Road Cycling Digest: A Full Suspension Gravel Bike, Worst Things About the Best Helmets, Talking Torque & More

 I laughed way too hard at this.

 My understanding was it's a rehashing of the old failed URT philosophy, but a sloppy reverb is a more accurate description.
Want to make the whole system a functionless lump of extra weight? Just stand up on the pedals.

 And here I just thought it was a soggy thudbuster

 Ever see that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where cousin Andy and his wife do a bad job at middle seat conversation for a dinner party? Pinkbike 1st comments are kind of like that. They set the tone for the entire conversation that follows. You’ve done a great job here setting up your pitch and the coming in with a great punchline. It really sets the tone.

 sproing boing sproing boing

grav grav grav grav

www.instagram.com/tv/Cj-tC7PDRDB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 Those who never owned a reverb will never know that over time, it doubles as a suspension, LOL!

 My one year old Reverb just became a suspension seapost. One good thing to come out of that, the One Up V.2 I replaced it with is a much better post.

 @OnTheRivet: I have no idea why I have had 5 of the pieces of sh1t! Every version. The latest is by far the absolute worst regardless of bleeding and that stupid red thing that needs not to exist in the first place. And its way more than 10mm….

 You may have missed where the 'rear' suspension is. It's still a hard tail. just more comfy. And, stop complaining, it's not good for you.

 @EnduroManiac: You may have missed that Niner have a real dual sus gravel bike www.tradeinn.com/bikeinn/en/niner-mcr-9-rdo-mtb-frame/137426288/p?utm_source=google_products&utm_medium=merchant&id_producte=10097586&country=za&gclid=CjwKCAjw79iaBhAJEiwAPYwoCCqLRs8my-zWIODT7pXYdwp2IRsPUD7Jx72MlgTg2SHLcw1TvqwpnRoCY_sQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 @headshot: No I did not miss it. And it looks like it’s not picking up anyway.
But if it would, what would be the problem for you? None.

 Taking a Salsa Dos Niner, or something of similar design would make more sense. Otherwise you might as well just run a suspension seatpost on a frame.

 @EnduroManiac: could care less but I think its a stupid concept. Far easier to put drop bars on an XC bike.

 Yeah…it’s as heavy as a xc mtb too. Seems smarter to just put curly bars on an xc fs bike.

 you guys are seeing it wrong, i ride an 6km uphill fire road every weekend, and most of the times i stumble upon some gravel riders, half of their bikes are on XC bikes with curly bars as you mention, but they have mentioned several times, their bikes are far from perfect, there are still improvements that the bikes need and cannot be done if they are riding XC bikes with curly bars. Like the rigidity of a road bike when going on pavement. It is a new sport after all. Things aren't that simple.

 A mountain bike doesn’t have the sufficient gearing, multiple position options and fast rolling wheel speed to keep up on competitive or at least faster group rides or races, whereas this bike would.

Will I buy one? No. But, enough people will, and they’ll enjoy it. What’s wrong with that?

 @gdharries: exactly.

 @alwayslivingthedream: the only person that stood the hell out of the medium is Yoann Barelli, what happened to him? he disappeared.

A lot of Enduro and DH trails need gravel/fire roads, so you can be assured they wont be disappearing any time soon.

 For me, a gravel bike is a road bike for people like me that don't care about going uber fast. It has a lots of mounts for backpacking or carrying camera stuff, bigger tires so it is more comfortable over rough roads/gravel to get away from cars. Trails around here are closed after rain so I grab that to ride cause it is better on those surfaces then my hardtail.

 @gdharries: Nobody holds a gun to your head forcing you to run mountain bike gearing when using one as the basis for a gravel bike you know, or to limit yourself to a flat/riser bar without additional hand/upper body position options.

 @gdharries: many 1x gravel bikes have the same gearing as xc bikes, there is no difference in a lightweight 29er and a 700c gravel wheelset, you can choose whatever tire choice you like for either. Bull bars are also an option if you don’t mind losing some style points. I ride a hard tail with gravel bike buddies all the time, it depends on the terrain who’s faster but I’m pretty sure I have more fun.

