Ronde van Vlaanderen 2017 *spoilers*
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At the end of the day Gilbert is a professional cyclist. Which means he gets paid to do it. The marketing people at Specialized are probably delighted with that finish line photo - so job done.0
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Pinno wrote:KingstonGraham wrote:It was "an admittedly decent ride" by Gilbert, though.
In retrospect he's dead right. I mean a decent ride would have been Gilbert going off the front at the 250km to go mark, falling off on the Muur and breaking his leg in the process, crashing on the Koppenberg breaking his wrist and finishing 3 hours ahead of the peloton before asking the attending crowd if he was worthy of crossing the finishing line.
...but even then, that will never be as good as clinging to some over rated Swiss bloke's wheel putting in diddley squat effort and then pipping him at the post, will it?
What?0 -
Milton50 wrote:Pinno wrote:KingstonGraham wrote:It was "an admittedly decent ride" by Gilbert, though.
In retrospect he's dead right. I mean a decent ride would have been Gilbert going off the front at the 250km to go mark, falling off on the Muur and breaking his leg in the process, crashing on the Koppenberg breaking his wrist and finishing 3 hours ahead of the peloton before asking the attending crowd if he was worthy of crossing the finishing line.
...but even then, that will never be as good as clinging to some over rated Swiss bloke's wheel putting in diddley squat effort and then pipping him at the post, will it?
What?
Fiiiiiiiiiiiight0 -
Milton50 wrote:Pinno wrote:KingstonGraham wrote:It was "an admittedly decent ride" by Gilbert, though.
In retrospect he's dead right. I mean a decent ride would have been Gilbert going off the front at the 250km to go mark, falling off on the Muur and breaking his leg in the process, crashing on the Koppenberg breaking his wrist and finishing 3 hours ahead of the peloton before asking the attending crowd if he was worthy of crossing the finishing line.
...but even then, that will never be as good as clinging to some over rated Swiss bloke's wheel putting in diddley squat effort and then pipping him at the post, will it?
What?
Ref.: Gerrans (Professional cyclist of Australian Origin), Cancellara (Professional cyclist of Swiss Origin), Milan San Remo 2012 (Italian Classic, which traditionally marked the start of the Professional cycling season proper).
Apologies to all for not mentioning Nibali as Nibali had originally made the attack.
Nibali (Professional cyclist of Italian Origin).seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
You think Cancellara is over rated?0
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Whew. I was about to unleash an essay on why Cancellara was immense :P0
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Discs?seanoconn - gruagach craic!0
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Aah but with a slight suspension sort of thing - a coiled spring in the steerer.
Interesting:
seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:Yup yup.
All that hype, and the biggest race of the year and he goes back to rim brakes.
Mainly because he was worried about not being able to get the right wheel if he had a mechanical. That worked out well.0 -
andyp wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Yup yup.
All that hype, and the biggest race of the year and he goes back to rim brakes.
Mainly because he was worried about not being able to get the right wheel if he had a mechanical. That worked out well.
Great ad for Shimano all that faff. 3 bikes, 'kin ell :roll:seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
Worse advert for their mechanics.
2 dropped chains and all for the sake of a £15 chain catcher.Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.0 -
Or marginal chainsNapoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.0
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.....wrong thread.....“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0
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Pinno wrote:
I've read elsewhere that the chain got stuck between the big and the small ring on both, so a chain catcher wouldn't make a difference.
They needed a screwdriver to get the chains out of there.
Makes a nice story though.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:Pinno wrote:
I've read elsewhere that the chain got stuck between the big and the small ring on both, so a chain catcher wouldn't make a difference.
They needed a screwdriver to get the chains out of there.
Makes a nice story though.
On what sort of cheap tat does the chain get stuck between the rings?
Mechanical or electronic anyone know?[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
Making some assumptions, if you look at Boonen in the above shot, going uphill in the big ring: Was Boonen changing to the small ring under severe pedal pressure to get the chain stuck?
So that's a combination of badly set up trim function of the front mech and force.
