Because of so many people on bikes, the train station of this city needs a lot of huge bike parking garages; this is the (worlds) largest (12,500 bicycles):
Like @BeachAV8R, I’ve been watching the Vuelta a Espania while on my trainer, having missed most of it while it was happening due to work commitments. Through stage 5 and I have been really impressed by the course and quality of racing so far. Of course Spain is beautiful and much credit must be given to the organizers and teams for hosting and competing the race safely and professionally during the pandemic.
I’m still only one hour into Stage 1 - which is glorious because that means I have weeks and weeks of watching still ahead. Hooray! You watching it on NBC SN?
I have a Giant Revolt 0 heading my way in early March and it is a tubeless setup. I feel somewhat intimidated by that. I have no problems with the old traditional tube/tire system but that box looks intimidating. I guess this is also my first bike with disc brakes as well. Going to be interesting.
So even though I’m into biking…I’m not really all that knowledgeable about the technical aspects (my mind is still trying to grapple with the reality versus the title “clipless” pedals…but…but…they have clips!.. ) - what is the advantage of a tubeless tire? Weight?
I use the same as you have there. Orange Seal in all my tubeless setups, both Mountain and Road bike. My road rims, I converted myself.
I think the Orange seal bottle should come with an attachment for the valve, so you might not need that sealant injector. I’d be interested to know if it makes it any easier though.
There’s a few reasons/benefits. Less risk of punctures as they re-seal. You can run lower pressures without the risk of pinch punctures. For gravel and Mountain bikes, this means more grip.
Whilst commuting on my road bike after having 3 separate punctures one evening, riding home in torrential rain (with gatorskin tyres), I finally swapped over to tubeless on the road bike. Again you can run slightly lower pressures.
Tubeless are great until it goes wrong, but you still carry an inner tube for that reason.
Yep. Although it’s obviously a generic UK based minimalist production, less is more while on the trainer. During the sprint finish of stage 4, it was really fun to get in the drops and wind up the trainer in the last kilometer, not that I could produce more than about a 1/3 of what the pros do.
@JerryTumbler, So helmets don’t seem to be much of a thing there. Is that just true of urban cruising or do road warriors go naked-noggin out in the open as well?
Really nice Fridge. I demoed a Giant Revolt and really liked it. But impossible to find. I could order one from another bike shop, but wanted to ride the actually bike that I was buying. Seller’s market at the moment. The Revolt is is one of the few coming with carbon wheels
Yeah, the smaller bottle did. But going by what a cycling mate told me to buy, so there you are. He’s a pretty good wrench. Builds his bikes from scratch.
@smokinhole. A good, bike friendly infrastucture is your best helmet. This people centric (in stead of car-centric) infrastructure isn’t a war-zone. Soldiers and jet-helmets wear helmets, not people on bikes. Riding a bike is an efficient way of walking, so almost everybody (people of all ages) on a bike is dressed for the destiny, not the journey. There ought to be no connection between a bicycle and a helmet. Forcing people to wear helmets is the best way for the car lobby to ensure that people are not riding bikes. They make it look like it’s a dangerous thing. But on the contrary, cycling is safe, healthy, social, etc. With no need of helmets and/or dressed like a canary (= lycra) you get true mass cycling, resulting in safety by numbers too.
Enjoying the wind in the hair is a very important part of riding a bike. Road warriors are unknown, and almost every motorist belongs to the people on bicycles too; in short, motorist and people on bike are not 2 different worlds like in the UK for instance.
An example of people-centric infrastructure city planning:
I agree, for normal city biking.
Although I think helmets are good safety measures for kids, learning to ride a bike and competition cyclists who race a bunch of other fast riders, at high speeds.
I wear a helmet when I go into the woods with my MTB. The hills are steep, trails are narrow and the stones are hard.
But as you say, the connection isn’t between bicycle and helmet. The connection is between the risk of the activity and a risk mitigating factor.
I try to wear cycling helmet as often as possible. In fact it is mandatory by law in Finland (although there is no penalty for not obeying the law).
It is my understanding that many fatal accidents even in low speeds could have been prevented using helmet. Even in the city you might get bumbed by a car in the crossing and suffer serious head injury. This kind of fatal accident happened last summer in my neighborhood.
I wear a helmet because I make my income with my brain and I want to protect that :-). Also, I am in North America where bicycles and cyclists are not treated with the same level of … care? I don’t want to choose an argumentative word there
The difference was made stark to me when I was over in the Netherlands on a work visit (our companies main office is in Zeist). A colleague and I were biking along one of the fabulous trails and we were coming up on a road intersection - a T intersection where we were travelling along the top part of the T, lets say left to right. A car was coming up behind us and my North American spider sense was tingling anticipating that car talking a right and going down the vertical part of the T. So I started slowing down to let them get ahead. The trail was a few meters (10 feet) off of the road so I expected the driver not to really see us or pay attention and take the right without looking - and we would be crossing the street at that time.
As we were slowing down, the car was slowing down. And I was confused. I looked back to see the turn signal on - so my guess was right, but the driver was looking right at me. And I was like … holy poop … he is yeilding to me? We crossed the intersection with the right-of-way (those coming up from the bottom of the T had a stop sign while the traffic crossing the T were part of the primary flow of traffic.
In the Netherlands, drivers have become used to having bikes everywhere. I mean, it is fair to say that more people bike than drive there. So the culture is very, very different. And that means that you do not need a helmet - because drivers are as aware of you as you are of them. Heck, they are 90% likely to be regular cyclists them selves.
In North American (Canada and the US, I have no experience in any other countries), drivers are king and are more likely to not see you, let alone respect your distance and path. I have been cut off my drivers in the same situation that I described above and in the situation where I was on the road with them and they could have obviously seen me. In my opinion, because of that we need helmets over here - the likelihood of an accident with a vehicle with more that 2 wheels is very, very high if you are on the road. And I don’t know if you know this, but the vehicle always wins that one
I would love to have enough trails here, and enough bikers, to make it ‘normal’ for drivers. And then, for sure, we can ditch the helmets - certainly on the trails.
Cyclists drive me nuts in Manhattan! It is worse than ever with the explosion of food delivery. I know those riders are just putting food on the table–theirs and yours. But Ye Gads! It’s like they never rode before. Bags off the bars. Knees all akimbo. And if they side-swipe you they will not stop (for reasons I also won’t get into here). If you want to see bikes done badly, come to NYC!
And along those same lines, I wouldn’t dare even SAY the word “bicycle” without a helmet here. That would be like flying aerobatics with your seat harness unfastened.
) - what is the advantage of a tubeless tire? Weight?