 Feeling young and fit,just as regular e-bikes.

 Selling more products. That's always the point.

 I can think of two situations:
- you're living in the Alps and don't have the physical capacity (anymore) to do long climbs
- you live in a relatively flat area and don't have the physical capacity to reach 25 km/h yourself

Seeing the ebike sales numbers, I don't believe they all live in the Alps....

 So an unfit rider can ride with a very fit one and both of them have a good time. For instance if your wife is an elite athlete and you are a couch potato, now you can accompany her on training rides and not get dropped. Heck, you might even be able to motor pace for her!

 @Mac1987: On a steel commuter with hub dynamo, Nexus 7 rear hub, a big basket on the front rack and big bicycle bags on the rear rack (and not so aero clothes and haircut) I apparently ride somewhere around 23km/h, according to those roadside speedometers. I suppose a typical roadbike takes next to nothing to exceed 25km/h on level ground, doesn't it?

Which also implies that if you want to ride with any half-decent road cyclist on a road race bike, the assistance isn't going to help any as it shuts off beyond 25km/h.

 @vinay:

He must’ve meant mph

Going 25 on the flats for any extended period is pretty tough

 @hllclmbr: e bikes are often limited to 25 kph in Europe. Which makes an e-road bike about as pointless as an a*shole, right here *points at elbow, does a line of coke

 @blackpudding:

That Trek goes up to 28mph here in ‘Murica

 @nozes: I don't want one, but I can see why a rider who is less fit, has less time to get fit, or doesn't have the physical potential to get sufficiently fit would want one. Not everybody wants to work hard and commit to building cycling fitness. You don't have to live in the Alps to want one, you just have to want to ride longer or do more climbing than your body or mind allow. My buddy and I were on a 60+ mile gravel ride, 6k feet of climbing, when we came up on an older woman on an ebike. She sheepishly admitted feeling torn about riding an ebike, but we both cheered her on. She then put it in full boost mode and dropped us on a short climb, just to show us what it could do! Not what I want to ride right now (maybe when I get older), but good for her. She probably wouldn't ride at all if she didn't have battery assist. I really don't get all the ebike hate. They have their time and place.

 They’re just in it for the downs, bro

 @dcaf:

The downside to a bike like that Trek is that a less fit rider is often a less skilled rider too, but now they can hang on fast group rides, where their lack of skill can be a detriment for those around them.

I know that’s a pretty limited scenario, but it definitely will happen.

 To cover more distance. I am a very fit rider and am looking forward to getting an ebike for road riding. I'll work just as hard on it as my normal bike, just faster and further.

 @hllclmbr: They'll sell a Hayabusa to anyone with a license too.

 @vinay: I was in Annecy over the summer - they've got a lovely cycle path round the lake that I used to get to the shuttle bus up the local mountain. I was wondering why I was overtaking all the ebikes. Then scrolled through my Garmin screens and I was doing just over 25kph for about 10km. On my enduro bike, in a full face. So, can't really see the point in an e road bike when that speed is fairly easy. Commuter bikes, cargo, even e-shuttling make sense. But not a road bike that'll do 25kph at a very gentle cruise. My wife couldn't ride an e road bike with me, as I ride faster than the speed cutout most of the time, so it doesn't do that fitness leveling thing an e-MTB does

 Keeping up with the young folks. e-bikes for commuting are dope though.

 @mountainsofsussex: A higher speed for road ebikes would be very sensible and make them a much better option for a lot of commuters. Maybe Chris Boardman can get the law changed for road but not MTB eebs?

 Not sure what it is like in North America, but here in Europe we've got two types of pedal assisted bikes. You've got the regular assisted bikes which by law are treated similarly to unassisted bikes. These are limited to 25km/h (16mph). Then you've got the faster ones which are limited at 40km/h (25mph). You then have to abide to the laws of mopeds, you need insurance, license plate and all that. But I doubt the bike in the article is like that as I doubt people are going to mount a license plate and stick to the main roads. So yeah, a road race bike with pedal assist, limited to 25km/h seems incredibly useless. Except maybe for people who don't have the power to climb their local hills and/or don't have the stamina to stand up on their pedals. But then there must be a tiny subset of those who apparently don't have the strength, but do have the guts to descend after they've reached the top.

