02-07-2010, 02:11 PM
(02-07-2010, 12:38 PM)DaveM Wrote:(02-06-2010, 03:29 PM)jr14 Wrote: The only reason to keep them is to maintain the originality of the bike, or you are nostalgic about them.
Or because they work fine.
Frankly, by your criteria, the entire bike is "obsolete" and might as well be thrown out or ridden only for nostalgia. I have to disagree completely. These are great bikes, well worthy of being ridden based on their performance alone and not just because they are vintage. I don't mean to get combative, I just get a bit huffy when people insist that something old is useless or that tiny incremental improvements in perceived performance mean that anything of an earlier design has been rendered unridable. Let's see which lasts longer, this bike or some 14 lb. carbon racer where the frame begins to delaminate after a couple years, the brakes and shifters need replacement after a couple specs of dust get in them, and a critical part shatters because someone tightened a bolt without using an aerospace grade torque wrench.
Ah. You misunderstood what I was saying, and frankly, you are getting quite combative and defensive.
What I said, was that cantilever brakes were obsolete. And they are. There is no doubt they are completely useless when compared to v-brakes.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't use them. You should, because they work fine.
If they fail however, and a new set is needed, what would be the point of compromising safety by going with cantilevers again? That makes no sense, other than nostalgia. You are completely and utterly wrong in this regard. And in this area, the performance upgrade between cantilever to v-brake is not incremental, it is astronomically better performance.
As for your point about frame materials, steel is great. Its easy to work with, comes in lots of different butting and thickness options, and its easy to weld. Aluminum is lighter, comes with the same amount of options for butting and thicknesses, but its harder to weld because you need a TIG welder to do it right.
Now carbon fiber. You also couldn't be more wrong about carbon fiber. There is no reason, except one, which I will touch upon later, why all bikes shouldn't be made of carbon fiber. It's lighter, it's stronger, it has stronger fatigue resistance than aluminum, it's tougher, it handles temperature extremes better, its becoming less and less expensive, and any number of other reasons it is better than metal. Any good carbon fiber will not delaminate as you suggest over a couple years, because if it is infused properly, there are no layers to delaminate, the part is all one layer. You are thinking of some gear head carbon fibering his dashboard and watching it delaminate in the sun, not a high quality bike made correctly. The ONLY reason not to go with carbon fiber, is that if it does break or crack, you really shouldn't attempt to repair it. But damage this severe is uncommon, just like a crack in a metal frame. Dispensing this kind of advice is seriously limiting the knowledge of all the people reading on this forum, just because you have something against technology.
You are inhibiting the education of everyone here.
Dedicated scholar of bicycles