thinkin baout bikes

lazy saturday q:

do ppl race cross w/rohloffs? i mean, obviously there's the shifter problem, and the weight, but otherwise it seems like a drivetrain that lets you shift while coasting/under heavy load/in the muck and that creates a SS chainline might be advantageous in cross.

mostly i'm thinking this: mate a rohloff hub with Di2 shifters, and mount a little servo down by the drop out that pulls cable.

rohloff hubs need to pull a lot of cable (96mm, total) for each shift, which is why brifters don't work. seems like most shifters for speedhubs use two cables, wrapped in opposing directions around a barrel, which is in turn wrapped around the bar (so to speak). a similar mechanism mounted by the dropout (non-driveside) could pull the same amount of cable but around a much smaller spool. how much smaller, i don't know, but i bet it'd be significantly smaller than the diameter of a handlebar. mate that with a little servo and seal it in a weather-proof housing.

presumably, Di2 shifters are 'dumb' in that an electrican could wire them to like turn on a light or fire a ping pong ball out of a tube or what the fuck ever. they're just electrical switches with brake levers on them (presumably). it seems likely that you could rewire the shifters to fire the electronic cable-pulling mechanism, and hey, you've got electronic rohloff shifting.

it's a ridiculous idea that would cost several thou (if it even worked), but i bet it'd be fun. rally-car style paddle shifting! no dropped chains! shift while you're running with the bike, etc.

it'd empiggen your bike by about 3 pounds (which is baaad for CX), and i'm guessing ZIPP doesn't typically mate carbon rims to rohloff hubs, but i still

is there not some sort of electronic brain in the battery pack part that tells the motors in the Di2 derailleurs which way to go, and by how much? it does that auto-trim thing at the back. so you'd need that to be reprogrammed by some l33t d00d with the new parameters of what the cable-puller has to do.

at least that's how i thought it worked!

also, looool @ 'empiggen'

I think it would be hard to do with the Di2machine for the reasons for the reasons haitch mentions, but I wouldn't have thought it would be too hard to hack something together for someone adept at micro-controllers. The tricky thing is dealing with the nearly 100mm of travel you need to go through the range. To do this with a linear actuator this might be vulnerable to damage, I just looked up some specs and you might need quite a large battery pack to do it. The better way would be to use a motor an worm gear type affair to replace the cable housing on the end of the hub but finding a strong enough motor that could fit the space between the fork and spokes would be hard enough and be pretty vulnerable during cross racing.

yeah, see, of course i don't know what half of all your words mean, is the thing.

i guess i was imagining that you'd use the Di2 shifters ALONE, and forget about the brane and all the rest, and replacing it with a microcontroller that spooled up the cable. mounting it at the dropout would probably be too vulnerable, but why not near the bottom bracket (not on the bottom, obv)

Do you gain much from that? You have a shorter cable run for sure but what about weight and you still have 2 vulnerable cables on the stay.

well, weight's sort of out the window once you strap on a 3 lb Rohloff anyway, and you've only got one more cable than usual, both on the non-drive side

lets just forget about that crazy idea and move on

anyway: got xc ski boots, and it occurred to me that winter cycling shoes could probably be designed very very similarly, and aren't, and i'm confused as to why

http://www.performancebike.com/images/performance/products/medium/20-5379-BLK-ANGLE.jpg

well, see, there u go

i was mostly thinkin of Lake-style winter boots which are just gore-tex hiking boots w/cleats in em

damn i thought i was gonna make a million dollars :(

ive no idea how good they are. i really like garneau's clothes-- they are not super duper durable, but i think they fit and feel great. i have been less impressed upon checking out their other gear.

wearing some LG tights ~right now~

it's just that all these high-end XC boots are all carbon-y and HI PERFORMANCE but still pretty reasonably priced (as compared to winter cycling boots---well, the Lakes at least). i got last year's top-shelf Atomics for $200. i mean, i'm guessing waaaaay more ppl xc ski than bike in the winter, but these things are so techy i'm surprised there isn't some roadie analogue (but again, i haven't really looked)

skate boots? yeah, they are pretty technical i guess. those lg boots are on sale for $150 at perf.

ive not been skating now in like 3 years. xc is sorta a pain from denver. at least in boulder you can hit eldora in 40 mins. from denver, everything is at least an hour and 15 minutes.

huh, weird! i mean i guess it's not shocking that in mn i can hit miles of trails w/in a short walk from my house, or a 15min drive

like, there are thursday night races at the park allllll winter

that would be really fun.

shit just melts off so fast here. when they get enough snow in boulder they set up some track in n. boulder park. at least they used to.

npr inspires new wave of bike builders. it seems like yesterday when you could just buy a fixie and be cool. now they want you building shit.

awaiting story about npr listener impaled on shattered bamboo top tube.

lol

yeah these bamboo bikes freak me out a bit, i know it'd probably be fine when built by someone who knows what's what but... it's bamboo!

"Everyone who leaves the studio says, 'Wow, my bike is my favorite object now,' " says bike expert and engineer Marty Odlin.

favorite object?

thinkin baout a giant bowery (lol i know rite) or similar for a commute bike - to run as singlespeed rather than fixed. tho i would like something with braze-ons for a rack on the back, and the bowery ain't got em. maybe something like this??

pretty cool imo

http://www.irocycle.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=163

since i <3 my rob roy what they dont make no more u_u

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shortpants51/sets/72157622613740666/

^^^ interesting imo

dude is a local frame builder and behind bars is a cool local shop (on the wrong side of town for me u_u)

i'm seriously thinking about putting down a deposit for a custom frame around xmas of my last year in school. little grad gift to myself.

q: what do i get????

u should get a mooooooots

get a job sonny *taps cane*

well yah that is the point do u see

A friend of mine has just started designing Ti bikes - his first prototype is a commuter but he'll be making a road bike soon I think.

what do you want this bike to do?

gbx your CX w/ hub gearing bike is near reality!! (minus the DI2 bits, but u can't have everything u kno)

haitch thanks for the flag on this-- i have a cross frame with an internal eight and a grip shift hack. im gonna check out the versa brifter!

ok, its $180. my hack cost less than $5 and works pretty well. :(

ooof

china: skipping fixies and 'irony'

thinkin baout this potential massive increase in the supply of SCANDIUM

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/its-called-scandium-and-it-could-become-qlds-next-export-star-20100517-v8pc.html

also lol@ metallica minerals

didn't know where to post this so posting itt
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127137816