As this stuff has made it to a Pinkbike article anyway, it would be nice if Pinkbike does an in-depth article on this scene. Who rides road bikes with pedal assist and why?

 It allows you to do more laps...

 @fruitsd79:

Yeah. A well funded 18 year old can walk into a Ford dealer and drive out with an 800hp car, too.

That really shouldn’t be possible, imo

 @dcaf: So its for lazy people. And its designed so you cant tell if its an ebike so its for lazy people with fragile egos.

 @chakaping: nobody needs a "Road race" type ebike for commuting. You go just as quickly on a commuter based ebike and you have room for storage and don't have to wear lycra.

 @vinay: correct on all accounts

 It’s something people enjoy. What’s the point of a mountain bike?

 @blackpudding: I got the reference.

 So far, I have only seen older people who look WELL passed their primes riding them. So, it doesn't bother me.

But I used to say the same thing about eMTB's too. Now I see 30 year old's riding eBikes with their 7 year old's following on their own eBike (actual experience). Or see Surons on dedicated NON motorized MTB single track with other eMTB's claiming that they are indeed all mountain bikes (also an actual experience).

So we will see how long that lasts.

 @Mac1987: I have a friend who's a former TdF hill climber who's got terminal cancer who currently has zero wattage left in his legs. An E-road bike might be the only way he manages to get out to do a family traditional birthday ride with his father (who's in his mid 80s and rode nearly a century last year without E-assist) this year, assuming he makes it to that date.

 @deeeight: sorry to hear that, but happy he still gets to ride this way. Like I said, there are valid cases for electric roadbikes.

 @hllclmbr: Not sure if this is still the case, but back when I raced if you could go under an hour in the 40 kilometer time trial you qualified to go to Nationals. 40k is 25 miles, so you had to average just above 25 mph for just under one hour.

That ought to give you a good idea of just how little work those moped riders are actually doing, and how much the motor is doing for them.

 Crowfoot thing is kinda obvious. What was quite a surprise to me and took a bit of thinking to accept, and what they only glanced over in this article, is the fact that measurement results differ depending on where you grip the wrench with you hand.. I used to grip at the very end of the level, and that is no bueno

 @GZMS: Well mathematically I think that part is "obvious". The length of the lever arm is the distance from your hand to the torque wrench head, by definition. If you're pushing perpendicular to the wrench then the torque magnitude is literally (distance from hand to wrench head) times (force). So your hand position directly determines the torque you get.

 @WaterBear: well it is not that simple, though... "position directly determines the torque you get" - if you do it with the same force... but you don't, because you rely on torque wrench mechanism to click, when the torque (lever*force) is right...
"the distance from your hand to the torque wrench head" - that would be the case if the wrench would be a solid one piece bar, but the torque value is measured at a joint somewhere between the handle and the head, which makes it a quite tricky multi-lever system..
here is a nice video explaining it all: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f746pF1xc0

 @GZMS: It boils down to how correct the model is. I assumed the wrench pivoted at the socket, but if it does not (as in the video) then you apply conservation of torque at the actual pivot like they do to carry out computations.

You need to be aware though that if you're being that realistic, then you have to go redo the cross products in my original post and I wonder how "obvious" that result still is to you if the basic equations of torque in the first place were not.

 @WaterBear: seems like you are strugling with basic definitions of what the torque is and are trying to mask it behind some maths knowledge..

Torque is force times the perpendicular distance from the line of action of the force to the axis of rotation. Force did not change. Perpendicular distance from the line of action to the axis hasnt change. So torque hasnt changed. Wow, someone in 2027 will trully be happy.

 I thought pinkbike was a safe refuge from my undergrad… guess it’s time to go read NSMB now

 @WaterBear: Draw a free-body diagram for the torque wrench. It's all in one plane so it's not too tricky. If you use arbitrary vector magnitudes you can get a good idea of where the torque changes. You may have to apply more force with your hand to get the same amount of torque if you choke up on a handle, but the breakaway mechanism is only going to respond to the applied torque from the handle, not your hand. It depends on the tool and the mechanism (pivot points) whether you mess things up by changing hand position.

