3 ms·

>"...The problem with slamming it into your biggest gear and pedalling downhill is that wind resistance increases with the square of your velocity." -- Are you

>"...The problem with slamming it into your biggest gear and pedalling downhill is that wind resistance increases with the square of your velocity." -- Are you much of a biker? (I put on around ~1,000 miles a month on a 29" mtn bike. Knobby tires and all. At no point ever have I worried about wind resistance - and im not a "shave my legs tour de france" (my brother is, but hes an ultra athelete-type-A Doctor) type that worries about my grams per component, corporate spandex or $12,000 week-end ride. So, while you may be "technically correct" you're commenting as "functionally illiterate"

Steltek 5y ago
Mountain bike descents and road bike descents are dramatically different things.
- samstave 5y ago
  Find me a road bike with an electric motor.
  - a4isms 5y ago
    They exist, and that's why UCI scan bikes at the race start line for electric motors, it's a serious enough problem that it has a name, "Motor doping." Famously, Femke van den Driessche received a six-year ban after being caught motor-doping in cyclocross. https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/36142963 https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/36142963 If you don't want to cheat with a motor, bicycle stores sell all kinds of road bikes with pedal assist for non-competitive riding. Trek, for example, make several e-assist versions of their Domane road bikes: https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/ebike_collection/ https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/ebike_collection/
    - samstave 4y ago
      Where newsletter and how subscibe
a4isms 5y ago
I really don't want this to devolve into chest-pounding, but I have worked in the bike industry, and have raced on-and-off as an amateur in road, cyclocross, MTB, and duathlon dating back to the late 80s. I remember when the Ritchey P23 was the state-of-the-art in lightweight mountain biking, something I chuckled at when riding a 17 pound carbon Ibis a couple of decades later. Wind resistance absolutely matters in every discipline of cycling, and you don't need to have been fooling around with bikes for forty years to know that. If it didn't matter, what are all those triathletes and time trialists doing with aero bars, flat backs, and disc wheels? It matters in MTB as well. The optimal position for efficiently generating power on a bicycle is actually quite upright, you can see this if you look at pictures of people riding "roller races," they usually flipped their handlebars up so they could be much more upright than when riding on a track. XC MTBs have much lower bars than would be most efficient on rollers without wind resistance, and that's because the lower position generates less drag, knobby tires and all. Even if you aren't riding a time trial or racing XC on an MTB, knowing where to expend your energy and where to save it matters greatly. If your daily commute involves hills, you will work less and arrive sooner if you don't try to crank your max while descending, and save your efforts for climbing. That's just math and physics. --- Also, please, I'm not upset at any random internet person using insulting language, but it is not constructive for our community to go around suggesting other users are "functionally illiterate."
- samstave 4y ago
  pwnd. me. your comment. LOVELY and thank you for the response, proving your functional literacy :-) AWESOME. Anyway, when you close with just "Math/Physics" Its a great comment, I just dont, on my personal, take ANY of that into account, as I am there for the ride and not to best anything. But I LOVE everything about what you said and do. I need to know you
  - a4isms 4y ago
    Here’s the thing: There’s talking about cycling, and there’s cycling. They each have a role: Talking about cycling is how we share knowledge and build a culture and an industry to serve it, and grow knowledge over the generations. But it’s still not cycling. For that you have to throw a leg over the top tube and go out and suffer, and fall, and get up, and bend a bent hanger back to fix it after the fall. And ride, and ride, and ride. And wear a shit-eating grin so hard that your face hurts, but you can’t stop grinning in the wind, because riding feels so damn good. If you ride, that’s all I need to know. See you on a trail someday, maybe.

Steltek 5y ago

Mountain bike descents and road bike descents are dramatically different things.

samstave 5y ago
Find me a road bike with an electric motor.
- a4isms 5y ago
  They exist, and that's why UCI scan bikes at the race start line for electric motors, it's a serious enough problem that it has a name, "Motor doping." Famously, Femke van den Driessche received a six-year ban after being caught motor-doping in cyclocross. https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/36142963 https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/36142963 If you don't want to cheat with a motor, bicycle stores sell all kinds of road bikes with pedal assist for non-competitive riding. Trek, for example, make several e-assist versions of their Domane road bikes: https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/ebike_collection/ https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/ebike_collection/
  - samstave 4y ago
    Where newsletter and how subscibe

a4isms 5y ago

I really don't want this to devolve into chest-pounding, but I have worked in the bike industry, and have raced on-and-off as an amateur in road, cyclocross, MTB, and duathlon dating back to the late 80s. I remember when the Ritchey P23 was the state-of-the-art in lightweight mountain biking, something I chuckled at when riding a 17 pound carbon Ibis a couple of decades later. Wind resistance absolutely matters in every discipline of cycling, and you don't need to have been fooling around with bikes for forty years to know that. If it didn't matter, what are all those triathletes and time trialists doing with aero bars, flat backs, and disc wheels? It matters in MTB as well. The optimal position for efficiently generating power on a bicycle is actually quite upright, you can see this if you look at pictures of people riding "roller races," they usually flipped their handlebars up so they could be much more upright than when riding on a track. XC MTBs have much lower bars than would be most efficient on rollers without wind resistance, and that's because the lower position generates less drag, knobby tires and all. Even if you aren't riding a time trial or racing XC on an MTB, knowing where to expend your energy and where to save it matters greatly. If your daily commute involves hills, you will work less and arrive sooner if you don't try to crank your max while descending, and save your efforts for climbing. That's just math and physics. --- Also, please, I'm not upset at any random internet person using insulting language, but it is not constructive for our community to go around suggesting other users are "functionally illiterate."

samstave 4y ago
pwnd. me. your comment. LOVELY and thank you for the response, proving your functional literacy :-) AWESOME. Anyway, when you close with just "Math/Physics" Its a great comment, I just dont, on my personal, take ANY of that into account, as I am there for the ride and not to best anything. But I LOVE everything about what you said and do. I need to know you
- a4isms 4y ago
  Here’s the thing: There’s talking about cycling, and there’s cycling. They each have a role: Talking about cycling is how we share knowledge and build a culture and an industry to serve it, and grow knowledge over the generations. But it’s still not cycling. For that you have to throw a leg over the top tube and go out and suffer, and fall, and get up, and bend a bent hanger back to fix it after the fall. And ride, and ride, and ride. And wear a shit-eating grin so hard that your face hurts, but you can’t stop grinning in the wind, because riding feels so damn good. If you ride, that’s all I need to know. See you on a trail someday, maybe.