It's relatively unheard of and it's never happened to me though Boonen's small left toe probably produces more power than me.seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
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Pinno wrote:Aah but with a slight suspension sort of thing - a coiled spring in the steerer.
Interesting:
Okay not an engineer, but I would imagine that spring must be ever so strong (or whatever the technical term is) to keep headset in the right place. Too sloppy and headset would be compromised. So if the spring has to be dead strong, what advantage will it give? Might offer some bounce hitting metre deep pot holes, but over juddery cobbles? Not forgetting that once compressed the headset will be fubar'd, and floppy sloppy.. Would have been more efficient putting the flex in the stem, like a, err flexstem from the eighties.0 -
Pinno wrote:Making some assumptions, if you look at Boonen in the above shot, going uphill in the big ring: Was Boonen changing to the small ring under severe pedal pressure to get the chain stuck?
So that's a combination of badly set up trim function of the front mech and force.
It's relatively unheard of and it's never happened to me though Boonen's small left toe probably produces more power than me.
Had a little google and apparently his 42 tooth inner is meant to be paired with a 54 or 55 outer but he was running it with a 53. Seems odd as 53*42 used to be standard even when up til when I started riding again 15 or so years back but they speculate maybe the misalignment in the rings because of the way they are designed these days led to the dropped chain Still surprised it would jam between the rings though - I've seen that enough on kids bikes but can't remember it happening on a decent bike though as you say Boonen climbing at race speed is probably a different proposition in terms of watts.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
i can't believe Boonens issue was one tooth too few on the big ring.0
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FleshTuxedo wrote:i can't believe Boonens issue was one tooth too few on the big ring.
It's possible if the 53 is milled to work better with a 39 rather than the 42 then it could make the difference between dropping the chain and not. That's the suggestion.[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
yourpaceormine wrote:Pinno wrote:Aah but with a slight suspension sort of thing - a coiled spring in the steerer.
Interesting:
Okay not an engineer, but I would imagine that spring must be ever so strong (or whatever the technical term is) to keep headset in the right place. Too sloppy and headset would be compromised. So if the spring has to be dead strong, what advantage will it give? Might offer some bounce hitting metre deep pot holes, but over juddery cobbles? Not forgetting that once compressed the headset will be fubar'd, and floppy sloppy.. Would have been more efficient putting the flex in the stem, like a, err flexstem from the eighties.
20mm of movement apparently.
From Cycling Weekly:
"The bikes comes with Future Shock, which is a spring cartridge that suspends the front end. It’s built into the fork and sits within the head tube.
That in itself is nothing unusual, and Future Shock is available on the consumer model of the Specialized Roubaix. For these, the spring comes in three different weights.
However, Specialized says that Boonen has been experimenting with how stiff he runs his front end, so chances are, what he raced at Flanders is a lot stiffer than what you or I could buy."
...and on the subject of discs, in the same article, it is (as has been mentioned) a compatibility decision:
Quoting Specialized themselves:
“In a time where bikes with disc brakes have not yet been adopted by all teams, there exists a discrepancy in mechanical assistance along the course.
“For these technical and strategic reasons, working closely with our teams and riders, we’ve decided to supply Tom Boonen (for whom Paris-Roubaix will be the last race of his career), and all of our riders competing at both Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, with Roubaix bikes that have traditional rim brakes.”
It is a Di2 gruppo.seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
I'd assume that the headset is kept in place by a separate mechanism, rather than by the stem/spacers. I know other headset set-ups recently have taken that approach - makes sense really as you can adjust or switch out the stem without having to worry about the headset.yourpaceormine wrote:
Okay not an engineer, but I would imagine that spring must be ever so strong (or whatever the technical term is) to keep headset in the right place. Too sloppy and headset would be compromised. So if the spring has to be dead strong, what advantage will it give? Might offer some bounce hitting metre deep pot holes, but over juddery cobbles? Not forgetting that once compressed the headset will be fubar'd, and floppy sloppy.. Would have been more efficient putting the flex in the stem, like a, err flexstem from the eighties.Pinno wrote:Aah but with a slight suspension sort of thing - a coiled spring in the steerer.
Interesting:0