 I did read the article (and really liked it) and I agree with @A-HIGHLY-EDUCATED-PROFESSIONAL. The moment the nut (or whatever you're tightening) experiences is that which the pivot (between tool and attachment) experiences plus the cross product of the distance of nut to pivot and the force applied. You just want the nut to experience the moment transferred by the pivot and cancel out that cross product. Hence indeed the force and distance component should be parallel.

What I wasn't aware of:
1. Your torque tool isn't accurate at the extreme ends. My torque tool (a screwdriver shaped one from Wiha) has a range from 0.25 to 6Nm (in quarter Nm increments) and most of the time I use it to tighten bolts up to 6Nm (for fork and brake). Apparently I don't have the right tool for this.
2. Store the tool in the lightest setting. I usually leave in the last used setting, so typically 6Nm or 4Nm. Been doing that for over fifteen years or so...

 For real. I was really getting tired of the entire front page being about red bull rampage

 Some of them can come apart if you unwind them to "zero". I had one with its lowest marked value as 20 ft*lbs and it did just that. Replacement never gets unwound below 20 ft*lbs and been fine for 8 years now.

 So, just like the pioneers, eh?

 good one, knew it was coming

 I picked up a $65 schwinn 29r and robbed my spares bin to make it shift nice and get better tires for winter "gravel" riding. maybe $150 including handlebar swap. I can't imagine spending $14000 to accomplish the same task.

 I think they’re okay for a lot of uses, but they AREN’T bicycles.

They ARE motorized.

 Scrolled down to make this comment

 It's tactical genius from Pinkbike... Roll out a roadie update on Monday morning when everyone's grumpy, and everyone piles into that instead of filling Rampage recaps and Product Reviews with venom. Happy start to the week everyone!

 @HankHank: Andreu Lacondeguy was robbed

 I bet it will be in France. Now you know, right now.

 Or Salsa, BMC, even specialized if you go back far enough... 1.5 inches of rear WHEEL travel is plenty enough for a gravel bike. Otherwise why bother when an air-sprung suspension seatpost does the same job at less weight that that ridiculously design.

 @deeeight: Agreed. This is silly and is designed to part middle-ageden from their money.

The Moots goes back at least to the early 90s, right?

 @aaronjb: 1991 I think was the debut year. Moots still makes Titanium YBBs except now in a Gravel bike option as well as a mountain bike. Cannondale also has a softtail gravel frame with a carbon lefty gravel suspension fork. Their suspension frame uses what they called Kingpin technology and has no rear shock. Lauf (brand most known for its carbon leaf-spring trailing arm suspension fork) also has a similar design carbon frame gravel bike that basically works the same as the Cannondale, but lacking the kingpin feature it doesn't have as much movement in its rear stays.

moots.com/bike/routt-ybb

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0TL2VhAoB0

www.laufcycling.com/product/lauf-seigla

 He's building frames on a consistent basis and does some really nice stuff, but yea probably not many staying local. Framebuilding in Georgia kinda sucks in general, there's just not a big enough market for it here.

 Thanks for letting me know. I'm currently shopping for a new road helmet, so that was the one article here in which I had any interest. But it's behind the paywall. Good to know that I missed nothing.

 @Marquis: If you press shift+ctrl+a you can "copy all" and paste the full article into a word document. This works for a majority of paywall sites.

I use it often

 @Rexuis-Twin: Good tip, thanks. Your original premise was still correct.

 Heralded since May 2019: www.pinkbike.com/news/top-stories-from-cycling-tips-mathieu-vdps-insane-amstel-gold-shimano-grx-t47-threaded-bbs-and-more-april-and-may-2019.html

 Because they're still in the denial phase of slowly developing towards a XC bike

 I didn't know this site was called pinkmountainbike.com......

 A filter for about one item a month? Really?

 Or make it so we aren't forced to click the link when we see it