, am I more conservative, or do I just say F' it!
So yeah, wearing safety gear helps if you crash, and that's really all there is to that.
Laboratory testing for risk taking is like playing poker with fake money, it's not representative of real behavior.
Also it's funny that they seem to consider that the activity you do while wearing a helmet is the same as when you don't.
I could do the same and say that driving with the seatbelt is more dangerous than driving without it. "Let's compare a guy driving a go kart and a F1...".
Another one
"Skydivers take more risks with a parachute than without" yeah because they won't jump without one
50.92593 riders riding next to each other to come up with 44,000
It's called math...Look it up. LOL
There are two points on each sprocket were pins articulate (one where the chain joins the sprocket and one where it leaves it) and there are four sprockets (chainring, cassette and two jockey wheels). So there are eight articulation points in the drivetrain, each with 4940 pins passing them per minute.
So I make the total number of articulations per minute to be 95x52x2x4=4940x8=39, 500 . I don't see how you can get a higher number than that.
It doesn't depend on the number of links in the chain by the way.
"For every minute of pedaling, approximately 44,000 chain pieces are in motion, creating 320,000 separate instances of sliding surface friction"
The number of pieces in motion is surely not something which can be described as "per minute" - they're either in motion or not.
The 320000 instances of friction (per minute) is the number i was trying to recreate.
As someone who has smashed and been saved by a number of Giro and Bells finest, I can attest to that.
I once saw a bloke come off a road bike with no lid on. He caught the edge of a curb and it scalped him. Like literally. Whole top of his head including skin and hair just cut off and hanging down his back. He just sat there with his skull on show looking like a right tool.
I read something somewhere that the army used to have so many fatalities in the old days with dispatch riders on motorcycles. When they introduced helmets as primative as they were, fatalities went down by 46%! ....... and yet decades and generations later, people still seek to prove the obvious.
Oh shit, big brain time
Show me the same premise on a bike from the 90's or early 2000's, and if you dare off-road.
The change in both basically distills down to: make room for fatter tires, use wider rims to support those tires, tubeless (less of an advantage than it was for MTB), discs (same as tubeless). One by is a thing for cross too, but a lot of people still prefer the double.
FWIW I have a cross bike I purposefully got in on the last batch of rim brakes. Avid Juicy Ultimate Canti's work about as well as any road rim caliper. They are hella expensive for what they are though.
If you damage your helmet, you are going to do some damage to your brain so think about it while you still can?
unfortunately road isn't one of those filters
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